Farmer Grenn's been ranting lately in town about some wild animals or something making off with his crops (or sheep, or chickens, or pigs, or whatever), but nobody much cares to help him because he's a mean-spirited old jerk and loves to be brutally honest with his jack-@$$ opinions. Few doubt that the old farmer's telling the truth about this, given his brutal honesty about even his own rudeness, they just don't care to make the jerk's day. Grenn will offer anyone "good money if they'll get rid of the !&^@&#$%* pests", showing a beaten-up old platinum coin he's got as proof (watch out though, the old man wears a wicked skinning knife at his belt and hasn't shown any aversion to cuttin' a man what tries to get so much as a shaved copper from him).
Old man Grenn's got a small farm at the outskirts of town and not too far from the woods, but his fence is rather small and has seen better days, given the old man's inability to repair it what with his bad back and gettin' the shakes in his hands anytime he tries working long with 'em. Definite signs of clawmarks on one of the worse parts of the fence, something man-sized or so by any woodsman's judging. The old man can't make his aging body stay awake long at night, and that's usually when the culprit(s) strike(s), usually once or twice a week. Not that he could do much anyway, not being skilled with anything like crossbows or whatnot, just his knife.
The culprits are a starving band of wolves, not from around here, that look pretty ragged and like they've fought other wolves recently. A ranger or druid may surmise, with some investigating and knowledge about the local habitat and such, that the wolves were driven out of their normal territory by similar or stronger predators (maybe something to use for a later adventure hook, like signs of an owlbear, or worgs, or displacer beasts, or dire wolverines). Or perhaps something else brought the wolves here, but it certainly didn't give them much chance to eat or hunt along the way. The wolves are all young males, except for the older alpha male, and it seems to anyone familiar with wolves that this pack is suspiciously missing its females and whelps, possible signs that the weakest or slowest were slain before these were driven away, or that some stronger pack took the females and whelps when driving off the pack's males. In any case, the alpha male of this pack is the only one that doesn't look much starved; the younger wolves are noticeably bareboned and this hunger has made them particularly vicious, though also more inclined to find easy meals.
The wolves may be driven off through a ranger's or druid's skill with animals, or their spells with them. If fed raw meat, they're unlikely to attack, but otherwise they may try defending whatever livestock they've already slain and begun eating. The alpha male looks like a fine example of its species, though a bit underfed, and may make a suitable animal companion if fed first.
It's not such a drastic difference.
