“...Having said that I do believe ranchers should be compensated for predator kills.”
Here in Montana there is a fund for just this very thing. It had to be put in place in order for the wolf to be reintroduced BACK into Montana, politically.
They didn’t “reintroduce” wolves. There are several different species of wolves. The species they inserted into Montana were Canadian Gray wolves which are larger than the species that was there.
BTW - what they did was illegal. But the Feds in concert with environmentalist wackos got away with it.
https://www.huntingfishing.com/index.php/canadian-wolves-got-yellowstone/