News-Miner Editorial
Caribou in trouble
Consider Peninsula wolf control plan against fall ballot initiative
Published Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Digg
delicious
Facebook
Mixx
Reddit
Stumble It!The Southern Alaska Peninsula Caribou Herd has declined to the point that all hunting, including limited subsistence harvest, has been stopped.
Without doubt, this herd is at a point where managers can not biologically justify hunter harvest of even a few animals to help feed a remote village. It has dropped from about 4,000 animals in 2002 to roughly 600 this year. State biologists report a calf survival rate of about one per 100 cows. They spotted only four surviving calves in the herd last fall.
Also without doubt is that state law calls upon our game management agency and state board to do something about this. A closed subsistence hunting season clearly is not consistent with a constitutional mandate for “sustained yield.”
What is interesting is that this scenario arises in a year when voters are to consider a ballot measure that would prohibit aerial wolf control except in a “biological emergency” — a term that is not clearly defined.
Yet some may argue that the situation on the Peninsula is not a biological emergency. Alaskans should take note of these objections when considering what they will vote upon. It is not just about aerial shooting, it limits when — and if — the state can do this at all.
In this instance, the board chose to allow state biologists to shoot wolves from helicopters in an attempt to give the caribou calves a break from predators. Given the terrain, local weather and lack of snow cover, this is the only practical method in the area. Biologists will have helicopters in the area early in the spring to carry out other tasks, so this helps save costs. Fixed-wing aircraft will be in use surveying the herd.
While the department hasn’t set specific timing, this scenario sets up a possibility for the department to specifically target wolves near areas where calves are about to be born. The wolves can be spotted by pilots of fixed-wing aircraft, and helicopters can be efficiently directed.
With declines of several Southwest caribou populations in recent years, the animals have been studied well.
Biologists report the southern herd cows are healthy, and pregnancy and birth rates indicate nutrition and disease are not a problem. What happens is that most calves are killed by predators before they gain enough strength to elude them.
The local wolf population has recovered from a rabies outbreak in the late 1990s and enjoys plentiful food sources in this area, including marine mammals and salmon. Caribou calves, it appears, are a seasonal opportunity for a wolf population that can continue to grow regardless of the availability of caribou.
It seems possible the southern herd could disappear under that scenario — but that is open to debate. What is certain is that without intervention the herd would remain quite small and local villagers would have to do without caribou meat for years to come.
The state Board of Game made the right choice here. What Alaskans should consider is whether this seems a reasonable move to them and if “biological emergency” rules are the right move for our future.
Community Discussion
Newsminer.com doesn't necessarily condone the comments here, nor does it review every post. Read our full user's agreement.
You are absolutely right!! The board has done the right thing and we should all applaud them. Thank you for this timely article.
Interesting cobbling-together of innuendo and assumption presented as fact. Take the statement, "Yet some may argue that the situation on the Peninsula is not a biological emergency." To date, I have not seen any organization or representative of any come out against this measure. The News-Miner, though, in obedience to the Alaska Outdoors Council, is quite willing to bring up this bogeyman to make it seem as though it has happened. What has been said, and by one group only so far, is they want to look at the data before making any statements.
Boldly, inaccurately, though, the News-Miner marches on saying, "These objections..." without citing any. How peculiar. Manufacturing the news where there isn't any. How journalistically desperate can one paper become?
Note, too, that of the groups opposed to aerial hunting, all have always said if there is a biological emergency that is scientifically demonstrable they would not oppose such actions if carried out by F&G personnel. Again, contrary to the innuendo of this editorial, no such objections have been made.
So what we have here is the News-Miner trying its best to create an atmosphere that does not exist but which will put aerial hunting, it hopes, in a better light (as if that's possible).
The last time my family got a caribou it was infested with tape worm. I imagine the wolves will eventually die out from consuming the caribou. Thus, nature takes its course? No idea, but I am not one for eating caribou anymore.
For those wolf lovers out there, consider this fact. On average an adult wolf will kill 25 large game animals per year.
Whatever Dobieman chooses to believe is fine but to pass it off as gospel is just adding more innuendo to the soup.
As one who has lived on the Peninsula and also got a crash course from ADF&G's pre-eminent biologist Kimberly Beckmen during a sea lion research trip this past November, I suggest you have the intellectual courage to use facts instead of the pre-conceived emotional drivel that your side lives in.
The Fish and Wildlife Service has probably signed off on this so you have the Feds acknowledging the reality of the extinction of this herd.
I am not a member of AOC but am a 57 year old 3rd generation Alaskan who has lived with the wilderness of this state for my whole life.
I also sat on the Governor's ADF&G transition team and we were unanimously for predator control as needed.
It is not hunting, it is extinguishing a fire as necessary.
