Gray wolf in Denali National Park and Preserve / NPS
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is again planning to shoot hundreds of bears and wolves, according to a release from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Part of the plan would involve stationing shooters in helicopters to fire on the animals from the air. Other gunners would operate from snowmobiles.
The plan is open for public comments until December 27.
The goal is to thin the population of bears and wolves by as much as 80% within a 20,000-acre area bordering Denali and Lake Clark national parks and preserves. The state would like to see populations of those animals in the area reduced to 35 wolves, 700 black bears, and 375 brown bears.
The proposal put forward by Alaska DFG suggests the state may need to shoot 100 wolves per year to maintain the population goal of 35 animals in the 20,000-acre area under consideration.
According to the release from PEER, the efforts to reduce the population of these predator animals is intended to increase the amount of moose and caribou near Denali and Lake Clark.
Reducing the amount of wolves and bears around the national parks, of course, means fewer of those animals enter the park, and fewer opportunities for visitors to these Alaskan national parks to see those animals. Potentially, that's a huge loss in tourism revenue for the state as wolf viewing is a big draw. According to a statement from PEER in 2019, when the Alaska Department of Fish and Game elected to open wolf hunting in areas bordering Denali in 2010, the success rate of viewing wolves in the national park was 45%. By 2019, the success rate had plummeted to 1%.
“Alaska’s predator control policies are cruel and the epitome of penny wise and pound foolish," said PEER Executive Director Tim Whitehouse in the release. "The amount of tourist dollars from people seeking to view these predators in the wild dwarfs any incremental increase in hunting fee revenue the state hopes to realize.”
You can read the proposals here. And, if you'd like to submit a public comment, follow this link.
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Comments
Kill the wildlife, and you kill humanity. There is a balance to the ecosystem. We're already imbalanced. Don't perpetuate the issue further with this illogically-minded approach.
As a life long Native Alaskan, it would be wise to open the area up for trapping & hunting. People are busy, making a living & caring for their families in the cities, so it's unlikeky to draw many folks to go trapping for 2 weeks to 3 months, unless you want to lose your day job. Remote cabins are needed to be built by trappers...
There are too many wolves in general everywhere and we need to seriously trap these animals because they do largely deplete the moose calves, and caribou, especially, the grizzly (brown) bears. In the last couple years, in some villages like Ruby, wolves have come in and have eaten folks' sled dogs. It can be dangerous to walk around actually, and so folks drive or use the snow machinne everywhere they go. Last winter, a dog musher & his dogs were chased for several miles, and almost killed by a pack of wolves in Minto. There's got to be a better market for the furs. I know I appreciate fur clothing because if your not dressed warm outside at -40 in one of our 7 months of Winter, you will die. Ask villagers. They are aware of fewer moose because of the wolves, and grizzly bears. Btw, grizzlies eat black bears.
The interior of Alaska has historically had a very low population of people due to the lack of ungulates (moose, caribou and sheep) caused primarily by wolf and bear predation. Families were very large, with 12 to 15 children as only a handful survived childhood.
The fake narrative of a "natural balance" is a fairy tale for ignorant, urban people. What occurs in Alaska's interior are predator pit conditions, wherein even the predators become scarce after killing off the ungulate populations. These are century long conditions.
Alaska Natives (we are not "indigineous" like animals and plants, we are human beings), primarily snared moose, caribou, along with hares and birds. It is the most effective method to aquire food with the least effort, when failure results in losing your children and elders.
Our elders denned wolf pups, killing them in their dens in May during the pup season. Every effort to kill bears and wolves was used to reduce the deaths among families.
The logic of aerial killing wolves and bears creates optimal opportunity for moose and caribou calves to survive increasing the entire biomass. This enhances the populations of all animals to meet nutritional needs of humans and allow for the decadent pleasure of ignorant, rich outside people to view animals and create nonsensical myths from reality, without destroying our cultures.
The national parks have destroyed wildlife and encroached on our lands, with totalitarian administrators dictating ecobabble regulations destroying large regions in Alaska.
Predator control is one of the few functions the State of Alaska conducts that is meaningful to wildlife and subsistence.
As an Alaska resident, I am in full support of this. Forgive me for putting the needs of Alaskan families to feed their children ahead of people from the lower 48 wanting to take a photo and check one more thing off the vacation bucket list. This has nothing to do with money or hunting for trophies. Alaska is simply trying to rebuild a caribou herd that has been decimated by predators. Funny how we never hear Alaskans telling the lower 48 what they can or can't do regarding feeding themselves. Put simply, no Alaskan residency. No opinion on this matter. In a place where even half decent quality meat at the store is $10-$20 a pound (much more in remote native alaskan villages), many people would not be able to continue to live here without the ability to harvest some of the bounty of wildlife this special place has to offer. This state is more that just a playground for lower 48 to come and take photos for 1-2 weeks out of the year. It is the home of 730000 people year round.
Grown men are discharging firearms from airborne vehicles.
In the lower 48 you work for your food- you dont just get to go hunt it. If the area is not habitable for the people there than the effort should be made to move to where you can live.
The govt is not in the business of making the outdoors an ideal place for you to harvest food to make your life easier. In fact the govt could care less. It why we have so many homeless.
The subsistence lifestyle of many alaskans has become dependent upon the govt for pretty much there entire existence. Where else in the United States are people given money and food to live because the are is not suitable for habitation? Where else does the govt manage herds for subsitance hunting?
No where.
Please note that the planned killings referenced in this article are dwarfed by The coordinated slaughter of other wildlife you and I pay our federal government to commit on our behalf so we can have cheap subsidized meat. Just last year our government's "Wildlife Services" department used firearms, poisoned bait, cyanide bombs and other lethal devices to kill 305 wolves, 6 grizzly bears, 437 Black Bears and 237 mountain lions. In addition to providing public comment when given the opportunity, we should also remain cognizant of the fact that we vote with every dollar we spend and every bite of food that we consume. Purchasing meat from a grocery store is a vote for this continued slaughter. Something to think about when we choose to let other people provide us with food.
Occasional sport hunting by citizens has nothing to do with the wholesale slaughter of big game by corrupt cops and professional hunters. And no we are not as poor as you assume.