The fencing of an entire estates in a bid to contain wolves requires licensing under the Zoo Licensing Act 1981. It is illegal to keep predators and prey in the same enclosure, so Mr Lister would need to keep part of Alladale open so that he could keep some deer, shoot them and then throw them over the fence to feed the wolves.
He already has licences for moose and wild boar, but they are kept in enclosures and neither have been particularly successful at that scale.
The impact of European wolves on deer management in Sweden is the most closely applicable model to Scotland, some of the impacts have been unexpected, especially predation on domestic stock and surprisingly, dogs.
there is a rewilding movement promoting some of these species re-establishment programmes here in the Highlands, but there will be other efforts before the wolf, beavers are being trialled in Knapdale and the Lynx is being pushed hard in some quarters.
The Economist article is so typical of the press in that it has some grains of truth in it, but the confection created by journalistic licence distorts the reality so much that it becomes unrecognisable.