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Defenders Magazine
Defenders in Action: Unfriendly Skies for Wolves, Bears
In Alaska, the predators have become prey. At press time, more than 100 wolves in the state had been killed under a state-sponsored predator control program. More shooting will probably follow, and bears will likely be next.
Alaska voters have twice rejected aerial wolf hunting in ballot measures, but Governor Frank Murkowski overturned the ban in June 2003. Officials from the Murkowski-appointed Alaska Board of Game subsequently approved the killing of 140 wolves in the state’s Nelchina Basin, an 8,000-square-mile area about 100 miles northeast of Anchorage, and 40 wolves near the village of McGrath, in central Alaska. Most recently, the board sanctioned the shooting of nearly 300 wolves in another 20,000 square miles of interior Alaska.
Conservationists say that aerial wolf hunting has no ecological justification. “This aerial gunning program is designed to artificially boost game populations, simply for the convenience of thousands of sport hunters who descend into rural Alaska every year,” says Joel Bennett, a former member of the Alaska Board of Game and a spokesman for Defenders. “It’s a triumph of raw politics over biology, and insults the voters of the whole state.” Defenders has petitioned the U.S. Department of the Interior to issue regulations that would halt the aerial shooting. Says Bennett, “Our efforts to address this issue with Alaska’s leaders have fallen on deaf ears, leaving us no choice but to turn to the federal government for help.”
In March, the Alaska Board of Game adopted a policy that would also allow the state to haze or kill grizzly and black bears to increase moose and caribou numbers. Under the policy, state officials could authorize the relocation, sterilization, trapping, baiting and land-and-shoot hunting of bears, as well as permitting the sale of hides and skulls and other bear parts.
