E.g. who would win, a pack of wolves or a town full of zombies and why?
It depends.
Are zombies toxic to wolves?
If yes, I would expect their sense of smell plus intelligence would lead them to avoid them quite easily.
If no, then the wolves would be a bigger threat to Z’s. That is if they even bother with them.
The other thought. Why would the wolves be interested in zombies as food? If the majority of humans are gone, then so is human civilization’s impact on the biosphere.
Within a year or so, the wolves would have so much extra natural food that the Zs would just be avoided.
A big factor will be if the Zombie infection can jump species and use zoonotic reservoir.
IFF Zombies are human only, then nature and time will attrit them sufficiently in rural areas, even if zombie eat animals, they don’t have the ability to repopulate without base humans (assumption)… Nature will simply attenuate them.
If the infection is zoonotic… then the rural areas may be “safer” from zombie concentrations, but pose a risk for survivor groups getting infected from interactions with wildlife. i.e. can’t let your guard down
I doubt wild animals would treat zombies much differently from humans, meaning they would likely avoid zombies at all cost. Would be plenty of food going around now with the majority of humans gone, so no need to make such desperate attempts as to try and attack a zombie or a survivor for that matter. Have to note though, that in the past wolfs especially have done ther fair share of human-hunting aswell.