The only way to effectively reduce wolf numbers is to use 10/80. Strichnine and cyanide will work, but they learn to smell the stuff, apparently.

Here, back in the 50's, an open, extensive program was hatched to poison off the entire wolf population - I mean, this was cruel and crudely done- everyone was poisoning carcasses. It got to the point that the wolves only ate what they immediatly killed and stopped scavenging entirely. They'd not cross any human's path and even jumped entirely over sled and snowmobile tracks, stayed in deep woods, off fields and lakes, which are normal highways for them. We found it was entirely impossible to eliminate the wolf - as you can not see - those wolves you have are from here, are huge animals and very smart. It's usually only the dumb ones that will come to calls and they're still pretty cagy when doing so.

Tough animal to reduce the numbers of - to make a difference, that is. After the poisoning program, it only took 20 years for them to reach overpopulation again.
for years now, we've had a limit of 3 per year per licenced hunter, but now, they've opened it up no bag limit. Still, very few are shot. My buddy is going to get a Fox Pro and we'll try that. It will get to the point where you don't even care if you wound them, just get a bullet into them and let the others kill them.
When they can subsist on rancher's cattle, the natural peeks and valleys of wolf populations, tied to ungulate populations ceases to exist. When they reach the populated conditon where they'd be starving and dying off in the bush, the ungulates are already almost extinct. But - with the ranchers to provide cattle and horses for food, they'll remain high in numbers.
The Anderson ranch actually had wolves coming into the pens around the barn beside the house at night after the deer and moose were cleaned off Grouse mountain, behind the ranch. Nasty situation with lots of wolves but they were still very difficult to shoot with a rifle.