Game board says yes to aerial shooting of wolves
Published Saturday, March 8, 2008
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Stumble It!For the first time in more than 20 years, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game will shoot wolves from helicopters as part of its statewide predator control program.
The Alaska Board of Game late Thursday approved a plan that calls for department staff to shoot approximately 25 wolves from a helicopter on the southern Alaska Peninsula to help save the Southern Alaska Peninsula Caribou Herd, which has dropped from a high of 10,000 caribou in 1983 to a population of 600 animals.
“We have a chance to rescue an important caribou herd before it disappears, and we need to do it very soon,” board chairman Cliff Judkins said during debate on the proposal. “If we don’t act now, this herd could disappear.”
While the game board has approved the use of helicopters for other predator control plans, the state has not employed the practice of having snipers kill wolves from helicopters since 1985 on the Minto Flats, department spokeswoman Cathie Harms said.
The department plans to kill the wolves sometime in the next two months before the caribou begin calving. To not act quickly would be “irresponsible” on the department’s part, said Doug Larsen, director of the state’s Division of Wildlife Conservation.
“We’d like to do this as soon as we possibly can,” he said. “This is a serious conservation issue.”
Unlike other predator control areas in the state, where private pilots and gunners get permits to shoot wolves from planes, that isn’t possible on the remote Alaska Peninsula, Larsen said. There are few pilots in the area, and the weather prohibits flying most of the time, he said.
“From the information we’ve gotten, there are no other options we have available other than helicopters,” Larsen said, noting that federal and state agencies in the western United States use similar programs to control the number of coyotes preying on sheep and cattle.
Game board member Dick Burley said the only other option was “to get the feds to poison them like they do the rats,” in reference to efforts by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to get rid of invasive Norway rats that have begun to show up on the Aleutian Islands and could threaten migratory bird populations.
The state currently has aerial wolf-control programs in five different parts of the state and private pilot-gunner teams have killed almost 800 wolves in the last five years in those areas.
The plan approved by the board on Friday for game management Unit 9D has a five-year shelf life.
How animal-rights groups will respond to the state’s newest predator control plan remains to be seen. Several lawsuits have been filed against the state by different groups concerning its predator control efforts, including one that is still being decided.
Tom Banks, the Alaska representative for Defenders of Wildlife, one of the groups involved in prior lawsuits against the department, was at the meeting but didn’t have a comment on the plan because he hadn’t had a chance to study it, he said.
But both Burley and Larsen said the plan for Unit 9D was “surgical” and meets the conditions opponents of predator control have raised with other programs.
“One of the things opponents of our present predator control programs always say is that they would support predator control if it’s done by department staff with helicopters in a biological emergency,” Burley said. “It’s time to put up or shut up.”
Even more disconcerting than the dramatic drop in the population of the Southern Alaska Caribou Herd is the fact that virtually no calves have survived in the herd the last two years, despite relatively high pregnancy rates of around 70 percent, area management biologist Lem Butler said. Biologists counted only two calves in the entire herd last fall and just four calves the year before that.
Judging from what biologists can tell, wolves are responsible for the bulk of the poor calf survival, though grizzly bears also may be a factor. There are an estimated 50-80 wolves in Unit 9D, Butler said.
The plan calls for removing about 25 wolves from two to four packs on the herd’s calving grounds. Though the herd ranges extensively on federal lands in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, its calving grounds are on state lands where predator control can be conducted. Federal agencies have refused to allow the killing of wolves on any federal lands in Alaska.
The department is mandated to take steps to boost the herd because it has been identified as an intensive management population important for human consumption and subsistence. Residents in several villages in the area hunt the herd.
Community Discussion
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This is outrageous! Humans are the reason the caribou herd population is down. You don't just fix this problem by killing wolves, your doing nothing but messing with the natural world. To all you board members I spit allover your faces! Does this new predator control program include helicopters with me inside shooting at your helicopter. Two can play at this game you sick twisted corrupt earth raping goons! I just want to vomit on all you pro wolf killers! Welcome to Alaska where the white man is still destroying anything they set eyes on. DOES ANYONE IN THIS STATE LIKE WOLVES? I FEEL LIKE I'M IN TEXAS AGAIN!
Helicopters!?!?! The State can afford to run helicopters to hunt wolves!?!?! The price of fuel oil is $3.20/gallon in town and much more in the bush. The State can't afford any fuel relief to citizens but can afford to put helicopters in the air to shoot wolves. You'd think folks could track wolves in the snow in snowmobiles at a lot less cost. There seems to be something quite wrong here.
And the citizens of the State voted twice to ban aerial shooting. So much for the voters in this State.
Kudos to the Game Board for their courageous decision to manage our resources!! Our Constitution mandates that our resources be managed for sustainable yield and this is part of it. For those who do not put meat on their table from these resources, you either have to "get over it" or find another park to live in.
Sustainable???? Helicopter charter time is minimum $450/hr, +28 gallons of fuel at $3.50 per gallon. If that is sustainable, maybe us hunters should start paying the REAL cost of managing caribou and moose harvest in areas where predators are managed intensively.
Hooray to the Game Board and the Department for having some courage to do what is right. Everyone needs to remember that "management" of wildlife includes, from time to time, the reduction of certain predator species. No one intends to "wipe out" or "eliminate" any population.
Comments made by "Anti" are totally uncalled for and show an ignorance of the facts.
