Replace abundance of wolves with....

[Klobberthon]

*to prevent me from having to keep saying 'imo', the following is ALL my opinion and nothing should be taken as fact (obviously)*

          The game's difficulty is too reliant on wolves.  Even on Interloper the REAL danger, in most cases,  is wolves.  All other struggles tend to lead the survivor to make rash                  decisions which lead to... death by wolf. 

Now I love this game with a passion, but after 300 hours I am starting to get 'wolf fatigue' far sooner than I am getting tired of the game world or the survival mechanics.  There are still so many areas I'm not familiar with.  So many ideas I have for different self-imposed survival scenarios.  Fun to be had with a gun or a bow (I STILL haven't bagged a moose ).

          I could play pilgrim or voyager: too easy

          I could play with custom settings to reduce wolves: this fix becomes too easy and I wish to have my record stats logged.

I want the game to remain difficult... just in different ways.  What I would LOVE to see is a greater variety of threats, and consequently a greater variety of counter measures to go along with them.  The variety would allow a VAST reduction in wolf numbers.  I think wolves should be as rare as bears.  Or even MORE rare.  It would be far more interesting if the survivor rarely encountered a wolf pack, but when they did, they were hunted more relentlessly.  As it is, wolves mostly serve as 'guards' to particular areas.  It gets old.

Many, if not all of the list below has been suggested before.  I do not wish to take credit, but simply to state the argument in a specific way (towards the goal of reducing wolf numbers and impact).  Suggestions for 'variety of threats' follow:

-Deep Snow:  Require snowshoes (crafted or found?) to safely traverse this terrain.   Allow for movement through deep snow regardless, but at great cost of movement and becoming wet (The scrub bush and waterfall mechanics in HRV are a great start!).  Suggestion thread by @Concerned Survivor with a great example by @Boston123  

-Cougars & Grizzly Bears: Give different behaviors to different bear species (as it stands, bears are only really dangerous when you attempt to hunt them). Could be more interesting.  Question posed by @Tomerarenai in Milton Mailbox.

-Malnutrition or Disease: I know what mechanics we currently have.  They are weak threats that are easy to manage, even on Interloper.  An increase in difficultly with regard to diet might alleviate some of the burden wolves bear (no pun intended )  in terms of creating difficulty and struggle.

-RNG: Counter-play here is the key.  We already have sprain injuries.  They are correctly affected by the player's movement choices, gear(?), terrain, and weight.  There are other interesting RNG dangers such as falling limbs, deep snow drifts, slick ice, etc that could be implemented with visual/audio counter-play.  The gist would be: if a survivor is paying attention, they can avoid the danger, but if they are not they might fall victim to one of these events.  This would serve a very similar purpose as 'guard wolves' but would add interest and variety.

-Passing out: A more interesting take on exhaustion.  Suggested by @Sopinien 

**Please forgive me if you had an idea that I listed here and I failed to mention your post.  I gave it about 40% effort since it is not a thesis, )** 

Cheers!