Hey guys let not forget why we are celebrating this weekend.

I’m taking a day off all the doom & gloom political garbage today. This is for all of us who think we’re to old to do some of things we’ve dreamed about. Yesterday out only neighbor Bud turned 86 he still puts up a thousand square foot garden and gets insulted if I offer to help with his firewood. Bud served with the Alaska Scouts during WWII the scouts were an elite group that fought the Japaneses on Attu  & Kiska Islands. Anyone who knows Bud would understand why he lives the way he does, Bud was raised with the “just do it” attitude. His family moved to Alaska at the height o the Great Depression like most others they didn’t have much money so instead of going to the government with their hand out they came up with a plan. They moved from Illinois to the Seattle are where they worked for a couple of years doing what ever they could to make a living saving every dollar they could. In his spare time his dad went to the local library and got books on boat building and  shaping wood. during that two years Bud and his dad built a boat took the motor from their,  put it in the boat, then carved a prop to power the boat. With the boat finished they loaded family something like six kids from toddle hood to 14yo. They landed in Petersburg, Alaska a few weeks later. When he retired at 65 Bud and his wife filed on the land where he lives now. He cleared all his land for his garden and house at an age most of us are kicking back taking life at a slower pace. His wife passed away a few years ago and he slowed down some but if he doesn’t get in an eight day he thinks he’s getting lazy. Bud told me once “when I get to old to put in a garden an get my own firewood call my boys to come and get I’m to old to be out here”. From the way thing look now it may be a few more years before I have to maake that call.

The ice went out from the lake we use for the local airport so several families with vacation cabin will be out over the weekend to help Bud celebrate life.

http://www.adn.com/2007/12/14/v-gallery2/110641/bear-sightings.html

Things are coming to a head Alaska Dept. of Fish & Game are going to go a head with the wolf  kill this spring. Lets hope they get it done before USFW get some activist judge to shut them down before this springs calf crop is up and running.

http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=12543628Standoff over refuge wolves heats up as calving season approaches

Standoff over refuge wolves heats up as calving season approaches

Pat Vaulkenburg with Fish and Game says the herd’s decline is unlike anything seen before in Alaska.  Pat Vaulkenburg with Fish and Game says the herd’s decline is unlike anything seen before in Alaska.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game wants to shoot wolves on the island to keep them from killing caribou calves, but the island is a wildlife refuge.  The Alaska Department of Fish and Game wants to shoot wolves on the island to keep them from killing caribou calves, but the island is a wildlife refuge.
The state says the wolves kill most of the calves before they reach one month old.  The state says the wolves kill most of the calves before they reach one month old.
Bruce Woods with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, says the federal agency wants to conduct an environmental assessment before making a decision.  Bruce Woods with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, says the federal agency wants to conduct an environmental assessment before making a decision.
Also on KTUU.COM

*
Feds threaten legal action over predator control
*
Fish and Game wants to shoot preserve wolves to protect dying herd

by Jackie Bartz
Tuesday, May 25, 2010

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The battle over killing wolves in a national wildlife refuge could peak next week.

The state shows no sign of backing off of its plan to start shooting wolves on June 1, but the federal Fish and Wildlife Service says it will take legal action if that happens.

Officials for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Alaska Department of Fish and Game say they want to work together to manage the caribou herd on Unimak Island, but the problem is that they have very different ideas about how soon they need to act.

On the verge of extinction: that’s how the Department of Fish and Game sees it.

“The Unimak Island caribou herd is in a steep decline. It’s a decline the likes of which we have never seen before in a caribou herd in Alaska,” said Pat Vaulkenburg with Fish and Game.

But the feds feel differently.

“I would say that our biologists don’t necessarily agree with the level of urgency that the state is claiming,” Bruce Woods, a spokesperson for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said.

In the state’s most recent fall survey of the Unimak Island caribou herd, biologists spotted only seven caribou calves.

The state blames wolves.

Biologists say wolves kill most of the calves before they reach one month in age.

The state wants to shoot wolves preying on calves to bolster the herd’s population.

