Once hunted remorselessly, the wolf is now a protected species, and its return has provoked unease across Europe, from Finland to France.

In Sweden, the wolf population is still relatively small — about 415, according to the government, which compensates farmers for losses from wolf attacks and subsidizes protective fencing. But farmers argue that the compensation does not cover their full costs or make up for the anxiety and disruption to their lives. Hunters, meanwhile, say that wolves are killing the same kinds of animals that they like to pursue, harming hunting traditions while scaring people who live in the countryside.

The issue is important enough to have featured in a TV debate among Swedish leadership contenders before last year’s elections. When Sweden went ahead this year with its most recent cull, of 44 wolves, it received the latest in a series of warning letters from the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union.

European officials say their job is to enforce laws that guarantee the survival of rare species — rules to which Sweden, like other countries, signed up.

They criticize the way Sweden has conducted recent, annual, wolf hunts. They say it has not satisfactorily considered alternatives and that it has failed to show that its culls do not pose a threat to the wolf population’s long-term survival.