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WARNING TO SARA: POTENTIAL WALL OF TEXT. DO NOT LET YOUR HEAD EXPLODE. xd

I really wanted to post this on this debate, but I was afraid of getting absolutely fried to a crisp by probably every person on the thread, so I've put it here instead. My potential argument, for your potential enjoyment:

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I love how everyone here has let the emotional side of the debate get to them.

"Mehmehmeh I love predators! They're beautiful!" Good. Does nature care about beauty? No. And a stuffed wolf is not only perfectly groomed, but it doesn't do things like eat and crap.
"Mehmehmeh I love herbivores! They're beautiful!" Good. Does nature care about beauty? No. And I imagine elk is delicious, properly cooked. Plus, those horns allude to Amon, Egyptian god of male fertility, and look lovely with the elk head on my wall plaque.
"Mehmehmeh I'm gonna psychologically attack someone!" Good. Should the GD care about emotions on a topic such as this? No. Emotions can only detract from rationale or, properly used, intimidate or encourage. However, intimidation minus rationale (i. e., intimidation * emotion) still equals stupid lack of reason; be careful.
"Mehmehmeh someone psychologically attacked me!" Good. Do you have a spine? No. You need to grow one; it is requisite for standing on your own two feet, unless you have some wierd contraption, which is either medication (read: weakness) or cheating (read: weakness).
"Mehmehmeh someone's grammar sucks!" Good. Are they going to improve because you called them names? No. In fact, they'll probably be worse in their next post because they're angry at you. In addition, as long as the post is, in fact, legible (which, sadly, is not always the case), it really doesn't matter how legible it is, although it is true that you'll be taken more seriously if you have mastery over the language you're using. I am a proponent of good typing skillz.
"Mehmehmeh you're a conservative, tyrannical, animal-hating b*****d!" Did you consider my arguments correctly, or even read my post while in a stable state of mind? No. Please cease your egregious misuse of the intellect provided you, and read on.

Killing animals is not necessarily a bad thing. Look at the dominant species. We're human; we won! zOMGah! The big battle of species, and humans are on top (soon to be taken down by things we don't even consider to be alive, but that works out in the end). Obviously, we must exert some control on our capacity to dominate every other species on the planet save certain forms of bacteria and protists (probably some insects and such in there, too), but that's natural: if we make a mistake, in any case, nature will destroy enough of us until it's calmed down. And if we make a permanent mistake, we'll be depleted only until nature re-establishes order (i.e., im-permanent-inates the mistake). The Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium is an excellent thing.
Killing elk is fun (and manly and tasty), or so I've heard. It also exerts our own control on environmental factors such that humans benefit the most, as befits the dominant species. Killing wolves is fun (and manly and pretty), or so I've heard. It also exerts our own control over environmental factors about which we have apparently made a mistake. We instated wolves to Idaho; Idaho is uninstating them. They're doing this to an absurd degree, yes, but they've been curbed to a more sensible one. Once again, these actions are to benefit the human species. We want hunting! We want easy farming! Simple solution: hunt wolves! Then, we can hunt elk, and have easy livestock-ing! Hurrah! "zOMGah but that's so mean to wolves and elk!" Well, then clearly, they need to evolve bullet-proof hides. Damn, if I were a species getting shot at, I'd develop a bullet-proof hide. Humans did; we call them body armor. "But animals don't have opposable thumbs!" They ought to enlist monkeys. Symbiotic relationships happen; European continent-wide interdependency (plus the U. S. of A.) is a wonderful example.
By increasing hunting, we increase happiness. Happy people are productive people (sexually and otherwise)! Hate and love endorphins are equivalent! Therefore, good hunting equals good sex, which in turn equals lots of babies, the survival of the human species, the continuing quest for the meaning of life, etceteras. The human species continues to proliferate; we reach a level where the population either bursts into space or implodes due to close-quarters disease spread: t3h Madre Gaia 15 t3h win-z0rz! On the way, it's possible that other species died. That's a major problem, because we like those animals; there are sad books written with sentences like, "That pelt belonged to one of the last fifty polar bears before we finished off that population. Sexy, huh?" Animals are awesome (both alive and dead, actually, but living animals are <usually> more vibrant than dead ones, unless we get into a fantasy-style, undead, sentient beasts world, which isn't a part of this debate, though I imagine it could be after a fashion). Nauw heer'z thuh kweschun: how do we keep the animals from dying out, but hunt until we're happy and fertile and surviving anyway? zOMGah again! Government protection agencies against extinction of species! "Wait a minute! That's why this whole debate started in the first place! OMFG STFU GTFO!!! You're making too much sense!"
Case closed.

By the way, wolves are rockin' animals. Feral, symbols both of family and solitude, majestic; most predator mammals are, plus several predator birds. So are elk, in their own way; most deer-style animals besides caribou and moose are. Especially the ibex and gazelle, though the gazelle not so much.