Community Perspective
State’s wolf control plan ignores caribou realities
Published Sunday, March 16, 2008
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Stumble It!The Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the Board of Game announced March 6 that department biologists would begin shooting wolves from helicopters as soon as possible in a new area this winter.
Fish and Game and the board are saying it is necessary to take this action on an emergency basis to “rescue” caribou on a portion of the Alaska Peninsula because of a sharp decline in numbers and low calf survival.
This is the first I have heard about the program. From what I have learned so far, it illustrates at least several key points common to recent wolf control programs (see alaskawolves.org, Feb 18 blog entry). It is alleging a “problem” that would not hold up to critical review that considered more appropriate spatial and temporal scales. It is being promoted heavily by Fish and Game biologists thus far without any open, external peer review and apparently not even a full public process.
And most certainly it is not the “emergency” or “serious conservation issue” that Fish and Game and the board are portraying, at least not to the extent that should preclude meaningful peer review and a comprehensive public process.
Caribou persist for decades and longer in small centers of abundance (so-called herds) in many areas of Alaska and Canada. Undoubtedly, the Alaska Peninsula caribou numbers will continue to decline somewhat further because of low calf survival. But typically, as the number of caribou decrease, natural predation — by eagles, wolves, bears, wolverines, etc — “switches” on and off. Fluctuating calf survival then maintains the lower number of caribou in a “stable state” short of extinction.
Fish and Game and the board are assuming that it is biologically possible and advisable to maintain a relatively high, stable number of caribou more-or-less indefinitely in one particular area to provide an ongoing high, stable yield for local hunters.
This flies in the face of virtually everything known about caribou under natural conditions and the history and prehistory of caribou subsistence hunting. Local caribou numbers rise and fall, with long lows between peaks. Ranges, including calving grounds, shift dramatically. These changes occur at scales of decades and centuries, and for just as long — without any helicopter-shooting of wolves — caribou hunters have successfully adapted and shifted their efforts accordingly.
Fish and Game and the board are trying to make something highly unnatural happen, and the plan has almost no chance of succeeding in the long run. In the process, long-term behavioral and other biological damage will be done to the wolves of yet another area — even if their numbers recover rapidly (alaskawolves.org, Jan 19 blog entry) — which itself is by no means assured, contrary to Fish and Game’s claims.
Indeed, Fish and Game doesn’t know the extent to which wolf predation is involved in suppressing calf survival on the Alaska Peninsula at present. Golden eagles and bears, sometimes even wolverines and lynx, can be much more significant predators of newborn caribou calves. This appeared to be the case (regarding eagle predation) in the Wells Creek-upper Nenana River calving grounds of the Delta caribou (southeast of Denali National Park) at certain times in the 1990s, for example.
Wolves, bears, eagles, wolverines and other predators commonly compete in varying combinations in caribou calving grounds, such that removing one of these predators may increase predation by others. Fish and Game biologists cannot lawfully kill any eagles, and apparently they have already conceded that there are numerous bears in the area.
But no matter. Shooting another bunch of wolves for nothing wouldn’t be a big deal. Think of it like killing rats. As board member Dick Burley put it, the only other option to helicopter shooting would be to “get the feds to poison them like they do the rats” (on nearby federal land).
Gordon Haber, Ph.D., is an independent wildlife scientist who has studied wolves and wolf-prey systems in Alaska since 1966. Further details can be found at his Web site, www.alaskawolves.org.
Community Discussion
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Gordon Haber...the name speaks for itself with Alaskans that have been here for 20 years. He is not to be trusted or believed!!
yes yukonjohn , i could say the same and more, it very plain what his way of thinkin,is, his bashing of the fish & game told it all, for one, The dep,s of the fish& game have done a good job,and still are.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Whether or not Haber is a polarizing force, he's right. The difference between science and voodoo is gathering data, attempting to make some orderly sense of your findings, and then submitting your findings and methodology for peer review. Fish and Game has many excellent, dedicated biologists. However, they have not offered one shred of evidence that wolves are actually responsible for the caribou decline in this particular area on the Alaska Peninsula. There has been zero data published to suggest wolves are a contributing factor to calf mortality. Zippo. You find it, I'll buy you a lobster dinner, or at least a Subway with the works. No data, no study, no science. You can't have it both ways. If you praise Fish and Game for their predator control, you're praising what you assume to be well-conducted science. Fact is, the state's wolf control programs have been ordered not by scientists, but by political appointees on the Board of Game, which has often overridden or ignored Fish and Game's science-based recommendations in the matter. Many fine biologists within Fish and Game strongly disagree with the current predator control program and the concept intensive management, but know that speaking out would be political suicide. Hundreds of respected experts in wildlife management--guys who make a living studying this stuff--consider Alaska's predator control program to be unscientific, lacking as it is in peer-reviewed studies of any sort. Hell, the state doesn't even have the money to count how many moose or caribou or wolves there are in a given area, just to create baseline data, let alone conduct actual studies detailed enough to demonstrate wolves are a problem in a given area. So they're operating on guesstimation at best, and being subject to political pressure. Case in point: McGrath a few years back. Turned out to be bears, not wolves, responsible for almost all the moose calf predation. And turns out there were way more moose than they though there were--yet BOG ordered a wolf-killing campaign. Check it out. It's all in the literature. But never mind. You guys are too interested in selective bashing to support your own redneck ideologies to consider stuff as basic as facts. Now that I think of it, I can't believe I'm wasting my time trying to convince you of anything. You already know it all. Must be a wonderful feeling. By the way, I've probably killed more wolves in my life than you guys have even seen, so don't mistake me for some bunny hugger. I just happen to be very fond of science, and the truth. But if voodoo works for you, go back to stirring your pots.
scienceguy, I do not disagree with all of your points. I do believe that there are predators that are decimating the caribou population in this area. With that said, I always thought that wolves were the culprit of the total lack of moose on the Yukon Flats. We spent hundreds of hours on the Yukon and tributaries during the 90s. In ten summers in Fort Yukon and surrounding areas I saw three moose...two cows and one calf. Federal Fish and Wildlife did a study in approx. 95 or 96. They went out and collared I believe it was 30 cows prior to calf season. They then went out and collared the 36 calves that were born later that spring. By the end of the summer, there were 3 calves left. There were 2 or 3 that drowned, a couple they could not find at all, about 6 or 8 killed by wolves and the remainder were killed by black bears. They would fly in a our helicopter to the death site and bring back clumps of black bear hair. I thought at the time, wow, we were wrong to a point, and that they should have gone out and killed about several hundred bears!! Maybe that is the case here, but something needs to be done to reduce the number of predators immediately!!
john your right about that , sarry ifin you all hate me writeing , am a trapper, dint get schooling on one of these things, to much in the woods, but as to wildlife yes i know it very well, iv killed over 150 black bears in my time, and not because i wish,ed to , dang criters like eatin us as well as the moose,i run over 100 miles of trapline, in the yukon area, and when i dont run across moose tracks on all of that trapline for 5-7 weeks at a time you can say im not likeing it much, thank you ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
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