July 1, 2008 Southern Alaska Peninsula Caribou Herd recovers after aerial wolf control
State wildlife biologists with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game shot and killed more than two dozen wolves from a helicopter last month to help a small caribou herd struggling to survive on the Alaska Peninsula.
It marked the first time since 1985 that ADF&G personnel have shot and killed wolves from the air as part of a predator control plan.
Biologists killed 28 wolves on the calving grounds of the Southern Alaska Peninsula Caribou Herd near Cold Bay, located about 600 miles southwest of Anchorage, to stop what has been a precipitous decline as a result of extremely poor calf survival. In the last six years, the herd has declined from 4,100 caribou to 600. Biologists have counted a total of only six surviving calves in the herd in the past two years.
Wolves from three packs were shot from a helicopter while on or near the calving grounds in late May and early June, according to a press release issued by the department on Friday.
So far, biologists are encouraged by the results of the air strike, which was approved by the Alaska Board of Game in March.
Biologists estimate 63 percent of the approximately 450 calves born this spring survived their first two weeks of life and both pregnancy rates — 90 percent — and weights of newborn calves indicate the herd is healthy, department spokesman Bruce Bartley in Anchorage said.
“That pretty much leaves predation” as the reason for the herd’s decline, he said.
While it’s too early to tell how many calves will survive the summer, most caribou calf mortality occurs during the first few weeks of life, according to the department. Telemetry flights will be flown periodically throughout the summer to document further mortality.
Biologists captured 65 newborn calves to be weighed and fitted with radio collars equipped with mortality sensors so biologists can track them and identify a cause of death if necessary.
“If they survive the summer as we suspect they will, we’ll probably have more calves survive this year than we’ve had the last several years combined,” Bartley said.
The latest figures show wolves are still the biggest killer of caribou calves, however. Of the 24 deaths documented by biologists among radio-collared calves in the first weeks after calving (36.7 percent of the total number of calves), wolves killed seven (10.8 percent) of the radio-collared calves, while bears accounted for five calf deaths (7.6 percent). Another four calves (6.1 percent) were killed by either wolves or bears, but biologists were not able to determine which one. Two calves drowned (3.1 percent) and one died of starvation (1.5 percent). The other five (7.6 percent) died of undetermined causes.
Though the herd ranges primarily within the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service does not permit wolf control on federal lands in Alaska, its calving grounds are on state lands and both the department and game board felt the action was necessary to preserve the herd.
This is the first time in about 15 years that state wildlife biologists have actively participated in a wolf control program.
In the past five years, the state has relied on private pilots and gunners to kill wolves in different parts of the state where moose or caribou populations are too low to meet the needs and demands of subsistence and sport hunters. More than 800 wolves have been killed in the past five years as a result of the program.
Permitted pilot/gunner teams shoot wolves from the air or land and shoot them, practices that have twice been outlawed twice by Alaska voters in state ballot initiatives but were revived by the Alaska Legislature five years ago when it gave the Alaska Board of Game authority to approve citizen-based predator control.
But that program could be halted if a ballot initiative that would allow only ADF&G personnel to shoot wolves or grizzly bears from the air in the event of a “biological emergency” is passed in August. The initiative is on the Aug. 26 primary ballot.
The situation with the South Alaska Peninsula herd may very well have fallen into the biological emergency category, said Joel Bennett of Juneau, one of the initiative sponsors.
“It sure sounds like it would be a candidate for what we had in mind,” Bennett said. “The two key elements from our perspective is that the commissioner make the determination that it’s a biological emergency, not the Board of Game, and that it is based on adequate data, which in this case they would argue they have.”
While there is no definition for exactly what a “biological emergency” is, Bennett said it is basically a situation where a population will suffer an irreversible decline if something isn’t done.
In the past five years, the state has relied on private pilots and gunners to kill wolves in different parts of the state where moose or caribou populations are too low to meet the needs and demands of subsistence and sport hunters. More than 800 wolves have been killed in the past five years as a result of the program.
You and FormerLurker need to get over yourselves and your feigned sense of outrage over the FUCKING WOLVES. Remember, $12.40 buys a non-resident wolf license in Alberta, Canada; they aren't ate up with the "Save the WOLF!!" bullshit.
You hold no moral high ground here, you're an anti-hunter. I get my "cheap fucking thrills" exposing you for the fraud you are. Go back to El-Pee, Fred Mertz.
I can't, I'm not enough of a wild eyed bloodlustful fanatic wishing to kill a bunch of "Mooselem" children, and was banned for daring to speak out against those who were ecstatic over the deaths of innocent people.
I'm sure you fit in quite nicely there though, so I'm sure you are a member in good standing at ElZionPost.org...