“We can remove approximately 10 to 20 wolves on the western portion of Unimak Island on the calving area and we expect that we will have dramatically increased calf survival and be able to protect that herd from disappearing,” Vaulkenburg said.

But unlike any other aerial wolf hunt the state has planned, these calves are born on a national wildlife refuge, forcing the state to square off against the feds over who’s in charge.

“We feel that because that departs from any recent historical action that it is a significant action and it does require an environmental assessment,” Woods said.

A federal environmental assessment takes months; calving season begins in a little over a week.

State biologists say they can’t wait.

“We feel that we have ways that we can do that, but we would rather do it in cooperation with the (U.S. Fish and Wildlife) Service,” said Tina Cummings with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in an interview last week.

The feds are holding their ground and say they will consider shooting wolves as trespassing and will ask the U.S. Attorney to launch an investigation if it happens.

That’s a move that environmental groups and conservationists agree with.

“While predator-prey populations are decimated is not suitable for refuge lands. It’s fine when it’s conducted on state lands, but on refuge lands there are separate management mandates,” said Wade Willis, a former biologist for the state agency.

Willis blames the state for mismanaging the herd.

“The state has had a decade to address the precipitous decline of the Unimak caribou herd. They’ve dragged their heels and they’ve waited until the final hour to bring this to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and they have nobody to blame but themselves for the lack of time,” Willis said.

Fish and Game asked the state Board of Game to approve an emergency order to extend hunting and trapping through June.

Biologists also want to transplant bull caribou on to Unimak Island to increase the population.

Contact Jackie Bartz at jbartz@ktuu.com

When I decided to start this blog I planned to do more lifestyle than politics. However there are so many hot ticket wildlife issues going on in Alaska right now it’s hard not to jump on my soapbox. The attached Anchorage Daily New article is about one more example of on group who are offering a caribou herd to the alter of gia. This really irritates me you have a food source that people depend on is being decimated by wolves yet it is the wolves that are being protected. In the video I posted yesterday Ashley Judd blabbed about managing wolves with scientific principals. She’s right they should be, but they are not they are being managed by a bunch of gia worshipers who treat them, wolves and other predators, like gods while ungulates become the blood sacrifice. It is the ungulate herds that traditionally feed people over the eons not wolves. In Alaska wildlife has and is the traditional mainstay for both rural and urban, courts have even ruled that all Alaskans are subsistence hunters. Alaska is unique among the states in that all resources are jointly own by the people. This includes wildlife, making the Alaska Department of Fish & Game the primary manager of all wildlife in Alaska including federal land. However in Katie John v Alaska the Ninth Circuit gave the federal land managers control of subsistence hunting & fishing on all federal lands and certain waters in Alaska. Title VIII of ANILCA set up the Federal Subsistence Board and Regional Advisory Councils. The regional Councils are made up of local users who meet twice a year to discuss local subsistence needs as well as other subsistence issues then advise the full Board whose job, among other duties, is to allocate fish & game for subsistence uses.

Last spring Secretary of Interior Salazar met with the chairs of all ten of the regional council’s. One of the items discussed was predator control on federal land. The chairs urged the secretary to align federal predator control programs with those of the state. Too many federal land managers look at this as the state usurping their authority when they should be looking out for the interest of the people. Until federal and state managers come together on predator control predators will continue to win and gia will get his sacrificial caribou.

All that said the people of Unimak should not have waited for the wolves to destroy one of their primary sources of food before acting. They were the ones there they should have been hunting and trapping the wolves long before they got out of control. People have gone to long believing the government will fix all their problems when they had the means to take care of them before things got out of hand.