If there are people out here that SO disagree with game management, work towards getting a Constitutional amendment to get the Constitution changed!! If your are not interested to see how the good people of Alaska feel about this issue, then you need to sit back and observe. Our Constitution is not vague about this issue!
I think the thing that surprises me most is that there aren't enough "sportsmen" in our state to actually go out an hunt wolves on foot and give them a sporting chance. Constitutional amendment or not there are better ways to spend money than on helicopters. Are we "hunting" caribou or simply slaughtering them? The wolves deserve the same.
Duh...we KNOW why the caribou population is down.....it's called the human. wolves and caribou have lived together for thousands of years -the wolves cull the herd to keep the very healthiest. Then we come along and take their habitat and remove their food, and wonder why we don't have more....meanwhile, some Department of Fish and Game want to remove the few natural wonders we have - the wolf. Hope that the folks can see the writing on the wall and overturn this perverted thinking.
Game board says yes to aerial shooting of the white man, who plagues the earth with its preditor does what ever it wants way of exsistance.
Thank you freezeskier. Exactly. GAME BOARD YOU SUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Watch the documentary 'Wolves at our Door' by Jim and Jamie Dutcher.
I laughed and cried throughout the entire film. Wolves are SOCIAL FAMILIES WHO DEPEND ON EACH OTHER. When you viciously murder one you have no idea what you are doing to their pack.
You are SO-CALLED MEN. You are COWARDS.
Duh...we KNOW why the caribou population is down.....it's called the human.
Human??? Do you realize how FEW people live in this area??? They depend on the caribou for food. There are very few humans out there, and it appears that there are becoming fewer caribou. This is not like the caribou are just outside of Anchorage and they are culling wolves. This is a serious problem and fish and game has handled it well. I cannot believe that these are the responses that are coming out of Fairbanks. It sure is not the place I moved to almost 3 decades ago. I cannot imagine how folks that moved here in the old days would think of these responses.
But, Yukon, why is Fish and Game needed at all? Since these people depend on caribou, why can't they kill some wolves while they're at it? Shouldn't that be part of the process, such as putting out their campfires, burying their poop, and cleaning up their trash. Since the wolves are eating the caribou, then the wolves can't be too far away. Aren't these people depending on big government for something they themselves should be doing? I guess wolves aren't good to eat but the fur is worth something.
Joe, I know we see eye to eye on alot of issues. I spend alot of time in the bush. Wolves are not something that you see very often. They are MUCH easier to see from the air in the winter, but most, if not almost all, people never see one. I have never seen many either and that is with hunting for many years and doing alot of flying. You just do not see them except in the winter and from an aircraft. Caribou are a staple of many native people all around the north. Yes, they should be killing them...trapping them or getting rid of them any way they can, but it is not as easy as it might sound. I think Fish and Game is doing the exact correct thing by hunting them by helicopter.
a wolf fur hide costs about $400 at one of the fur stores in Fairbanks. Will they be shooting the wolf and letting it rot, or will they be selling the furs to pay for said helicopter fees?
arctic_amy, I have no idea what they will do with the wolves after they kill them. I would imagine they would land, salvage the carcass and take it back for research and the such. That is only my guess. As far as the cost of the helicopters, it is insignificant in the big scheme of things. On one wildfire, we fly MANY times that amount daily. This is something that needs to be done, and the costs are FAR outweighed by not doing this.
I'm curious, and have a question for those opposed to this scheme.
Why do you feel the lives of a small number of wolves are more important than the survival of an entire herd of caribou?
If the herd dies off then the wolves will also die either from starvation or be killed by other wolves when they try to expand their range.
Swanny
An adult wolf will kill about 25 large game animals per year. It is ignorant for those opposed to place the blame on hunters for a dwindling game population. Although controversial, predator control programs are the most effective tool for management of game populations.
KILL THE WOLVES, KILL THE WOLVES, KILL THE WOLVES, I HATE WOLVES, I WANT MY MEAT, WE WANT TO BE LIKE EVERY OTHER STATE! NO MORE WOLVES, THIS IS ALL I HEAR FROM ALL OF YOU FOR THIS PREDATOR CONTROL PROGRAM.
How horrific. The dwindling population of moose is not from wolves but from the humans who hunt them and from the humans who keep developing land. Game Board, please rethink this disgusting approach to "predator control." Humans are the predators and we need to be controlled, not the wolves. Human predators need to stop devouring the land and animals; to do this we need to reduce our population (i.e., Birth Control-- Zero Population).
Unbelievable! I am still a newcomer here, but I cannot believe that I am hearing this in Fairbanks, Alaska. Folks, this is a hunter/gatherer environment. If you are so very opposed to it, MOVE! We are not out to slaughter the wolves!! We are for our Fish and Game to MANAGE our wildlife as set forth in our State Constitution!!!! They have a mandate, clear and simple, and this is a tool to acheive that mandate. If you still are so very opposed and choose not to move, try and change the Constitution. Thank God that there are enough good old timers left that I believe you will find that way too difficult to accomplish. I will go to my grave being amazed at how much things can change in a place in 3 decades. I can only feel for my fellow Alaskans that have been here many years, seeing this kind of attitude prevail....or at least trying to prevail.
Yukonjohn, Alaska is a good-ol-boy state, so you're right, there's little change in changing the constitution; however Alaskans have already voted on this issue several times and the outcome was to not have aerial wolf killing.
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