And BTW slick, I'm not Fred. I am also not an anti-hunter, I am against shooting creatures from airplanes and killing animals for sport.
I have no quarrel with those who depend on what they hunt for food, just with those who do it for fun.
Nobody is killing wolves for sport from an airplane, you and the Defenders of Wildlife are a bunch of goddamn, motherfucking, lying sons-of-bitches. Eat shit and die you jackass.
Nobody is killing wolves for sport from an airplane
No, they are doing it for political show as to excite all the "sportsmen" who ejaculate over a "good" kill while dreaming of Sarah Palin holding their dicks.
you and the Defenders of Wildlife are a bunch of goddamn, motherfucking, lying sons-of-bitches. Eat shit and die you jackass
So how am I lying? My opinion that this assault by air is morally bankrupt and is totally unnecessary. The facts are, it IS taking place, although you are apparently trying to say it isn't, which makes YOU the liar.
Fucking liar. I posted the links to the Alaska Fish & Game regulations and you wouldn't look for yourself. You don't have the moral high ground here, you are not the arbiter of what is and is not true. The truth is you want to see the eradication of tens of thousands of caribou and moose by the wolves, you only bring emotional rhetoric to the table:
Facing a "serious conservation concern," members of the Alaska Board of Game voted to adopt a predator management program to help a severely declining caribou herd in Game Management Unit 9D (Figure 1). The Southern Alaska Peninsula (SAP) herd presently numbers 600 caribou, down from a historical high of 10,000 caribou in 1983.
"It would be irresponsible in this case for us not to take action to help this herd," says ADF&G Division of Wildlife Conservation Director Doug Larsen.
The SAP declined dramatically over the last five years (Figure 2), in spite of good nutrition and minimal hunting harvest. The problem has been calves are not living as long as they should. Adequate numbers of calves have been born each year, but survival has been poor. During the past two years, nearly all of the calves been killed.
The management program approved by the Board will focus on removing wolves near the SAP calving grounds. Department staff plan to use a helicopter to locate and kill about 25 wolves from two to four wolf packs in the area. Goals of the program are to allow calves to survive to adulthood and to stop the overall herd decline. Brown bears, though abundant, do not kill as many calves as do wolves on the Alaska Peninsula.
"This type of focused predator reduction is very similar to programs conducted elsewhere by state and federal agencies addressing conservation concerns," Larsen said.
Although the herd ranges extensively on federal lands contained in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, they tend to calve on state lands, where predator control can be conducted.
Surveys confirmed nearly all calves died early in life and at a much higher rate than observed in other Alaska herds (Figure 3). Field studies on the Alaska Peninsula have shown that just about all calf deaths at this stage of life are caused by large predators (Figure 4).
The future of the SAP depends on whether or not calves survive during the next few years, and with high fuel prices and a lack of alternative food sources, the welfare of many local communities depend of the future of this herd.
Caribou herds have disappeared before, but because the SAP herd has been identified by the Board as important for human consumption, the Department is mandated by Alaska's "intensive management" law to take steps to rescue the herd.
The herd's decline was initially suspected when caribou surveys conducted in 2003-2005 indicated a drop in the number of calves reaching adulthood. Winter population counts in 2004-2005 also indicated a population decline, but not dramatically different than patterns seen in the late 1980s, when a decline was followed by herd growth.
Fucking liar. I posted the links to the Alaska Fish & Game regulations and you wouldn't look for yourself.
Hey dick breath, I know they are making excuses for themselves, it doesn't mean those excuses are valid or beyond reproach.
Their science has been called into question more than once by other groups of scientists, and as far as I can tell they have made faulty assumptions and misleading statements.
You took issue with the fact that I reported the aerial targetting of wolves, at first apparently saying that it was NOT going on. Perhaps I misunderstood you, but that is the impression I get.
Regardless, it's QUITE apparent you are a firm supporter of killing animals for sport. Fuck you.
Actually, I hunt coyotes for very specific reasons: the USFS technicians tell me to tear them up, there's too many in the areas I hunt and they commit predation on deer fawn and turkey poults. I alluded to that in post #161. But I knew I could draw you out into the open when I just let on that it was all about drawing blood. You're not to bright, boy.
But I knew I could draw you out into the open when I just let on that it was all about drawing blood. You're not to bright, boy.
As much as you think you might have "won" something here, it's apparent that YOU are not too bright as you've presented yourself to be a bloodthirsty asshole who gets his kicks killing God's creatures, not for food, but for sheer enjoyment.
You are not as slick as you think you are, you little twit.
