Park Service concerned about Alaska's helicopter wolf kill

[babylonsister]

Helicopter wolf kill worries Park Service

FAIRBANKS: Fish and Game program called into question.

By KYLE HOPKINS
[e-mail]

Published: March 16th, 2009 10:12 PM
Last Modified: March 17th, 2009 12:40 AM

A new predator control effort that has the state shooting wolves from helicopters east of Fairbanks is raising alarms with the National Park Service.

The state Department of Fish and Game on Saturday began killing the wolves in hopes of boosting caribou numbers in the Fortymile herd that ranges from the Steese Highway to the Canadian border. At least 30 wolves have been killed so far.

The goal is to shoot as many as 150 wolves before they get too many caribou calves and before the snow and the wolf tracks disappear.

But Park Service officials, who learned of the plans late last week, questioned the state's approach. Among the concerns raised in interviews and in Park Service documents:

What will the shooting mean for wolves that travel between state land and a neighboring, 2.5-million-acre national preserve? What if the state overestimated how many wolves live in the area, and kills too many?

"We don't want to see the wolf population, or those packs that frequent the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, be eliminated or reduced significantly," said Debora Cooper, the Park Service's associate regional director for natural resources.

more...

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/wildlife/wolves/story/725545.html

[Botany]

1. a healthy wolf population helps a healthy caribou population

Palin & company are ignorant of biology & ecology

[Wilms]

2. .

[Name removed]

10. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tim01]

3. The wolf population

will continue to increase until they kill so many game animals that there are not enough game animals to support their population. Then their population will decrease due to starvation.
Or their numbers can be managed.
Nature is unmerciful, people don't have to be.

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. There's the key word - GAME ANIMALS.

They want to kill of wolves to increase the number of caribou so they can sell more hunting licenses for people to kill caribou.

It has nothing to do with the animals, and everything to do with making money.

[Tim01]

7. I would guess you are right.

With humans being what they are, animals are safest when there is a way for humans to make money from their presence.
Wolves will kill caribou or humans will kill caribou. Wolves do not have the jaw strength for a clean kill. They attack from the ground disemboweling or hamstringing big game animals, which takes them to the ground where the pack can work on more vital parts. Wolves also kill everything else, including any competing predators.
I don't think anybody it trying to eradicate wolves, just knock their numbers back a bit.
Do you think a caribou would rather be chased and torn down by a pack of wolves or die in a a few seconds by a bullet? Wolves prefer calves too, easier to kill.

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. It is funny how caribou and wolves lived in equilibrium for tens, if not

hundreds of thousands of years, but when europeans show up with guns they suddenly need to be 'managed'.

How about letting the wolves live, and only selling hunting licenses to bow hunters, so as to eliminate the drunken half-wits that want to gun down caribou from 150 meters? If humans were not hunting the caribou as 'game animals' then there would be plenty for the wolves, just as nature intended.

[Tim01]

11. Nature doesn't "intend" anything.

Wolves kill as much as they can to breed more wolves until there isn't enough to kill. They are not demons and they are not saints. They are wolves.

And as far a the bowhunter. Arrows kill by cutting an animal to death. And arrows are very slow. Deer can actually jump out of the way at the sound of the bow string.But if the deer does jump it more likely results in a poor hit and bad wounding followed by a slow painful pointless death. In every video I have seen of an arrow hit the deer runs away. It then has to be tracked down.

[RaleighNCDUer]

12. A slow death by an arrow wound is more pointless than a quick death

by a high-powered rifle? Are you seriously arguing that hunters go out and kill things for the sake of the things they kill?

Any brainless yahoo can kill an animal from 150 meters out. It takes skill and determination to make a kill with a bow. And any good bowhunter will track a wounded deer. It's all part and parcel of being a real hunter.

Again, your 'breed more wolves until there isn't enough to kill' makes no sense. If it did, then alaska would be populated solely by wolves.

Predators and prey always reach equilibrium. Until humans screw it up.

I suspect you are not a hunter. Just -- well, I won't go there.

[Tim01]

13. An animal that runs is more likely to be lost

than an animal that drops. And lots of animals are lost to arrow hits. And that is absolutely a a pointless death.

Wolves breed untill there is not enough game to support their population, then their numbers are driven back by starvation, at which point the number of game animals increases again. It goes back and forth like this all the time. That is the equilibrium you are referring to.

The game animals are not better off because a "good hunter" can wound them then track them down and finish them off. It is certainly not a way I would want to die. Injured and chased,terrified, then shot again.


You suspect I am not a hunter? Yeah, you go with that.

[RaleighNCDUer]

15. Well, you certainly know nothing about wolves, or about predator/prey

relationships. You apparently know nothing about bow hunting.

You may call yourself a hunter, but liking to shoot things in the woods does not make you a hunter. I would guess that 70% of the guys with guns who have hunters licenses are not hunters.

