Alaska to Kill Over 75% of Wolf Population in New Aerial Hunt
Alaska abruptly resumed shooting wolves from helicopters this weekend in hopes that shooting the wolves will increase the population of caribou for hunters to kill. The state plans to kill up to 328 wolves, sparing under 100 in the Yukon area.
Not everyone in Alaska is gung-ho about the plan. The National Park Service has been collaring wolves for a two-decade-long study tracking predator-prey relationships, and now many of those wolves are bound to turn up dead.
>>UPDATE: Defenders of Wildlife has taken legal action to stop the hunt.
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“They [the state] have a mandate to provide for maximum sustained yield. They want to provide more moose and caribou for people to harvest,” said Greg Dudgeon of the park service. “Our mandate is to manage and provide for healthy populations of wildlife. So we don’t place the value of a wolf over a caribou, or a caribou over a moose.”
The state hopes to increase the caribou population from 40,000 to 100,000. Dudgeon said the goal is outrageous because the animals haven’t been that populous since the early 20th century.
Defenders of Wildlife, a wildlife conservation group that has vocally opposed aerial hunts, said they worry that the wolf population estimates are smaller than in reality, meaning it’s possible that only a couple dozen wolves could survive the cull.
“The Palin administration and the Board of Game are acting with complete disregard for scientific wildlife management,” said Wade Willis, Defenders of Wildlife’s Alaska representative. “It is unprecedented for such a wholesale slaughter to take place, especially when it is based on such shoddy science and when it includes wolves that have been collared by the National Park Service for scientific study.”
The wolf hunt rings similar to the sea lion cull currently underway in Washington and Oregon. The sea lions are being trapped and killed because they eat a small portion of endangered salmon and instead of cutting the commercial fishing salmon quota, the states decided to kill sea lions for the second year in a row.
[Via LA Times] Photo Credit: dobak on Flickr under Creative Commons license.
this is sick
no wonder everyone thinks america are mindless fucks with guns
This is cruel and utterly absurd idea, imposed upon the world by the swinish Palin administration, I’ll bet. Few animals are more beautiful creatures than wolves. It’s just an awful cosmic joke that Alaska is run by Alaskans. If they’re not pumping oil into the bay, they’re electing religious robots and shooting whatever creatures make them a profit.
It’s call “raping the land.”
This is outrageous!!! Im sorry but whoever made that decision to KILL WOLVES so they can increase prey population so people can KILL THOSE is ridiculously stupid!! Who the hell gave them the right to mess with nature!?!?
That’s absolutely terrible! Damn the hunters and their games.
Yo man, you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. I don’t know where you got that 428 number from, but according to Wikipedia, there are 7500 to 11000 wild wolves:
(http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/11/05/alaska.wolves.reut/index.html)
According to cnn.com, there are 15000:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackenzie_Valley_Wolf
That would reduce the percentage killed from 75 to well below 2. Seriously, man, at least do a tiny, tiny bit of research before writing your posts.
What else do you expect from a state whose people would elect Sarah Palin to run the place? “Let’s kill a load of animals so humans can come in and kill a load of other animals.” Pathetic.
So kill animals to provide more animals to kill?
That’s just cruel and sickening.
Especially hurting such a beautiful species.
Sarah Palin is a sick, sick person.
The only white house she’s qualified to occupy is an igloo.
Fuck Alaska.
“Wolf Counter”
It clearly says in the first paragraph that these are the wolves in the Yukon area, not the whole state or country. Sorry if that was misleading, but they are indeed killing off 75% of this particular population of wolves. Obviously there are more than 400 wolves in the state/country/world.
-Alex
So sad we humans are supposed to be human, just what is the definition of being human?