State wildlife officials believe they have saved more than 1,400 moose or nearly 3,000 caribou -- or some combination thereof -- with a winter program to kill wolves from aircraft, although the wolf kill remains far below what the state wanted.
Pilot-gunner teams have taken 124 wolves to date, according to Bruce Bartley, spokesman for the Alaska Division of Wildlife Conservation. The goal was 455 to 670 wolves.
Still, the kill, which is ongoing, is more than the 97 wolves gunners took last year.
The program runs as long as conditions allow or until state biologists decide wolf-kill quotas have been met. The kill has been low this year because of a March that lacked the fresh snow and good light needed for optimum hunting conditions.
The exact number of moose or caribou saved by thinning wolf populations is hard to determine. Fish and Game's ungulate survival calculations are based on an average consumption of approximately 12 moose or 24 caribou per wolf per year.
A kill of 124 wolves would thus translate to 1,488 moose or 2,976 caribou or some combination thereof.
But if the moose are small -- calves or yearlings -- and easy to kill, the wolves might eat more. If the hunting is difficult, the wolves might be forced to survive on less. And in some cases, wolves can supplement their main diet of moose and caribou with other prey such as Dall sheep or beavers.
Meanwhile, the number of moose and caribou saved for reproductive purposes, wildlife viewing and some hunting could be much smaller if wolves killed in March or April are quickly replaced by cubs in the summer. Wolves have high reproductive rates, leading some biologists to question the effectiveness of the hunts.
Studies conducted on the Kenai Peninsula by noted biologist Rolf Peterson from Michigan Technological University found that even if 40 percent of the wolves in a pack died over a winter, pack sizes could be rebuilt by the start of the next winter.
Peterson found the Kenai wolves killed, on average, one moose every 4.7 days.
The hunting efficiency of wolves in winter is what led state wildlife officials to support aerial wolf hunting -- or wolf control as it is commonly called -- in areas of the state where biologists believe moose and caribou populations have been depressed by predation from bears and wolves, bad winters or in some cases by humans overhunting them.
The ability of wolf populations to quickly rebuild and retain high rates of predation has been one of the arguments opponents of the hunts have used to criticize aerial gunning as inefficient and unnecessary. However, most opposition to the hunts is built around an affection for wolves by proponents.
Long a subject of fear and loathing in North America, wolves were exterminated in most of the Lower 48 in the last century. They hung on only in the far north forests of Minnesota until American attitudes changed, and a program was begun to restore the animals to their traditional range.
Wolves have since spread from Minnesota into nearby Midwestern states, and a reintroduction program initiated in Yellowstone National Park has helped wolves to re-establish old hunting grounds in Wyoming, Montana and Colorado. Meanwhile, the animals have become a wildlife-viewing icon for nature lovers everywhere.
CONTROVERSIAL PRACTICE
Aerial wolf control in Alaska remains highly controversial. Citizen efforts to stop it continue. Alaska voters have twice approved initiatives to stop the hunts, and another is slated to go on the ballot later this year.
In March, Superior Court Judge William F. Morse invalidated the aerial killing of wolves in several small areas of the state while issuing a ruling upholding the predator control program. The suit was filed by Friends of Animals, Defenders of Wildlife and the Alaska Wildlife Alliance.
Ron Clarke, assistant director of the state's Division of Wildlife Conservation, told The Associated Press that Morse's ruling was largely a victory for the program.
"It reaffirms the state's position," he said. "We thought we were doing it appropriately and for the most part we are."
Later in March, the shortfalls identified by Morse were fixed and the programs reactivated, according to Cathie Harms, spokeswoman for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
But Priscilla Feral, executive director for Friends of Animals, wasn't satisfied.
"The state's mean-spirited and deeply unpopular wolf-shooting forays must stop," she told the Associated Press.
Wolf-control teams in airplanes kill a fraction of the 1,200 to 1,300 wolves taken by trappers in Alaska each year, but the airplane kills remain at the center of a hot debate.
Wolf kill summary: Preliminary Fish and Game numbers
Here is a breakdown, by game management unit, of the 124 wolves killed by same- day airborne hunting and the 157 by more traditional hunting and trapping, according to Fish and Game. Alaska has a total of 26 game management units.
GMU 13
WHERE: Nelchina Basin, a broad area generally bounded by the Glenn Highway on the south, the Denali Highway to the north, the Copper River to the east and the Chickaloon River to the west.