Anchorage Daily News
Legal action threatened over state predator control in refuge
By MARY PEMBERTON
The Associated Press
Published: May 24th, 2010 06:45 PM
Last Modified: May 24th, 2010 06:45 PM
A federal agency threatened legal action if Alaska moves ahead with plans to kill wolves.
In a letter Monday, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service cautioned the Alaska Department of Fish and Game about proceeding with plans to kill wolves on refuge land on Unimak Island without a federal special-use permit.
Doing so would be considered as a trespass on the refuge and such action would be referred to the U.S. attorney, according to a Fish & Wildlife Service news release.
The letter was in response to one that state wildlife officials sent last week to Rowan Gould, the Fish & Wildlife Service’s acting director.
In that letter, Corey Rossi, director of the state Division of Wildlife Conservation, said, “Immediate action is required to protect the herd, specifically this year’s calves.
“Waiting to take action places this year’s calves in too great a jeopardy,” wrote Rossi, a strong proponent of aerial predator control where wolves and bears are killed to increase moose and caribou numbers. Federal agency is required by law to follow a certain process — a process the state is well aware of but apparently doesn’t want to wait for, said Fish & Wildlife Service spokesman Bruce Woods.State Fish and Game Department officials declined Monday to answer questions or comment.
Wade Willis, a former state wildlife biologist and a vocal player on the conservation side of Alaska wildlife politics, supported Fish & Wildlife’s action.
“Fish and Wildlife cannot tolerate the state’s attempts to obliterate the last 30 wolves remaining on Unimak Island,” he said.
“Federal management authority always takes preference over state management mandates. The USFWS is mandated to protect natural diversity and abundance. Alaska prefers to manage for a game farm, where wolves and bears are decimated to allow unchecked commercial guiding and trophy hunting.”
Last week, the state Fish and Game Department announced that beginning about June 1 it will shoot some wolves on Unimak to protect caribou calving grounds under its aerial predator-control program.
The department plans to use two biologists and four pilots to kill wolves over three weeks on Unimak, which is part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge.
It would be the first time in recent history that aerial predator control was used inside a national refuge in Alaska.
Caribou are a subsistence food for people living on the island, but their numbers have declined sharply. In 2002, there were more than 1,200 caribou. Last year, fewer than 300 were counted. The state has an unofficial estimate of up to 30 wolves.
In its letter, the Fish & Wildlife Service said it recognizes the urgency of the situation but is required to follow federal law when initiating new management programs on its refuges.
It also points out that the federal agency has been working with the state to better understand the biological factors in the herd’s decline since concerns were raised in December. To that end, it has issued permits to allow additional radio collaring and biological sampling of wolves and caribou, the letter says.
The federal agency hopes the jurisdictional issue can be resolved without going to court. If it can’t, maybe the court could resolve it “once and for all,” Woods said.

The arrogance of some people amaze me. You have to listen to Ashley Judd expel her vast knowledge on wolves and wildlife management. This woman is clueless to listen to her you would think the wolf is a helpless house dog I’ll never understand the mindset of gia worshipers . Wolves are far from helpless they are one of the most efficient predators on the planet earth. If Ashley and her cohorts up at the Defenders of Wildlife could only watch a pack of wolves take a moose down and eat it alive. Or watch a pack hamstring 10 or 12 caribou then eat 2 or 3 of them awhile the others are left to die. The second video is the Alaska answer to this nonsense.

It looks like another American icon is headed south of the border. Polaris is to snow machines as Chevrolet is to automobiles. I’ve owned several Polaris snow machines over the years,  for all-round performance and durability Polaris was the best at least in my humble opinion. I can’t see how it will remain at the top using substandard labor. Made in Mexico is the twentieth century equivalent of the last century’s  Made in Japan. The difference is Japan knew it and worked to change their image I don’t believe Mexican manufactures care.  I realize it was a business decision by Polaris but North America is the largest buyer of recreational snow machines & ATV’s in the world. How long do manufactures think they can keep putting their largest market out of work and still stay a float? How many European and Asian countries buy toys? There will always be a market for few utility machines but no one makes them any more all of the over the counter snow machines made today are toys. Some may be sold as “dual purpose” but they’re toys.

As news sank in that its largest employer will be shutting down, the village of Osceola, Wis., looked to an unknown future Friday.

More than 500 employees of a Polaris Industries manufacturing plant were told the day before that their jobs would be gone within two years. Some work will move to other plants in the region, but much of the operation will move to Mexico.

What followed was shock, employees and community members said — shock that hasn’t even begun to wear off.

“We can’t even really begin to imagine what’s going to hit us,” Polk County supervisor Larry Jepsen said of the local economic impact. “It’s kind of like a volcano, and the dust cloud hasn’t hit the ground yet.”

