27. Wolves

Wolves have had a terrible reputation for a long time. They nearly went extinct in the US, because they were hunted and killed just for the purpose of getting rid of them. While they can be harmful to livestock, they don’t kill very many people per year. Only a couple deaths a year are from wolf attacks, some of which are from rabid wolves.

In contrast, several hundred wolves are killed by humans each year in the US. Sometimes they’re killed because they ate someone’s livestock, but this can actually increase the amount of livestock eaten next year. Wolves are very social animals, so killing them disrupts their pack structure and can lead to more wolves eating livestock than their normal prey.