[Tim01]

16. I've spelled it out how the relationship works.

Tell me where I am wrong.

Here is a video of a deer that runs away with an arrow sticking out of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vddh0zOTWws


And 2 videos of deer dodging arrows.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKur90RQJ1U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLndxEdUTkM

Tell me what I don't know about bow hunting.


I am starting to get the feeling it is you who doesn't know anything about hunting. Are you a hunter? I am.

[Botany]

21. caribou hunting w/ a bow would very difficult

I have hunted deer w/ both a bow and shotgun.

I support the right and respect the skill of those who can hunt caribou w/ a
bow but the size of Alaska, the topography of the land, the vegetation of the
land and the odds that Caribou would run a long way after an arrow strike makes
the use of a firearm a good choice.

[RaleighNCDUer]

23. I don't disagree.

What I was going after was the absurdity that killing wolves from helicopters is a good thing because it will increase the numbers of caribou for hunters to kill.

I'm talking what is good for the ecology and the animal populations, and others here are talking about what is good for trophy hunters.

Personally, I wouldn't want to even try bow-hunting caribou. I'm long past the physical condition it would require, unfortunately.

[Botany]

24. That is why Jesus made the 30:30

[biopowertoday]

14. i imagine the native population in Alaska has hunting rights. Many

use the caribou for sustenance and is a way of life for them.

[RaleighNCDUer]

20. True, and the key word there is 'sustenance' - they are not

trophy hunters (though I reckon more than a few may act as paid guides for trophy hunters).

Wolves may target calves, but they also target the old and the sick, culling the herd of the unhealthy, which results in an overall strengthening of the stock. Human hunters - particularly trophy hunters - go for the biggest and best, the animals which are at their prime, which results in an overall weakening of the stock.

I don't think the native population is a real contributor to the problem of a decline of caribou - which the wolf killing is supposedly aimed at correcting.

[biopowertoday]

22. I did not

mean to imply that the native americans were a contributor to the decline. Not at all.

[hamsterjill]

19. Bingo.

It has NOTHING to do with the animals. Nada.

In nature, predators don't kill more than they will consume. There is a delicate balance in nature. When mankind enters the picture, that balance gets screwed up completely.

And yes, this is all about money.

[islandmkl]

6. ahhh...'game' animals...those are 'game' for humans...

a simple question: without human intervention OF ANY KIND, did the caribou become extinct? was alaska over-run with wolves?

people don't need to be 'merciful' in this situation...they should not even be involved...

yeah, shooting a wolf is more merciful that a caribou being attacked by a wolf...nice rationalization

[Tim01]

8. Yes it is more merciful.

No contest there.

And yes people should be involved. They should be involved in all parts of nature. It is their removal from nature that leads to politicians making decisions about things they know nothing about.
If people had to get dirty and bloody every once in a while there would be a lot more vegetarians, a lot fewer factory farms, and a lot more people concerned about the environment they have such a monstrous effect on.
Humans enjoy their ignorance.

[islandmkl]

17. i've been out...so i'll catch up...

yeah, a 'quick death' is SO much more merciful...

you seem to think human beings hunting things with sophisticated weaponry (the advantages of being 'evolved') is more in tune with 'nature' that the natural processes involved with predators and prey...

you might be a hunter, but you don't grasp the true beauty of nature dictating the ebb and flow of life...concerning your rationalization that humans should be "...involved in all parts of nature", i would submit that that applies to:

1) humans undoing any damage they have done AS HUMANS to the natural state

2) humans would be better served letting nature runs its courses...our interference is nothing more than some notion that 'we know better' than nature itself....

it's too bad some pain and anguish is involved in the predator/prey chain...somehow, i doubt that ANY animal, any living thing, understands that death is SO much better when it is quick...nice human rationale to apply, if it makes you feel good...

[Tim01]

18. You think torture is fine.

I don't agree that a slow painful terrifying death is fine. Humans have the ability to kill without causing suffering. It is a choice. Other animals don't have that choice. And they don't care. And as somebody who has seen so much death by predators, a quick kill is VERY much more merciful.ESPECIALLY to the animal who is suffering. Sure it doesn't matter to you.

Soccer moms and IT professionals don't understand how violent nature is. And they don't have the decency to visit the slaughter house where the animals die after spending their whole miserable life on a feed lot of a factory farm.

I've tried to save lots of animals after dog attacks and cat attacks. The suffering of rabbits, bird,mice, sheep,goats, squirrels, cows and other cats and dogs goes on for days sometimes. And I've had plenty of opportunity to allow an animal to suffer till it dies when I could have stopped it.


You don't care if animals suffer, so we don't have any common ground.

When hunters don't hunt, it makes it easier for developers to turn woods into shopping malls and subdivisions, because people in cities just want more places to live and more places to shop. That is what actually happens.

[Rosco T.]

4. Is there money in the budget for the Park Service for some ground-to-air missles?

just asking.