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Should state approve wolf-control measures on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula?Near the end of the movie "Season of the Witch," a small band of medieval adventurers is surrounded by howling wolves. The monk says, "Wolves." Another character asks, "What'll we do?" Nicolas Cage, playing a knight in tarnished armor, says, "Kill as many as you can." Welcome to wildlife management as it is currently practiced in Alaska. Not so different from the way it was practiced in the Middle Ages. I am not opposed to reducing numbers of wolves to increase numbers of prey animals -- wolf control -- so long as wolves constitute a serious problem and the program is scientifically justified, temporary and cost effective. Wolf control for the sake of killing wolves is none of the above. This week, in Barrow, the northernmost city in the United States, the Alaska Board of Game was scheduled to consider wolf control proposals for two game management units on the Kenai Peninsula: 15A and 15C. Why was the board considering wolf control plans for the Kenai Peninsula at a meeting in Barrow? When the board adopts a predator control plan, it takes 60 days before a program can be implemented. Ted Spraker, a board member from the Kenai Peninsula, was bound and determined to start shooting Kenai wolves this winter. But the board tabled both proposals until their Anchorage meeting, scheduled Jan. 13-18, 2012. Board members, including Spraker, found serious flaws in the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s documentation and expressed concern that a required feasibility plan wasn’t completed before the meeting. Now most Alaskans wouldn't get a chance until next year to examine the reasons why the department believes wolf control is justified on the Kenai Peninsula. The reasons are not persuasive. Brief history of Kenai Peninsula wolves, mooseOver the past century, wolf and moose populations have waxed and waned on the Kenai Peninsula, largely due to human influence. Trappers and miners, often using poisoned baits, are believed to have eradicated wolves on the Kenai Peninsula in about 1915. Federal predator control agents also widely reduced numbers of wolves in the rest of Alaska in the 1940s and 1950s, which kept wolves from re-colonizing the Kenai until about 1960. I’m proud to say it was the newly established Fish and Game department that argued against using poison and eventually eliminated bounties on wolves, in order to bring the animals back from the edge. When a Kenai wolf sighting was confirmed in 1962, the department prohibited wolf hunting and trapping on the peninsula until 1974, by which time wolves were once again well established. Hunters, meanwhile, had experienced decades of enhanced moose hunting opportunity on the Kenai without realizing how unique that opportunity. Few moose were found on the Kenai before the late 1800s because the habitat was primarily mature forest. The Kenai was scorched by two massive wild fires -- in 1947 and 1969 -- and several smaller blazes in the past century. The 1947 fire burned 424 square miles of black spruce north of Skilak Lake. The 1969 fire burned 123 square miles between the 1947 burn and the town of Kenai. These were just the recent fires. Based on an analysis of tree rings, Andrew De Volder documented many wildfires in the past 300 years. However, wildfires increased in size and intensity after the Kenai came under American influence in the 1800s. Humans started many of the fires. And moose benefited. The moose population increased a decade or so after each of the fires as mature woodland was replaced by the woody browse preferred by moose.
This is disgusting! Why won't they just leave the wolves alone??? At this rate you're going to wipe them out completely & then learn a very harsh lesson that Canada did many years ago, which put them in a position of having to transplant wolves from other areas because they wiped them out. shame on you! I may not know much about the situation but the deer here in Illinois are beginning to over populate with there only being one predator, the coyote. Just a random idea but bringing sOme wolve over here to the Midwest shouldn't harm too much but then families will worry about there kids being outside and there will be allot of unessasary wolf killings. Again just an idea to stick out there. Where the state has gotten it wrong is that they need to have preditor control on the bears on the Kenai, not the wolves. Last I checked the the Kenai might not have had a large forest fire lately, but it did have a huge beattle kill problem that killed a ton of trees and opened up the ground to brows growth for moose. Simply allowing hunting could alleviate some of the bear issues. It has gone to a draw hunt only for brown bears. Eventually predator control targeting bears will be necessary and those on here will be howling. Where the state has got it wrong is in understanding that so far, the majority of residents on the Kenai would prefer to have no large wildfires. That is a public preference, no fires, and less moose. But Uncle Ted Spraker does not care about majority opinion, he wants his moose, and he could care less if needs to create a game farm to do it. And that is his right, but he should defer to the people as a BoG member. What Uncle Ted Spraker does not understand is that wildlife are a public asset. And being so, the Alaska consitution includes ALL Alaskan's. And the majority have