We don't fear the return of wolves to New England. In fact, we would welcome them back more for our good than theirs. Their wild howling would be tonic for human souls scarred by strip development, Wal-Mart and the curse of the clock.

Last week, Judge F. Garvin Murtha of the U.S. District Court in Vermont issued a ruling that should kill Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton's scheme to remove the timber wolf from the endangered species list in New England.

The Eastern gray wolf population is now represented by Quebec wolves that cross the border. Norton wanted to lump these wolves in with the packs that have reclaimed parts of northern Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan after a decade-long reintroduction program.

Her decision, had it gone into effect, would have been a death sentence for the rare Canadian wolves that stray into New England and for any plans to reintroduce timber wolves to their native turf.

There are only two things we fear in the New Hampshire woods, and wolves would not be the third. The two are yellow jackets and people.

That doesn't mean there's nothing out there that can do humans harm under the right - or wrong - circumstances. We practically stepped on a skunk in the dark and received the full spray, an experience not to be repeated. And in a similarly agonizing moment, we got nine stings from a hive of yellow jackets, or "ground bees," as some people call them. The pain left us with the habit of freezing to scan the ground whenever we catch the rocketing launch of a little object from ground to sky.

We once found ourselves between a cow moose and calf and an enormous bull that moved past us like a UPS truck. We put it in reverse. Walking into a stiff wind in dense cover, we got too close to a bear and felt, before retreat, a reflexive shudder. And one summer day, we stood on a rocky ledge literally surrounded by timber rattlers.

Each meeting left us more alive -and happy to know that they were, too.

We realize not everyone feels that way. Wolves, demonized in folklore for millennia, trigger a visceral fear in some people. Talk of their return makes farmers and ranchers nervous and hunters greedy about having to share the deer herd. Wolves are smart, tough, 100-pound predators which do, at times, prey on livestock. But mostly they eat deer, moose, beaver and other animals. There has not been a documented wolf attack on a human in more than a century. They know well how dangerous we are.

The ancient Greeks put a price on the predator's head, and the first wolf bounty in America was authorized in 1630. But today, under the Endangered Species Act, the unauthorized killing of a wolf can result in a prison term and a fine of up to $100,000.

Wolves may in time return naturally to lands they roamed before farmers exterminated them more than a century ago. That land is once again the Great North Woods, and many biologists believe it could support a small wolf population But wolves won't survive if they lose protection.

We favor giving nature a hand through a reintroduction program like those that succeeded in Yellowstone National Park and the Upper Midwest. That means repealing the panicky law the Legislature passed in 2003 banning any such effort. It also means convincing deer and moose hunters that they and wolves can coexist.

When farms covered the land, wolves fled or were killed, but the trees have returned and so should the wolf. Henry David Thoreau, who once canoed through our Concord, wrote: "In wilderness is the preservation of the world."

Few things are as wild as a wolf. Returning them to New Hampshire won't save the world, but it will help remind human beings of their place in it.