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Should the Feds list an Alaska wolf as threatened or endangered?Add another Alaska critter to the list of animals that environmental groups are trying to save -- the Alexander Archipelago wolf. The subspecies of gray wolf is found only in the old-growth forests of Southeast Alaska. And that puts them in conflict with logging in the Tongass National Forest, the nation's largest forest that has been heavily logged in the past few decades. Now, the Center for Biological Diversity and Greenpeace have filed a 103-page petition with the the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asking that the wolf be declared either threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act and that Prince of Wales Island and others be designated as critical habitat. Greenpeace forest campaigner Larry Edwards called the wolf "a symbol of America's rapidly dwindling wilderness" and said there is "clear evidence" the wolf is in trouble. That trouble stems from clearcutting and over-logging of the old-growth forests where the Alexander Archipelago wolf dens in the root systems of the giant trees, according to the environmental groups. The wolf depends on the Sitka black-tailed deer for food, but the deer also have been dwindling due to logging, the groups said. Logging operations in the Tongass also mean more roads and easier access for hunters and trappers, who are also killing off the wolves -- as many as half of them illegally, the conservationists said. Rebecca Noblin, Alaska director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said the U.S. Forest Service could do a lot to save the wolves by not permitting new roads and ending "unsustainable" logging practices. She accused the federal government of "kowtowing" to the timber industry. Federal legislation that would give Sealaska Corp. more old-growth acreage in Southeast Alaska also might factor into any decision on whether the wolves should be listed as threatened or endangered. The legislation would allow Sealaska to pick up another 81,500 acres outside the area already allotted under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The acreage would be prime timber lands, the area also used by the wolves. Noblin said more logging of the productive old-growth forest would impact the habitat. If the wolf was to be listed before the land selection went through then the wolf's status would trigger consultation between agencies with an eye toward whether any sort of land exchange would jeopardize the wolves' continued existence, she said. Even the passing of the legislation would likely have an effect on the Fish and Wildlife Service's decision to list or not list the wolves, she said, because the agency would have to consider what the loss of habitat in that acreage would do to the wolves. "If we were looking at a big chunk of land being logged, that would factor into the ESA decision," she said. The Sealaska legislation is pending in the U.S. House of Representatives. Company officials have said it needs to pass this year or the company will have to start curtailing logging operations and that will result in the loss of hundreds of jobs. The Alexander Archipelago wolf joins other Alaska wildlife -- polar bears, beluga whales, walrus, ring seals -- that conservationists are fighting to save through federal laws designed to protect them from loss of habitat caused by development, climate change and other factors. Contact Patti Epler at patti(at)alaskadispatch.com Environmental Groups give themselves a black eye with all this Endangered Species garbage when it comes to wolves! The animal is one of the most adaptable creatures on the planet..... problem is it does not live well around humans! I also, does a great job eating renewable resources of the local people! I predict that the Center for Biological Diversity will be hated by all the local people in the years to come. To think that the herd of sycolilic herds buffolwo & elk years pasted did not overgraze is obsured.... overgrazing is part of a balanced ecosystem! Where the wolves go, depleted over grazed lands also go. Wolves keep the ecosystem in balance. Deer and elk overgraze lands causing waters to muddy, lose their oxygen and fishing to decrease. And, humans wreck everything! Look out the Lower 48 states where most of you moved North to get away from the pollution, the contaminated lands and filthy fossil fuel contaminated waters. Be happy co-exisiting with all wildlife! It's about to become worse with the toxic oil companies that are descending upon Alaska. This isn't about wolves. Ths wolves are simply a potential conduit. How perverse. Enviro-nutjob groups have zero credibility. Ought to label the Alaska economy as "threatened or endangered" if these terrorists get their way, again. You have got to be kidding me with this BS again. Wolves travel back and forth from the mainland to the islands all the time, and actually help provide diverse genetics to keep them from getting inbred. In addition, the logging actually HELPS the deer that feed the wolves by providing them with areas to brows when the clear cut areas start regenerating as the sun hits the forest floor, not as listed in this article. Once again, nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to stop all logging in the Tongass. At what point will people say enough is enough and start imposing financial penalties to these folks that continue to waste the taxpayers every increasingly scarce dollars? Specklefoot says, "... school teacher out in the Bush who was eaten by wolves ... If wolves get too populous ... they kill us. So we kill wolves ..." First, the petition is not about whether or not to control wolf numbers, but whether a subspecies needs protection from extinction. But to address your logic, a web search ("human fatalities" wolves) the total North American fatalities can be counted on one hand (but let's be conservative and say two hands). One site says, "Wolf attacks are the rarest of all large predators." On the other hand it says that, PER YEAR, "domestic dogs in the United States are responsible for 4.7 million bites, resulting in 500,000-800,000 hospital visits and 15-20 fatalities." In the US in 2007 there were 816 ATV fatalities 134,900 people were treated in emergency rooms for ATV-related injuries. "About one-fifth of the deaths and about one-third of the injuries involved CHILDREN.' (GAO, April 2010). So I can see your bumper sticker now: "Save a Rider, Shoot an ATV." Just sayin' ... I have nothing against ATVs, dogs, OR wolves; nor do I worship any of the above. And I'm all for preserving those "Ride red," Yamaha and Suzuki species, too. Eat moose. 