"By focusing on the particular case of management of the wolf population, this article seeks to understand empirically the conditions of the degree of threat when the relationship with the animal is ambivalent. It shows that the implementation of the operations of destruction of wolves - a central device in the management of this species in France - implies and generates the articulation of two modes of existence of these animals. On the one hand, threatening wolves livestock eaters are apprehended through a local and detailed metrology oriented towards the treatment of specific cases; on the other hand, threatened wolves are considered via a dynamic metrology, at the national level, and associated with the management of a population."