Besides the hundreds of employees who have built their lives around Polaris, many others stand to be affected — plumbers and electricians who subcontract at the plant, the local hospital, just to name a few, Jepsen said.

“This thing ripples through the entire community. It really does,” he said.

Doug and Marlene Nykanen have owned Osceola Pharmacy in the village’s downtown for 25 years. Many of their customers work at the plant, Marlene Nykanen said. “That’s going to change.”

To read more of the article:

http://www.twincities.com/ci_15138693

State to shoot wolves on island

UNIMAK: Dwindling caribou prompt cull on calving grounds.

By MIKE CAMPBELL
mcampbell@adn.com

Published: May 20th, 2010 09:36 PM
Last Modified: May 20th, 2010 09:36 PM

Concerned that wolf predation may imperil the remaining caribou on Unimak Island, managers with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said Thursday afternoon they’ll launch predator control in less than two weeks on the largest island in the Aleutians, preferably by helicopter.

“The situation constitutes a dire conservation emergency,” Fish and Game Commissioner Denby Lloyd said in a letter sent to Rowan Gould, acting director of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. “Immediate action is necessary.”

Missing from the announcement at U.S. Fish and Game headquarters was any representation by Fish & Wildlife, on whose land wolf control would take place. Unimak Island, the only island in the Aleutians with a native caribou population, is dominated by the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. Federal managers are in the midst of making an environmental assessment of reducing wolf numbers.

“I’ve heard nothing about a response today,” said Bruce Woods, a spokesman for Fish & Wildlife in Alaska. “We’re conducting a review and continue that process.”

But the state intends to act.

“We will do something by about June 1,” said Pat Valkenberg of Fish and Game. “We are the primary wildlife managers on all federal lands in the state.”

The two agencies have been meeting since November, and Fish and Game officials described the sessions as cordial.

Although no official estimate of wolf numbers on the 1,571-square-mile island exists, biologists who often encounter wolves during caribou surveys believe there are no more than 30 animals in three to five packs.

Under Fish and Game’s plan, two biologists and four pilots would kill wolves by shotgun during a three-week effort focused on the caribou calving period, shooting nearby wolves while collaring calves as part of a mortality study.

“The targeted technique limits the number of wolves taken to those on the calving grounds,” said Lem Butler, a state area management biologist from King Salmon. “This technique allows us to achieve our caribou objectives while removing the fewest number of wolves possible.”

Once numbering about 5,000 animals, Unimak caribou have declined from more than 1,200 animals in 2002 to about 400 seven years later — roughly 20 percent a year.

Ninty-nine percent of the calves perish before they reach 1 month, Butler said. And there are only five bulls for every 100 cows, many of them older animals.

“That’s the heart of the issue,” Butler said.

Moving bulls to Unimak from the nearby Southern Alaska Peninsula caribou herd is also being considered.

“Without taking action this spring to remove wolves on the calving grounds, an extremely low level of calf survival due to wolf predation will accelerate the downward spiral of the (caribou) and eventually the wolves themselves,” Lloyd predicted.

The state Board of Game closed all caribou hunting last year.

Fewer than 100 people live in False Pass, the major town on the island.

“Residents of False Pass are extremely concerned about the precipitous decline in caribou on the island because caribou have been an important part of our subsistence lifestyle for thousands of years,” wrote Nancy Dushkin, president of Isanotski, the Native village corporation in False Pass, in a letter to Fish and Game. “Now we see no caribou at all and … the number of wolves and bear appear to be at all-time highs.”

Fish and Wildlife has conducted several predator control programs to protect and enhance bird populations in recent years, including a $3 million effort to poison the rats that overran Rat Island on the western edge of the refuge. But virtually no predator management programs have been conducted to protect ungulates on national wildlife refuges in Alaska.

http://www.adn.com/2010/05/20/1287728/state-to-shoot-wolves-on-island.html?

