"If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons." -- C. S. Lewis
Alaska has of February 09, 2005, killed 103 Wolves. The ones who are in charge of this effort as you know are:
Mike Fleagle = Chair of Alaskan Board of Game PO Box 33 McGrath, Alaska 99627
ALASKA DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND GAME Boards Support Section P.O. Box 25526 Juneau, AK 99802-5526 (907) 465-6098 or 465-4110 (907) 465-6094 FAX
Governor Frank Murkowski P.O. Box 110001 Juneau, AK 99811-0001 office_of_the_governor@gov.state.ak.us (907) 465-3500
These officials need to be contacted and hear your outrage over this atrocity that keeps continuing!
And here is the original article.
More moose or more wolves?
Thursday, February 10, 2005 - by Sean Doogan
Anchorage, Alaska - The State of Alaska began killing wolves to
increase
moose and caribou numbers in December 2003, using airplanes to make the
job
easier. Since then, groups from around the country have weighed in,
pitting
biologist against biologist in the battle over Alaska's wolves.
As well as a tourism boycott, national attention and criticism has
centered
on the state's wolf control program. The program is aimed at killing
610
wolves this year, sparking a renewed round of protests.
Thousands of letters are ready to be sent to Gov. Frank Murkowski. One
of
the letters is actually a permit for pilots to participate in the
state's
aerial wolf-control program.
“We've stamped it, ‘Rejected twice by Alaskan voters,’” says Karen
Deatherage, Alaska Program Associate of Defenders of Wildlife.
In 1996, and again in 2000, Alaskan voters passed ballot measures
related to
aerial shooting. But both times, in 1999 and in 2003, state lawmakers
modified the initiatives, making it easier for the state to justify the
practice.
“Even though there's enough food and water and space for many more
moose,
for instance, there may be just a fraction of those present because
predators keep them at low numbers,” says biologist Cathie Harms,
information officer for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
In November 2003, the Board of Game adopted aerial wolf control, aimed
at
increasing moose numbers. Murkowski gave the Department of Fish and
Game the
go-ahead.
Groups like Friends of Animals wish he hadn't. “The Department of
Wildlife
Conservation should be renamed the Department of Moose Ranching,” says
Priscilla Feral, president of Friends of Animals, a Connecticut-based
group.
Currently, five areas of the state are seeing some form of aerial wolf
control. In McGrath, Tok, and Aniak, state-licensed gunners shoot from
the
air, while in the Nelchina Basin and west Cook Inlet, it's
land-and-shoot
only.
As of yesterday, 103 wolves had been killed.
In 2004, in McGrath and Nelchina, the only two areas where wolf control
took
place last year, 144 wolves were killed.
The state says it's working. Moose numbers are climbing, especially in
McGrath. “Calf survival from birth until September has gone from about
40
percent to about 80 percent during this time frame,” Harms says.
Opponents of the program, such as wolf biologist and researcher Gordon
Haber, say the data Fish and Game is using to justify aerial shoots is
incomplete, extrapolated from very small sample sizes. Haber has been
studying Alaska's wolves for more than a decade.
“The state Department of Fish and Game has the gall to say that this is
based on sound science,” Haber says. “It is simply not.”
Haber's funding comes almost entirely from Friends of Animals, the
Darien,
Conn. organization that launched the tourism boycott. But, Haber says,
other
than supplying him with funds, Friends of Animal is not involved in his
work.
University of Alaska conservation specialist Rick Steiner also opposes
the
program. He says it benefits only hunters, many of whom are from out of
state.
“It's sort of the tail wagging the dog, basically,” he says. “People
want to
shoot wolves from airplanes. Some do. And therefore, they have backed
around
and tried to justify the program with some pretty shaky, sloppy
science.”
State biologists with Fish and Game dispute that claim. They say they
have
the numbers to back up the program. “We do surveys now. There may be
people
who say, ‘You don’t know everything.’ And that’s true,” Harms says. “Do
we
know enough to make sure that the animals aren’t going to go away?
We’re not
going to endanger them, we’re not going to threaten them.”
One opponent says the program will actually lead to too many moose for
the
state's wildlands to handle.
“We're seeing that right now in Fairbanks, where they're having to kill
cows
and calves, because the population up there is out of control,” says
Deatherage. “Why is that? Because the wolves and bears in that area
have
been hammered for years.”
Wolves have come to represent the wilds of western America -- the call
of
the wild. But that call gets different answers depending largely on
where
you live. In Connecticut, it’s answered by renewed efforts to save
Alaska’s
wolves, all of them. In McGrath, it’s more likely met by the hardened
stare
of a hunter who’s dreaming of hanging some moose meat in his shed for
the
first time in years.
The practice of predator control is not new to governments in Alaska.
During
territorial days, federal game managers used poison to kill off wolves,
bears, wolverines and even Dolly Varden trout.
Harms says the state has also been darting and moving bears from the
McGrath
area during the moose-calving season, and that practice also has helped
to
boost moose numbers. Bottom line, the wolf-control program is supposed
to
last five years, and it’s still in its second year, so it’s too early
to
draw conclusions about its effects.
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