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.
wtf? so many intense arguments and people hating people they have never met. How about we all keep our own seperate opinions to ourselves instead of acting like children and arguing for no reason? everyone arguing about it on an online website is not going to solve anything. why is it that i am probably the youngest person to post a comment on here but i am the only one that sees how absolutely pointless it is to be arguing like you are?
thats how you animal right people roll you take a statistic and bend it to fit your needs so all these tree huggers send you money. These areas have populations of moose that are being desimated by wolves. Many people in alaska depend on moose to survive as they don’t have the income, or in bush areas there are no stores. wolves kill moose and leave them sometimes never eating them.people need moose to survive so i say cut down the wolves numbers.
I am also completely weary of testosterone insecure yahoos hiding behind the conservation mantle to justify their brutality and prop up their egos.
I live in the southwest which should be home to the small species of Mexican wolf. But there are only about 50 of these animals in the wild over an area of millions of acres in the Gila region of AZ and NM. Even with such a tiny population, you should hear people screech about how they’re killing all the elk and cattle. Its preposterous and tragic. The sad truth is that the number of wolves these morons would like to have is zero. An earlier post mentioned to help by donating to the NRDC. I second that and add Defenders of Wildlife to that list.
“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.”
Um writer, read what you just wrote again. “population estimates are smaller than in reality”, I think thats the exact opposite of what you are trying to say. You are saying that the reality is in fact probably LARGER than the estimates. Should I believe anything in this article? In any case this is completely retarded. Obviously, Alaska is run by some sub-human culture.
Hey its a good idea. after all sportsman finance over 75% of wildlife habitat managment. tree huggers are well under 10%. so untill you shallow minded fools decide to put your money where your mouth is maybe you should shut up!!
We need to trap those wolves ans repopulate the states with them. Thousands could be shipped here. Most people have never heard the beautiful howl of the wolf.
I remember when I first heard Palin was shooting wolves from airplanes. I thought “What a gutless coward”. I live in California, and we no longer have the Grizzly Bear, the animal that is on our STATE flag! Leave the wolves alone! The wolves HELP the Caribo and deer populations, as they ALWAYS take down the older or sicker animals. ARE the hunters going to do that? No, they will take ones in the PRIME of life, thus making the herd less strong.
Maybe Palin should have an airplane chase her…see how she likes it…dumb broad.
very sick and unreasonable way of dealing with a situation! and I live in U.S.A.!!!! I wanna move to Canada!!!!! Killing wolves to get caribou, idiots, it’s not like you kill a wolf and a caribou just comes falling right out of the sky! seriously, mindless! also I’m using my rights so no arresting.
I can’t really make a difference but someday the world will lose all wildlife and humans will probably live on fake processed food if this keeps happening.
Wolves are very beautiful creatures and they have rights like any other animal! Humans came from apes (i think) so we were probably were mindless to begin with! I guess those hunters still don’t have a mind to understand logic!!! there is no logic in the whole killing animals to kill more animals, sure surviving is OK and wolves kill prey and don’t eat all of it but we stuff our faces rather than eat enough to get through the day, fat asses!
Aerial hunting is cruel. I undersand there needs to be a population control but there are many ways to work with the population besides killing them. It would be nice if we could go about things scientifically and peacefully, instead of being so uncaring and wasteful.