Courtesy of John Burch
John Burch spent 20 years studying a family of 11 wolves. Then one day last winter, the entire pack was shot dead.
The wolves were called the Lost Creek pack, and they’d carved out a
territory along the border of Yukon–Charley Rivers National Preserve,
deep in the Alaskan interior. Burch, a National Park Service biologist,
had been using radio collars to follow the wolves as they hunted
caribou, mated, and raised pups, mostly within the boundaries of the 2.5
million–acre preserve of boreal forest, open tundra, and massive river
valleys east of Fairbanks. As long as the wolves stayed inside
Yukon–Charley, they were relatively safe. Cross the preserve’s invisible
border, though, and they were running for their lives.
That’s because Yukon–Charley abuts one of Alaska’s “predator control”
units, where state agencies kill wolves and bears to boost populations
of moose, caribou, and other animals that people eat. In February, after
the Lost Creek pack loped past the border of Yukon–Charley, state
biologists shot all 11 wolves from a helicopter, wiping out 20 years of
research in a single day. Had it been a few years earlier, the state
agents charged with predator control would’ve seen Burch’s radio collars
and spared at least some of the Lost Creek pack. But no longer, Burch
says: “There’s no negotiations anymore. They kill almost all the wolves
they can find. These last two winters they’ve pretty well gotten most of
them.”
As harsh as it can seem, many Alaskans defend predator control,
arguing that environmentalists from the Lower 48 who’ve squandered their
own wilderness for interstates and strip malls don’t understand how
important it is for Alaskan families to be able to shoot a caribou or
moose. In many ways, they’re right: With a box of cereal costing as much
as $14 and a gallon of milk $10, getting through a winter in rural
Alaska often depends on successful hunting, which in turn depends on
healthy caribou herds.
State law requires wildlife managers to maintain high populations of
game animals like caribou. When the law went into effect in 1994,
Democrat Tony Knowles
was governor, and he carried it out through nonlethal (but expensive)
methods like sterilizing female wolves and relocating packs from places
where food security was most important to people. But under the state’s
past three Republican governors, predator control has been ramped up,
and relations between state and federal wildlife agencies have broken down.
It started in 2002, when Republican Frank Murkowski took office. One
of Murkowski’s first actions was to revamp the Alaska Board of Game, the
body responsible for most wildlife decisions. Before long, the new
board allowed state agents and hunters to gun down wolves and bears from
the air. And in places like Yukon–Charley, where the National Park
Service prohibits predator control, the board instead tried to increase
bag limits and extend wolf and coyote season to months when the animals
have pups in tow.
During the tenures of the next two Republican governors—Sarah Palin
and Sean Parnell—predator control grew even more intense. The board
eliminated a122-square-mile buffer protecting wolves around Denali
National Park, allowed hunters to bait bears with doughnuts and bacon
grease, and approved “spotlighting,” or using a bright light to rouse
black bears from their dens to shoot them as they emerge. “There’s been a
focused effort to dramatically reduce populations of wolves, coyotes,
and bears,” says Knowles. “And the methods and means they’ve used are
both unscientific and unethical.”
Though the state’s tactics have little chance of actually endangering
Alaska’s bear or wolf populations as a whole, they’re essentially a big
middle finger to the feds. Hunting is allowed in Alaska’s national
preserves, but blatantly manipulating the balance of predators and prey
violates the 1916 Organic Act that created the national park system. So
since 2001, the National Park Service has asked the state Board of Game
60 times to exempt hunting practices that unfairly manipulate the
predator-prey balance from Alaska’s national preserves. Each time, the
board has refused. So again and again, the National Park Service is
forced to overrule them.
That doesn’t sit well with Alaskan wildlife officials. Being told how
to do their job by the National Park Service offends them about as much
as does the Environmental Protection Agency trying to put the kibosh on
Pebble Mine, the proposed open-pit copper mine
that Gov. Parnell would love to see built in the headwaters of one of
the world’s most prolific salmon fisheries. “Federal overreach is
nothing new,” says Ted Spraker, chairman of the Alaska Board of Game.
“But in the last decade it’s really kicked into high gear.” Killing the
Lost Creek wolves was part of a clear message from the Parnell
administration: The EPA and the National Park Service aren’t in charge
here.
Courtesy of John Burch
If that all sounds like bad news, sit tight: Three new developments
this fall could turn things around. First, in typical plodding
bureaucratic fashion, the National Park Service has started fighting
back. In September, it proposed a sweeping rule
that would ban baiting brown bears, killing wolves and coyotes when
they have pups, and killing black bears in their dens in national
preserves. It also pre-emptively prohibits any other practice “with the
intent or potential to alter or manipulate natural predator-prey
dynamics.”
In other words, hunting will still be allowed in national preserves,
but no matter who’s in office, the land won’t be managed like a giant
game farm. The rule is up for public comment now and will probably be
implemented next year.
Meanwhile, the popularity of Parnell—once considered a shoo-in in
next week’s gubernatorial election—is dropping; an Oct. 9 poll put him
behind independent candidate Bill Walker, 46 to 51 percent. The reason
Walker is doing so well is that in August, Democrats dropped their own
nominee, Byron Mallott, and threw their full weight behind the
independent ticket. Alaska is a notoriously tough place to call a race,
but with more than half of voters unaffiliated with a political party,
Walker stands a good chance. At this point, it’s unclear whether Walker
could improve relations between state and federal officials, but he
certainly can’t hurt them. It’s hard to imagine a less environmentally
friendly politician than Parnell. (Walker, by the way, believes in
climate change and opposes Pebble Mine.)
The most hopeful sign of change, though, comes from a lone,
radio-collared male wolf called No. 1308. Earlier this year, John Burch
watched in awe as No. 1308 left Denali National Park and wandered 750
miles over to Yukon–Charley, where he proceeded to take up residence in
the same territory that had been occupied by a pack killed for predator
control. Last month, No. 1308 met up with a lone female wolf, and Burch
is hopeful that over the long, dark winter, the two will mate and form a
new pack. Whether that pack can stay alive, though, is another story.
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