By Blaine Harden

The Washington Post

DENALI NATIONAL PARK, Alaska - Lying alone and listless on a snow-covered ridge, the large male wolf appeared injured, probably from a trap. Blood stained the snow near his front paws.

Circling above in a single-engine airplane, wildlife biologist Gordon Haber found it difficult to maintain his composure. For nearly 40 years, he has been observing a family of wolves, whose current leader was the lethargic alpha male down below him in the snow.

That family, which lives in Denali National Park and is often described as the longest-studied, most-photographed group of wolves in the world, is now at risk. In the past two months, trappers operating just outside the park's northeastern border have picked off two senior females in the 11-member group. For weeks, the alpha male and his new mate have been separated from each other and from six younger members of the pack.

"It's so senseless," Haber said. "I'm not sure what is worse, the animals being killed or all the so-called experts allowing it to happen."

The demise of this family of wolves, known to tens of thousands of park visitors as the Toklat group, would end a unique stream of research. For nearly six decades, Haber and other scientists have chronicled the hunting techniques, mating habits and social interdependence of generations of a geographically stable group of wolves.

Trapping the Toklat wolves also raises questions about the ethical treatment of animals that for decades have been cosseted inside a park, where they have been regarded as prime tourist attractions and have learned to associate people with harmless curiosity, not traps.

At the urging of wildlife-preservation and animal-rights groups in the lower 48, three Democratic senators - Frank Lautenberg (N.J.), Carl Levin (Mich.) and Barbara Boxer (Calif.) - wrote last week to Interior Secretary Gale Norton, citing a "biological emergency" and imploring her to take immediate steps to save the Toklat family.

"These wolves are a national treasure and are of inestimable value to scientists and thousands of park visitors each year," they wrote. Norton hasn't responded, a department spokesman said.

The Toklat wolves have become relatively easy targets for trappers, said Thomas Meier, a wildlife biologist for the National Park Service at Denali.

"Frankly, these wolves aren't as wary of humans as the average wolf," he said. "Trappers usually catch young wolves, stupid wolves, but that is not the case here. They are catching mature animals habituated to people."

In February, Haber - whose work is funded by an animal-rights group and whose views often annoy state and federal wildlife experts - asked the Alaska Board of Game to stop wolf trapping in a narrow wedge of state land that juts into the national park's northeastern corner. That is where the Toklat wolves, wandering out of the park in search of caribou, have been caught in traps in recent months.