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.
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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.
“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.
I think it’s a good idea wolves kill the animals we need to survive, there not killing every wolve they’re just lowering the population of them! If we don’t kill the wolves the wolves will continue to kill it’s as simple as that… A lot of Alaskans depend on wildlife to eat so what’s more important destructive animals “wolves” or survival?
why do they want to kill the wolves? is it because they want more caribou to live, so they could kill them too? There a lot of wolves that are endangered now and we can’t convince those aerial hunters to stop killing them. Nature should take care of itself, and those hunters don’t get anything out of their “recreational hunting”.
have u ever lived in alaska… i do i live in the bush area to. wolves are starting to over populate. The caribou are scarice around here and thats what a lot of us people survive on now and wolves are everywhere around town. they kill your dogs or any pet outside if you dont watch them. Just last night i was outside and i can hear them howling and yelping just right out behind my house. yea arieal hunting should be legalized but not just for hunting but predator control and the saftey of this comunity and the future generations. =because numerous people in my comunity have either seen one or hit one with there car because there that close to town. so learn some facts before you start saying its good or bad because urr not the ones dealing with the wolf problems
i agree wolf are natural hunters. so humankind what to destroy nature again.nature takes care pof their own, if the wolfs that are collerd abeing killed why. they are being studied. humakind has made may animals near extict , plus wolves asre still on the endagered species list. by the way wolves are my favorite animals to. i think they are gogous and cool. those aerial hunters should be arrested for murder of wolfs
why are prople killing tge collerd wolves in alaska is that illegal .the wolfs are still endagered.whats the use of killing 75 pecent of the wolfs .the wolf hunt for food and nthey kill other animals is nature
This is totally inhumane and sick. They don’t use their minds, that the problem. And then they blame the kids by telling us we don’t use our brains. Who know what KIDS ARE SMARTER THAN SARAH FRIKIN PAILIN. The world is smarted than her. The world would be better off if she went to Mercury and burned up.
Yeah, This is just wrong. I cannot afford a helicopter. How can I compete with this. The state should have a lottery drawing so everybody gets a chance at shooting one from a helicopter.
Seriously, why is this so hard to figure out? The world isn’t a frikken zoo. If you don’t like hunting or killing animals don’t eat. I didn’t say ‘don’t eat meat’ because every process that produces food kills some animals. So go throw red paint on a bunch of grandmothers or break into somebody’s store to make yourselves feel empowered. What fucking hypocrites.
Thats horrible. there people just like you and me they have lives and children too.
“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.
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.
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.
Typical animal activists lies. There are over 10,000 wolves in alaska today. Way to many. The headline says 75 % to be killed. Not true. In a single game area where wolves are very very overpopulated a larger percentage will be culled. The populations of moose and caribou are being decimated by out of control wolf herds. One wolf can kill 60 caribou a year.Hopefully area shooting and trapping will spread to yellowstone park where out of control wolf numbers are decimating the elk and moose there. Native alaskans depend on moose and caribou to feed themselves and their dogs. Fat liberals sitting on their couches in encino do not know the facts.
SPARING ONLY 100!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Humans are idiots…(im not human) im a native.
I DONT KILL WOLVES>>>>>>>>
Is that why humans have an ongoing war happening all over the world please justify the slaughter of these wolves so humans can have a larger number of caribou to kill for themselves! I do not agree!
Just because humans cannot figure out their issues in their (our) lifetime, does not mean that we should mess with the animal world, does it?????
All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.
To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.
He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight. He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces. He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks. He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared. He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
It is not just Alaska we have Idaho and Montana. Can’t wait till they allow hunting licenses for hunters and idiot governors. lol. Why don’t they just move back to the cities if they don’t appreciate the wilderness states in which they live. Pretty soon they will kill all the wildlife and bulldoze the wilderness to make their state a giant parking lot. Who are they to decide what are children and grandchildren see. Boycott these states. Palin will never see the White House. Stop stupid people.
Oh. and “Emperor Bob”.
You’re an idiot.
“Prudent game management requires predator control to preserve healthy game and prey.” How the F**K do you think the food chain survived before humans started getting overinvolved? WE are the ones F**king it up, not the wolves. They’ve lived in healthy balance with their prey for years and years. Hunters like Palin are throwing it out of whack.
“Live in fear of wolves”? Please.
“STFU about something you know nothing about”- and I’m assuming you’re the expert, CLEARLY.
I won’t even justify your senseless and misguided commentary with a reply of any substance. That’s just a little taste of how ridiculous you sound.
sorry the autocorrect thing keeps making Palin “plain”
How absolutely tragic. This aerial hunting is beyond the definition of cruel and inhumane. How very, very sad and unnecessary.
Humans are not the only species to inhabit this planet.
Enough killing. Enough senseless bloodshed.
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.
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.
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.)