In moves designed to counter Alaska's current approach to wildlife management, National Park Service officials in that state are instituting hunting and trapping bans to protect wolves and bears in their parks and preserves.

While it's hard to say whether the folks at Denali National Park and Preserve are trendsetters without first exploring all the other websites in the National Park System, their site for planning a backcountry trek should be a model, if it's not already.

A decision by Alaska's Board of Game to eliminate a wolf non-take zone on land surrounded on three sides by Denali National Park and Preserve has prompted an animal rights group to call for a boycott on tourism travel to Alaska this year.

Alaska wildlife officials, in a move certain to flare jurisdictional issues between the state and federal governments if OKed, are proposing that they be allowed to kill predators in national parks and preserves without prior approval from the National Park Service. The proposal has prompted a message from National Park Service officials that Alaska's wildlife management powers "are not absolute when we are dealing with Federal lands within the State."