10,000 wolves can't be wrong. Sure, list the wolves as endangered, just after they list that school teacher out in the Bush who was eaten by wolves as "Extinct". Enough. There is plenty of room and to spare, but this wolf worship crap has its limits. If wolves get too populous to be adequately supported by their natural range, they get hungry and they kill us. So we kill wolves to keep their populations in check. Get over it. You mean genetically distinct like people are genetically distinct from one another? First the "genetically distinct Cook Inlet Beluga Whale", now the "genetically distinct Alexander Archipelago wolves" . . why don't we consider listing the "genetically distinct Alaskan Homo Sapiens" . . .? Madness . . . Do you mean Alaskans who are "new" inhabitants to the State vs the indigenous people including the Inuit nation who came to Alaska over one thousand years ago? Oldhaines, It would be a good idea to read the petition first (the story has a link) instead of shooting from the hip. A lot of science has been published on this since the 1990s, much of it based on genetic analysis that simply wasn't possible then. Weckworth (2010) is one example and is a free download at: http://inram.msb.unm.edu/mammals/documents/Weckworth_etal_CoastalCanis2010_JMamm.pdf A few quotes: "ARE COASTAL WOLVES DIVERGENT? " " ... Furthermore, these Coastal populations contain remnants of the genetic diversity thought to have been lost with the extirpation of wolves in the contiguous United States to the south (Leonard et al. 2005). Preservation of this diversity is an important challenge for managers given the heavy human impact on these coastal wolves, their prey base, and associated habitat in Southeast Alaska (Person and Russell 2008)." "COMPARISON WITH SUBSPECIES DESIGNATIONS BASED ON MORPHOLOGICAL DATA." "... Mun˜oz-Fuentes et al.(2009)suggested that coastal British Columbia wolves are ecologically and genetically distinct from other North American wolf populations." ... "Nuclear (Weckworth et al. 2005) and mitochondrial data (Table 4) support the hypothesis that the Southeast Alaska Coastal wolves are distinctive and largely isolated from Continental populations. A morphological assessment described Coastal populations as an endemic subspecies (C. l. ligoni -- Goldman 1944), a hypothesis that is consistent with the genetic data." Petitioners make their case in their petition. US Fish & Wildlife Service will consider that and also make its own independent evaluation of the science before making a decision. The public gets to comment too. Seems like a fair process to me. I did read the Petition. A lot of "Junk Science” has been published since the 1990's. Real science provides fact and definitive conclusions not; "Suggests" or "support the hypothesis". For your edification, I have provided the definition of hypothesis. It is as follows; hy•poth•e•sis/hīˈpäTHəsis/Noun 1. A supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation. 2. A proposition made as a basis for reasoning, without any assumption of its truth. AS I said before, First PROVE that it is a separate species of wolf. Do not come to us with Junk Science. It is this kind of thing that is causing the Public to question the veracity of scientists in general. First, prove to me that this is a genetically separate species of wolf. That has been tried and no evidence that there is significant genetic distinction between wolfs that exist on the archipelago and those in other parts of Alaska. As I recall this was tried in the late 1990’s and failed. According to the Federal Register, The Forest Service concluded that “The taxonomic status of wolves in southeast Alaska, commonly Referred to as Alexander Archipelago wolves, is uncertain.” And refused to list the Wolf as threatened or endangered. Old Haines, that Federal Register study is decades old and was produced by an agency under political pressure to NOT LIST the wolf. Without question (and with a little common sense, if you believe that the Ice Age occurred) there has been no genetic interchange between the mainland and POW for eons and eons. Sorry, wolves don't swim that far. This is no ordinary grey wolf, and the feds and state of Alaska have messed up badly in dealing with that. These folks have a pretty serious losing record when it comes to federal laws )see the roadless lawsuit, and the islands wolf lawsuit, and on and on). And these are some tough enviro groups that they are up against. Betting on the feds versus CBD and Greenpeace is like playing the odds with the Mariners getting to the World Series versus the Yankees. Sorry, man. Save your money. This is a totally unique population and entirely worthy of federal protections signed into law during the progressive Johnson and Nixon administrations. It's simply the law. The law has the added advantage of disrupting the absurd federal timber subsidy program in southeast Alaska, as well as the proposed giveaway of public lands to private corporations with no actual legal entitlement to them (see S.730) or to other parties seeking a cut on the public dime (State of Alaska timber task force, Tongass Futures Roundtable). It may seem odd,but this is also a potential victory also for fiscal conservatives around the country if the feds realize they have to do the listing. The federal timber sales program has to be one the most silly subsidies of the twentieth century and there is no reason to continue it now. It's like the giant sucking sound Ross Perot used to talk about only it's not the global economy but the fed dipping their hands into your pockets. Certainly the ESA passed primarily because of the intrinsic value of the species like this, but its protections will extend to countless economically valuable species on the Tongass - like fish and deer that are at risk from more big clearcuts. So, this petition, ironically, is not just good but great economic policy for thousands of residents of southeast Alaska who will be spared the odd dynamics of Sealaska's legislation and an even greater victory for those millions of taxpayers who have been supporting a bloated timber subsidy and bureaucracy for decades. Save one apex predator species from a few fringe extremists who want to keep clearcutting on the public dime, and everybody wins. It's also the right thing to do. CBD and Greepeace, you rock. |
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