| Classified as “big game” and
“furbearers” in much of Alaska, wolves can be trapped, snared, and
chased with snow machines and airplanes, then shot at point blank
range. “Wolves are being killed in Alaska in greater numbers, over
larger areas, with more deception and more direct involvement of
[Alaska Department of Fish and Game] biologists,” says Gordon Haber,
an independent wildlife biologist who has been studying wolves in
Alaska for 42 years and is a longtime critic of the state’s wolf
management policies. Since
2003, aerial permit holders have killed almost 700 wolves in Alaska
in a supposed effort to boost caribou and moose populations for
hunters. However, aerial wolf control in Alaska remains highly
controversial. Alaskans have twice approved initiatives to ban
land-and-shoot hunting of wolves, but the state legislature
unfortunately authorized the game board to restart the programs
after the 2-year initiatives expired. The most recent incarnation of
aerial predator control allows gunners to shoot wolves from the air,
or land first and then shoot. It has been expanded to five areas of
Alaska, some of which also allow the aerial shooting of bears.
Another measure to prohibit the practice is slated for the November
2008 ballot.
The lethal ground assault on wolves
in Alaska is just as brutal, and saturation neck snaring is a common
practice in the state. In April, two wolves were spotted in Denali
National Park with snares around their necks. The animals were
legally trapped on state land outside the park. They then escaped
from the snares—either by breaking the cables or chewing through
them—and returned to Denali, their faces and necks swollen from the
embedded snares. An Associated Press article described the scene:
“The large gray [wolf] has a neck wound where the snare has cut into
the muscle, creating a flap of skin that hangs down. The black
wolf’s face is so swollen he now resembles a bear.”
While these animals escaped, death
by a strangling snare is ghastly—particularly for wolves, who have
evolved thick musculature to protect their trachea and common
carotid arteries. A victim often struggles for hours, causing a
thick suffusion of bloody lymph fluid to accumulate beneath the skin
of his or her head and neck. Trappers who skin animals who have died
this way refer to them as “jelly heads.”
Meanwhile, though wolves are
ostensibly protected within the park, the moment they step outside
its boundaries, they become fair game to hunters and trappers and
risk this violent death. At least three traplines were set this
winter outside of the northeast boundary of the park, and as many as
19 wolves have been trapped there, including four radio-collared
wolves. Denali Park biologists were able to remove the snare from
one of the two wolves, but as of publication time, the other wolf
remains missing and is believed dead from the embedded snare.
For $15, any person with an Alaska
driver’s license can purchase a trapping license that legally allows
the killing of an unlimited number of wolves, of any age or sex,
from October or November through April in most areas of the state.
Though Alaska’s aerial wolf hunting program garners significant
public debate, this deadlier ground assault on wolves with snares,
traps and guns goes on year after year, often on federal lands,
including national wildlife refuges. Haber encourages all Americans
to object to the brutal mismanagement of Alaska’s wolves; action
alerts and contact information are available at
www.alaskawolves.org. |
