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.

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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.