Uproar Over Wolf-Control Plan

ANCHORAGE (Alaska): A new proposal by Alaska officials to thin out wolf packs promises to revive a controversy that produced a brief tourism boycott, over 20,000 letters of protest to the governor and a public-relations nightmare for the state.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has proposed killing some 200 wolves starting in July, using on-the-ground methods at first and aircraft, if necessary, starting in October. The programme, to run three to five years in two regions, is aimed at boosting game herds targeted by hunters.

The wolf-control proposal has dismayed environmentalists who said the state promised last December to leave the wolves alone throughout 1993.

Five months ago, international outcry over a similar plan prompted Governor Walter Hickel and state Fish and Game Commissioner Carl Rosier to veto any plans for aerial gunning of wolves in 1983.

Commitment

Fish and Game officials said they are keeping their promise because they will delay any aerial wolf hunting until 1994 — despite the wording of the department's newest proposal.

"What the department had committed to, what the commissioner had committed to, is that there would be no aerial wolf control in 1993. We are going to honour that commitment," Wayne Regelin, deputy fish and game commissioner, said.

The Alaska Board of Game, a seven-member panel appointed by the governor, will meet in late June in Fairbanks to deliberate over the Fish and Game wolf-culling plans, along with 90 other wolf-management proposals submitted from interested citizens.

Proposals submitted by hunters include wolf-eradication plans such as poison and hunter bounties of US$1,000 (RM2,570) per wolf.

Environmentalists’ proposals include wolf-protection plans such as the elimination of now-legal trapping in areas bordering national parks.

Alaska is the only US state where the species is not considered extinct, endangered or threatened. State officials peg the grey wolf population at 5,900 to 7,200.

Many hunters are anxious for the state to shoot wolves, claiming the animals are pressuring moose, caribou and wild sheep populations and making it difficult for sportsmen to bag game.

But environmentalists and animal activists say the wolf-control plan amounts to game-ranching that, would give lazy hunkers better chances for success.

"The hunters who are screaming for wolf control want more than their fair share, most are trophy or sport hunters with excellent incomes (so they don’t need the meat), and most want to be able to go just a few miles from home, kill the animal and be back home in front of the TV the same day," wrote Carol Jensen of Anchorage, who proposed that the board adopt a wolf protection plan.

Few issues in Alaska are so emotional as wolf management, said Jay Hammond, who served as governor from 1974 to 1982.

A one-time bounty hunter who killed hundreds of wolves in the 1940s and 1950s, Hammond said he later came to change his mind about the animals that were once considered pests.

"I had this old statement:

If I’d had my druthers (choice), there would be more wolves up here than people," Hammond said during a recent stop in Anchorage.

But wolf control, even by aerial gunning, is sometimes beneficial t& game populations, he said.

Debate

"All passions aside, if you’re going to have a reduction of wolves in a certain area, the most surgical and practical way to do that would be through aerial methods. But is it worth the hue and cry?" he said.

Meanwhile, Democratic Congressman Peter DeFazio of Oregon has introduced a bill that would give the US Interior Department veto power over any state’s aerial predator-control plan.

To some, the method of wolf-culling is only a minor part of the debate.

"The idea of killing wolves to create a game farm in Alaska is intolerable," said Wayne Pacelle, national director of the Fund For Animals, which has fought the state’s wolf-control plan.

"Whether a wolf is shot from an aircraft or snared on the ground or shot after a plane lands, the methods aren’t so important. More important is the end — a dead wolf," Pacelle said. —Reuter

Source : The Malay Mail, May 28, 1993

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