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.
Is being human killing wolves? Just what is the definition of human beings? Are we so threatened by a beautiful animal concerning over populating, we don’t do that do we.
You are all ignorant fools.
If left unchecked, the wolf population would grow until they depleted the food supply (Moose and Caribou). Once they over kill the resource, they would begin to die off, allowing the Moose and Caribou population increase again over time. Prudent game management requires predator control to preserve healthy game and prey.
Let’s see any of you idiots live in Bush Alaska and have to compete with Bears and Wolves for your food. Let’s see you live in fear that Wolves will come after you, your children, or your pets.
I dislike Palin as much as anyone, but this is one thing she has got right. You all should just STFU about something you know NOTHING about.
Sarah Palin makes McCain look like Obama. What her administration has done to the Alaskan environment and its animal inhabitants is criminal.
We need to do something about this.
“Let’s see any of you idiots live in Bush Alaska and have to compete with Bears and Wolves for your food. Let’s see you live in fear that Wolves will come after you, your children, or your pets.”
See that attitude is just sad. And pretty ignorant, because there are lots of people living in the Alaskan wild - people that know what they are doing, that respect and understand the wildlife. It’s All these yahoo weekend warrior wannabees, move up to the last great wilderness, bringing their suburban American dream to the Yukon, and then proceed to decide it’s too wild, they are afraid of wolves, when they simply don’t know what they are doing and shouldn’t be out there in the first place.
Take the people out in Colorado - they’ve moved out into the mountains to be one with nature, but they don’t like the coyotes on their manicured lawns.
In Wisconsin, they are actually bring back wolves because of deer overpopulation is causing issues where the suburbanites living in the wild don’t like the deer eating their rose bushes. And then there is the issue of DWD, such that, on top of the regular hunts, the DNR has to cull additional deer.
So the wolves are an important part of the ecosystem, just like sharks. Scary, but the imbalance is the hunters, not the wolves, and Alaskans, unfortunately, may discover that too late.
If they want more Elk, stop shooting ‘em. Sounds like greed plain and simple.
Wolf Counter - you are a moron and should take your own advice on research, especially when considering your “source” is such a highly regarded ecological survey as wikipedia! What’s clear is you’re an asshole.
this is a brutal way of killing in the name of hunting. you talk of the yukon area. does that mean they’re killing wolves from yukon canada too?
This is one site I certainly will not bother to stop at again - silly garbage written with equally silly comments.
You know, with blogging left as one of the few forms of information sharing thriving in this media environment, which seems to prefer subjectivity and fact manipulation to real journalism, i would really hope that we could put aside our emotional charge and have an amicable discourse. I mean really, who starts their contribution to a conversation with “You are all ignorant fools?” Passion is the most limited resource left, mostly due to its misplacement; let’s not further waste it.
With that said, this is clearly a serious issue and a step backwards in environmental conservation. After tens of thousands of wolves were slaughtered in New York State in the early 20th century, the deer population became far too great and threatened mass deer starvation, causing slaughter to once again become the “only humane option.” I for one am tired of hunting being disguised as environmental protection (although in some cases i may concede it is legitimate to make this claim.)
Honestly, I don’t even know what I’m doing right now, I’m overall just as uninformed and pathetically lazy as the next guy. If anyone has a potential solution to the problem, I’d be glad to hear it. For the mean time, it’s no use for me to continue complaining about a problem that I’m too much of a lazy bastard to actively put effort into solving (although it doesn’t seem like i would have to faculty to do so anyways.)
Palin, and her wildlife “management” team want to eliminate all but 100 wolves so as to make way (hopefully) for a 100,000 heard of caribou; which btw havn’t existed since the turn of the last century. Looks like the in charge people of Alaska should take a few more management courses, or at least take arithmetic 101 over again.
First off I love the wolves, they are my favorite animal, and for sara palin to order something like this, is FUCKING stupid!! I think that she needs to get off her high horse, and look at what the hell she is doing to these beautiful animals. This has to stop now before there won’t be any wolves left to save.