In ref to Copper River Red's comments you will note there is no data listed for any other factors besides predation. There is no data showing human hunting reports, no data on forage quality provided, nothing that gives any input beyond a statement that the herd is declining and they feel predation is to blame. That sort of lack of information is not right and is certainly not scientific. And therein lies the problem. There are so many folks, as you can see from the comments herein, that will take any opportunity to decimate the natural predator population that this has to be approached with fact and not just proclamation. At present we have a Board of Game that is overwhelmingly controlled by the Alaska Outdoors Council. All BOG members are also AOC members. We have a governor who is very sympathetic to the AOC. We have a Legislature that, for the most part, is also pro-AOC. However, we also have a state constitution that says our wildlife is owned equally by all Alaskans, not just the hunters, not just the urban folks, not just the folks in the Bush but equally by all. Yet, it is a resource NOT being managed thusly or, for the most part, even scientifically. We have seen this in the past two statewide votes against aerial hunting of predators, a practice which has again been forced upon us to appease a minority. Despite an obvious message from a majority of Alaskan voters, the wildlife management is being done for an extremist few such as the AOC.
(Continued in next comment block, I hope.)
(Comment continued)
If you want to trade longevity stats, I've lived here almost 40 years of my 58. I've hunted successfully, hiked extensively. I've encountered wolves, bears, moose, sheep, caribou...the whole gamut. I've also watched as more and more the human factor of hunting, trapping, and reduction of habitat has occurred widely. I used to hunt for moose just outside of Fairbanks. Now, there are whole subdivisions there. Areas that I had to walk into now have houses blocking such passage. ATV's, snowmachines, planes on floats, skiis, wheels, high-powered riverboats all give unprecedented access. And the push is not to reduce but, if you looked at this year's proposals before the BOG, to actually increase vehicular access throughout the state. This puts pressure on the wildlife. As a factor that doesn't seem to be considered in this case, or at least not yet by any of the very sparse data presented.
So what I am saying is before we go blaming predators which are a part of the natural system, which have been in place for thousands of years, which caribou, moose, etc, are adapted to deal with, we might want to look at other factors. Otherwise, we may well not be addressing the real cause.
BTW, while I may not have the family history in Alaska I do have an advantage of having studied the prehistory of the state quite extensively, having worked on mammoth digs, and having donated several hundred fossils to the UAF museum. This can give a person quite the perspective on wildlife populations before humans were an important factor and, now, afterwards. There were massive herds of ungulates here not so long ago along with a fearsome set of predators that would put the present few to shame...short-faced bears, dire wolves, sabertooth cats, amongst others. Yet, there were huge herds of bison, caribou, horse, and other animals. Somehow there was an overall balance that did not cease until environmental factors brought about changes. We are in a present transition of environmental factors due to global warming. Who is to say that may not also be affecting caribou which depend not on temperate clime forage but the arctic and sub-arctic grasses, sedges, etc, that are being most deleteriously affected by these changes?
There is, of course, the political influence as well which no member of F&G would ever admit to officially but when you look at the politics stacked against predators in Alaska right now there is no way that as a factor can be ignored.
BTW, kudos on your crash course in sea lions but we're talking terrestrial mammals here and that is quite a difference. I, too, have received instruction from pros such as Drs. Dale Guthrie and Roland Gangloff as well as having field experience in Alaskan paleontology but I would not pretend to know all there is to know because I took an afternoon's boat ride with a biologist.
Just a quick note on the reliability of F&G personnel....and mind you, this does not necessarily reflect my views....
We have had for quite some time recently an intense controversy about an anterless moose hunt across the river in GMU 20A. Don Young, the local F&G biologist in charge of the hunt, says it is necessary, warranted, and biologically defensible. Many, many hunters of decades' experience in that area are saying the opposite and some have called for his removal from the management of the area or even from F&G.
So even when a trained biologist's opinions (and they are mainly that for wildlife management, for all its formulae and such, is a very inexact science in many respects as any wildlife researcher worth their salt will admit) are put forth it does not mean they are gospel. They can be...and in this case have been...challenged and for GMU 20A quite vociferously. However, they are often the only data to go on, as well, so.....!
Well Dobieman,
I'm only talking about what I know, not trying to join the pack on either side.
I too am overwhelmed by the people who come here from elsewhere expecting to find pristine Alaska.
At the same time I am speaking area specific on the Alaska Peninsula for a caribou herd (probably 1/2 reindeer if genetics were to be determined) that is going to be extinguished followed by the cannibalism/starvation of the wolf packs.
I was on the beach off Cape Sarichef this August while one of the few healthy bulls in that herd was being dogged, swimming in the kelp as two wolves worked it up and down the beach, not allowing it rest and probably also never to get it as the currents carried it out into the Bering Sea upon death.
What is the win/win when everything has to die in order for someone to feel smug about nature's cycle?
People in those villages are not all blessed with high priced salmon permits or CDQ's.
Why is the necessity of intervention so maligned without consulting the facts available at the Fairbanks Fish and Game office?
Go talk to Kimberly for the truth of that herd.
Nobody who professionally brings up predator control can expect anything but ranting against themselves, the AOC, and being controlled by them.
AOC has a very slick agenda because it is a big business, no doubt.
They are not however, responsible for the decline of the Alaska Peninsula caribou herd.
It has become a predator pit from a number of causal factors.
I suggest again you visit the facts as garnered by Ms. Beckman, she is a straight shooter who is dedicated to science, not politics as perped by any given administration.
She has years of field work with every major caribou herd of this state.
Dobieman, I hate what this state has become too, but don't be shooting the messenger.
We're actually on the same side..... Regards
Post a comment
Commenting requires registration.