Shooting of wolf pups on Alaska Peninsula criticized
Originally published Monday, August 11, 2008 at 10:52 a.m.
Updated Monday, August 11, 2008 at 3:13 p.m.
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Stumble It!JUNEAU — Alaska state biologists didn’t disclose that 14 wolf pups were killed in their dens, and critics are claiming a cover-up ahead of a voter initiative to curtail the state’s predator control program.
Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologists shot the pups in early June instead of leaving them to die slowly, and didn’t initially inform the Alaska Board of Game or ever tell the public.
Gordon Haber, a frequent critic of the state’s wolf control program, claims the shootings were illegal because a state law prohibits the killing of wolf young in their dens.
The board authorized biologists in March to kill wolves if necessary on the southern Alaska Peninsula to protect the caribou herd considered to be in trouble.
Biologists shot 14 wolves from a helicopter. On the ground, they discovered and killed the pups, which were orphaned by the helicopter shooting.
Officials did not mention wolf pups to the Board of Game before the shooting, and afterward did not publicly disclose that they’d killed pups.
Instead, the department issued a press release stating: “Wolves from three packs were shot from a helicopter by Alaska Department of Fish and Game staff.”
The pup shootings came to light after Haber, an independent wolf researcher, questioned one of the biologists about whether lactating females had been shot, and whether there were pups.
“These guys knew how controversial and inflammatory that would be, and that’s why they never said anything about it,” Haber said.
Doug Larsen, the wildlife division director, said the Board of Game order allows “all wolves” to be taken from a specific area includes pups.
“We knew going in, as most everyone knows, springtime is a time when you’re going to have reproduction. The Board of Game recognized that,” Larsen said.
Board member Bob Bell supports the wolf control program but now wishes the biologists had brought up pups.
“We’re having enough trouble with this predator control thing in terms of P.R.,” he said. “Certainly if we had anticipated they would have had a denning situation, we would have wanted to know that.”
Joel Bennett is a co-sponsor of an Aug. 26 ballot initiative that would allow the shooting of wolves and bears only in a biological emergency. He has filed a request for all state records relating the June shootings.
Larsen said pulling all the records together would take until Aug. 19.
That’s only a week before Alaska voters decide whether to change the state’s predator control program so that only Fish and Game biologists would be able to shoot wolves. Even then, it can only be in the event of a biological emergency.
Nick Jans, who with Bennett wrote the ballot initiative, criticized the state for the timing, the denning and the state’s failure to tell the public, which he called a “cover-up.”
“They broke a state regulation, and they set themselves up to do it,” he said.
Their organization, Alaskans for Wildlife, did not oppose this year’s wolf control. State biologists were doing the killing, and that was what the organization wanted.
But they said this emphasizes the importance of passing the initiative to limit wolf control to state employees, even though they’re the ones who killed the pups.
“If this is predator control practiced at its best, what do you think is going on with the private guys?” Jans said.
Community Discussion
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So it's better to let the pups starve? That's more 'humane'? That's ridiculous.
Also, why doesn't anyone ever post how many Caribou survived after the culling of the wolves? They went from a 1% survival rate of calves to a 63% survival rate.
And don't forget, when wolves kill caribou, they rip their flesh from their still living bodies. It's not all fun and games in the wild.
Look back at the old announcements at http://www.newsminer.com/news/2008/jul/0... for more details on the success this had.
Also, for those that keep saying "They should have adopted them out, or sent them to zoos elsewhere...", they tried. See the story at http://news.aol.com/story/_a/wolf-pups-k...
No one else wanted them or was willing to take them.
Glad that was successful. I am not at all shocked nor offended at the killing of wolf pups as Haber put it.
that's got to be a tough job. i don't know if i could shoot wolf pups in a den. glad someone can do it. but then, i didn't know if i could kill crabs when i first got that seafood processing job. after doing the first few, i never gave it another thought.
Orphaned from helicopter shooting? Helicopters? We are using helicopters to shoot wolves? And here I thought heating oil at around $4.40/gallon made it expensive. Apparently no expense is too great for Fish and Game.
Haber is "independent"??? Sure - if you have an extremely loose interpretation of the word. Haber is bought and paid for by animal rights groups. How is that "independent"?
Ha, batman - just think of how much it will cost us if the animal rights groups win and predator control can ONLY be done by state biologists??
as much as I do not enjoy the 'thought' of pups being killed along with adults, sometimes in order to make things 'right' in respects to control you have to do the ugly to finish the job. Read the Old Testament if you will....it was part of the order of things to keep things on the up and up. Same follows suit in this world on this earth to keep things in order for the right reasons.
to take adults and leave pups to starve is not satisfactory either.
to take adults wolves in the winter and leave half grown pups to survive without the tutelage of their mentors they are still at a huge risk of not making it due to inexperience in surviving. So no matter what time of year it is there is never a GOOD time to do an ugly job.
I am glad there are others that are willing to do something I could not do. I could put down an adult wolf easier than I could a wolf pup.
for that same reason I do not wish to shoot a young button bull moose during bull season.
Bottom line is that the killing of these pups was illegal ... period. The state broke its own law in doing so. It just goes to show how poorly planned these programs are, and how poorly prepared the biologists were in not recognizing that the timing of the control program would be around denning season.
Enough with the wildlife farming already. Leave the damn wolves alone.
I know it's a hard subject.
Predators will feed and multiply as long as their is a food source. Their numbers wont thin out until the food supply thins or is removed.
When it is a food supply that man is in competition for, then men take measures to insure their supply.
Personally, in this particular instance, the caribou population on an island, I think the true solution, is herd the caribou and re-domesticate them. Allocate 2 or 3 dozen per rancher with agreements that the ranchers act to increase caribou populations by set standards, and they return a certain amount back to the state every so many years, for the state to redistribute or release into the wild.
Leave it to the ranchers to protect the herds.
Gordon Haber is a nutjob. Quit giving him press. It only leads some people, especially those outside Alaska, to believe that he is credible. Although it doesn't sound pretty, killing those pups was the HUMANE thing to do...
Haber needs to get a life and a real job- stick his backside in the woods-garrunteed that he will kill an animal to stay alive,
troutguy-i could not have said it better-"nutjob"
I have to wonder why they bothered shooting 4-5 week-old pups? Why not just bludgeon the little buggers and call it a day? Seems like a waste of ammunition to me.
Why is it legal to put a moose or caribou out of it's misery went hit by a vehicle. The same reg's say you are not allowed to kill either one out season?
kill all the wolves or send them to New Jersey!!
That is soo sad, You would have to be heartless to shoot innocent lil wolf pups
Life isn't fair. Just ask the 40,000,000+ human babies that weren't given a chance to live. Maybe they could tell us whether shooting the wolf pups was right or wrong - T. Cox
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