I woke up this morning with a case of brain block I’m sitting here trying to come up with something to write and all I’m coming up with is just a big blank space in my head, oh well that’s not the first I’ve been accused of that. Anyway, what is up there is a caffeine-induced mess, I can tell it’s going to be one of those days. At least the week is almost over I did managed to get a few things done. I got my bait stations up and started baiting one of them. In this unit Alaska residents are allowed four of them if they get a predator control permit, we have black bears out the wazoo. Black bear and salmon are our main sources of meat so hit them pretty hard. I also got our spuds planted yesterday we shoot for 1000lbs. to get us through the year so we don’t have to fly out spuds for Anchorage, some day we might actually hit our goal. It will be another week and a half before it will be safe enough to put the rest of our starts out. We seldom get a full hundred growing days a year most years it’s more like 80 to 90 days.

More Jiberish:

Spring in Alaska is an amazing time of the year before the snow melts things are starting to grow. It’s common to see patches of snow with foot tall grass up through it, if only my spuds grew that fast and plentiful! Alaska springs are kind of a love/hate thing while most of you are eating from your gardens we’re still watching snow melt off and mud dry up. If we can get our garden in by Memorial Day we figure we’re doing good. But we are also coming out of months of dark and cold to green warm days with almost 24 hours of daylight. The fiddleheads are coming up, wild chives are going strong, and black bears are start digging out, just in time for our favorite meal; country fried bear steaks with fiddlehead & chive fritters. Our part of Alaska doesn’t have much for moose but we can get all the black bears need. With a spring and fall baiting seasons we can get most of our red meat in fairly quick, though it does make for some long days. The Boys have been getting antsy for fiddleheads so for the last week or so the boys have been out scouting for some good fiddlehead patches. I think they have pretty much all of them scoped out for about a half mile radius of the house. They even picked and cleaned a few of the early ones for fritters a couple of days ago.

Even more jiberish:

This time of the year our summer resident bug eating birds start showing up. Last week the swallows returned to Hiline they’ll hang around eating skeeters for a few weeks before heading out again. We also have several pairs of robins and some varied thrushes who will do a job on the crawling bugs. Anything that is willing to eat bugs is encouraged to hang out here. Occasionally some little brown bats we move into one of our bat houses but not often. Well enough is enough time to go.

Bear Country or Bare Country either way that’s where I live, you see my little corner of Alaska is what Tom would call a predator pit. We got bears and we got wolves but no moose, it has been ten years since I have been able to hunt moose in my back yard. The big difference up here is you can’t blame Fish & Game or the Board of Game. Alaska has several different types of consumptive user along with multiple land mangers. You have sport hunters, subsistence/personal use hunters, state managers, and federal managers. We have our share of infighting between the various consumptive users but they are more like typical sibling rivalries. The real management problems come from the non-consumptive side. There are two basic factions, one the blue haired grandma’s who ride the park service buses hoping to see a bear or wolf doing their thing along side the road. I don’t really blame them bears are fun to watch. However I don’t think they are the main problem, although they are gullible and swayed easily. The one I consider the real enemies to Alaska wildlife are the Walter Mitty’s and the outright Gia worshippers. These people have an agenda and the money to back it up. The Walter Mitty’s, they have such boring little lives that predators have become their alter ego, the bigger and badder the better. And how dare another human pop their bubble. Even worse are the Gia crowd these folks believe that except for a select few that man should not live or tread outside the concrete jungle, you guess who the “select few” are. They believe the wilderness is their personal church and has to be protected at all cost. No hunting, no logging, the hell with peoples needs, just hail Gia, the all knowing all seeing Gia.
You can depend on one or both of these groups to file a law suite every time the Board institutes a predator control program. Even though they know the state is going to win they file anyway because if they can be tie up things in court until the end of the season they have effectively won even though the courts rule in favor of Alaska most of the time. They are also very much aware that states have limited budgets, the more a state spends on lawyers the less it has to spend on game management. Slowly but surely Alaska is gaining just in my home unit we are starting the second year of our black bear snaring program. We also have a predator control program for Alaska residents where, in designated areas we are allowed to take any and all black bears with out a bag or possession limit. It is taking time and money but Alaska is winning the predator war, a war that has to be won so our children will be able to enjoy the resources as previous generations have.
Well so much for the soap box stuff, at least for now.