spoke, less fire, less moose. But that may change? Maybe we can get some more tools in the tool box, or better manage fires so that we can have several smaller fires spread out over time? Now if Uncle Ted Spraker truely wanted to be democratic, and science based, he'd be advocating and educating for more wildfires, but he is not. He prefers to dictate and pontificate his vision for all. And that vision is one BIG Ol SAFARI CLUB Game Farm with lots of moose and few bears, or wolves. Most Alaskan's don't buy that into that vision. Where the state has got it wrong is in understanding that so far, the majority of residents on the Kenai would prefer to have no large wildfires. That is a public preference, no fires, and less moose. But Uncle Ted Spraker does not care about majority opinion, he wants his moose, and he could care less if he needs to create a game farm on the peninsula to do it. He does not have a care in the world for anything he can't hunt. And that is his right. What Uncle Ted Spraker does not understand is that wildlife are a public asset for ALL Alaskan's. And the majority have spoke their preference, less fire, less moose. Now if Uncle Ted Spraker truely understood Alaska's constitution, or science, a bit better, he'd be advocating for more wildfires, but he is not. He prefers to dictate and pontificate his vision for all. And that vision is one BIG Ol SAFARI CLUB GAME FARM. Boon & Crocket HO! Seeing as how Ted Spraker was the area biologist for Fish and Game on the Kenai for many years, I would bet he knows more of how the biology of the Kenai works better than both yourself and the author of this article, who by the way didn't even know how many bears he had in Anchorage, let alone knowing the biology of an entire area. I think I will rely more on his knowledge of the area, thank you. Somebody did thier homework here and it makes sense, if the govt. was to do this it would have cost millions of dollars and then sugar coated. Thanks for a very well researched, logical article, Mr. Sinnott. Anyone with even a tiny understanding of wildlife management should realize that aerial wolf control on the Kenai is a political move and not a logical management decision. Moose and wolves have been in balance for centuries before humans with planes and guns and eyes on a trophy bull came along. I don't know how any hunter who claims to enjoy wildlife could see fair game in shooting animals from the air- be it wolves or anything else. This proposition is strongly opposed by the vast majority of Alaskans. Never cry wolf. The aerial wolf control issue always seems to ignore current trapping and sport hunting regulations. A person with an Alaska trapping license can trap, snare and shoot any number of wolves. The season is long. Sufficient and "fair chase" opportunity is already there to reduce the wolf numbers. I also remember that ADF&G planted several live wolves on the Southern Kenai a few years ago, at great expense. The reason for this, I believe, was to create a balanced predator population. Why allow hunting by air now to wipe them out? For the record, predator control is not fair chase and hunting and trapping regs have not been sufficient to reduce the number of wolves or we wouldn't need aerial predator control. Broadpass, yes, in Unit 13 we now have NONRESIDENT ONLY moose draw hunt permits (75 of them), and even moose cow hunts since the population is now too high for the habitat to support, and a caribou population above the managment objective. AND WE ARE STILL GUNNING WOLVES FROM PLANES. I am sure when a bad winter comes along and decimates the moose and caribou population, you'll be sure wolves and bears are to blame. Your funny !! Thank goodness for the wolf predator control in Unit 13, it worked, much to the dismay of those against it. The area biologist for the ADF&G has set the record straight for a decade, the problem is habitat. He has said that over and over and over. Just look to the March 2011 Board of Game meeting in Wasilla where the ADF&G did not support killing wolves. Not even political assasin Corey Rossi dared to ignore the overwhelming facts, but Uncle Ted Spraker sure could. Look no further than to those that supported this crap to know why science is being ignored. Of the six supporters, they included the Alaska Profesional Hunters Association, Safari Club International (twice) and two members of the public. Now look to those that opposed it, the Homer, Cooper Landing, and Seward citizen fish and game advisory committees along with 280 residents - ALASKA RESIDENTS. Uncle Ted Spraker needs to realize the board of game represents all Alaskan's, not just Uncle Ted Spraker. When Spraker championed allowing nonresidents be allowed to hunt moose in Unit 16 at the last board of game meeting, a region where things are so "desperate" Uncle Ted supported the snaring of brown bears, including sows and cubs, he made his alliance with the commercial hunting industry clear as day. Ted Spraker has tossed residents aside for his rich hunting buddies every time. Well, Ted, Alaskan's have spoken loud and clear, enough is enough. Shooting wolves is always justified. During the territorial years the feds tried every trick in the book to eliminate wolves and it didn't work. Killing as many as possible may help keep their numbers in check, but they'll never be eliminated like "they" say. Its worked well in the Interior and it isn't costly to implement. Lets do it. |
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