Desired population: 135-165
Fall population estimate: 242-296
Wolf kill, same-day airborne: 33
Wolf kill, hunting and trapping: 53
Total: 86
Post-control population: 156-210
GMU 16
WHERE: Drainage of the Yentna River, a tributary to the Susitna River just north of Anchorage
Desired population: 30-60
Fall population estimate: 106-173
Wolf kill, same day airborne: 20
Wolf kill, hunting and trapping: 23
Total: 43
Post-control population: 63-130
GMU 19A
WHERE: North slope of the Alaska Range in a huge area around the tiny village of Sleetmute
Desired population: 30-36
Fall population estimate: 59-93
Wolf kill, same day airborne: 15
Wolf kill, hunting and trapping: 16
Total: 31
Post-control population: 28-62
GMU 19D
WHERE: North slope of the Alaska Range in a huge area around the town of McGrath
Desired population: 40
Fall population estimate: 86-114
Wolf kill, same day airborne: 29
Wolf kill, hunting and trapping: 23
Total: 52
Post-control population: 34-62
GMU 12 AND 20E
WHERE: Swath of land half the length of the Alaska-Canada border from Wrangell- St. Elias National Park and Preserve in the south to the community of Eagle
Alaskan Group Asks for Permission to Kill Wolf Pups
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Residents along the Kuskokwim River want state game managers to allow them to kill wolf pups in their dens.
Wolf numbers seem to be rising in the wilderness around Aniak, McGrath and other villages, and the task once carried out by young Native men should be employed again to help moose populations recover, said Greg Roczicka, natural resources director with Orutsaramuit Native Council in Bethel.
The tribal government and a Fish and Game advisory committee along the central Kuskokwim River have submitted separate proposals asking the Board of Game to overturn regulations outlawing the practice.
The Game Board is scheduled to consider the proposals at upcoming meetings later this month and in February.
At least one group plans to speak against the idea.
"We're fervently opposed to it," said John Toppenberg, director with Alaska Wildlife Alliance. "It's been illegal in Alaska for a long time and deservedly so. It's a Stone Age concept of wildlife management and has no place as a management tool for civilized people. It's just barbaric."
The tribal council and advisory panel also want the board to let hunters kill bear cubs in dens. Along with wolves, bears are blamed for low moose numbers around central Kuskokwim villages, said Doug Carney of Sleetmute, former chairman of Central Kuskokwim Advisory Committee.
Last year's poor aerial wolf-kill and trapping season in Game Unit 19A, located around Aniak, is factoring into concerns that wolf numbers are rebounding, he said. Aerial gunners and trappers killed 10 wolves last winter and spring, compared to more than 70 in each of the two previous years, because a lack of snow made tracking and spotting wolves difficult, he said.
This winter, people are seeing wolves more often than in the past two years, and trappers are finding more wolf tracks, said Carney, a trapper.
Roczicka said pup killing is necessary because the central Kuskokwim region once teemed with moose, consistently providing subsistence meat for hunters from Bethel and villages. Because moose numbers have plummeted in the last five years, subsistence hunting has been eliminated or sharply reduced, he said.
"It was the best moose habitat in the country and it's almost totally gone now," he said. "We want to do everything we can to get moose numbers up back to the way they were."
Reviving the practice will allow predator management to continue if the state's aerial wolf-kill program ends, said Roczikca. Efforts to stop it include a citizen's initiative to appear on the state ballot in August.
Many of the Yup'ik hunters who once controlled wolves in Western Alaska have died, but their stories have passed down, Roczicka said. People who are still alive today often share those stories, including members of Orutsararmuit, Roczicka said.
The group's seven-member council asked Roczicka in the fall to submit the Game Board proposal, he said. The old practice is referenced in a 1997 report by the National Academy of Sciences called "Wolves, Bears and their Prey in Alaska."
According to the report, Athabascans in the Interior controlled wolf numbers to protect caribou and moose by keeping track of wolf dens in hunting areas and systematically killing pups.
Other methods of wolf control that are no longer practiced — and are not requested in the proposal — include wiping an animal's blood on knives or sharp rocks, he said. Wolves cut themselves as they licked away the blood, bleeding to death through their mouths.
Also, some trappers would coil sharpened baleen or willow sticks into taut wads, cover them with fat and freeze the device, he said. Once gobbled by wolves, the wads would open, piercing stomachs and killing the animal, he said.
Game Board chairman Cliff Judkins said the pup-killing proposal is worth discussing.
"It certainly has merit if it's effective and is done by Native and Eskimo people," he said.
"They certainly know where the dens are at and they're not interested in wiping out wolf populations any more than we are."
If the Game Board doesn't pass Orutsararmuit's proposal at its meeting beginning Jan. 25, the central Kuskokwim Advisory committee wants its proposals passed at the Game Board's next meeting beginning Feb. 29.
The proposals only apply to Game Management Unit 19, surrounding Aniak and McGrath.