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well...
Posted by bushrat on Mar 07 2006
Mike, I've written quite a bit already about wolf control pros and cons. And I've sent in comments to the Board as well that sum things up. Any of that, would be happy to pass along to David. As you can see from my post above, my main concern is that the increasing amounts of hunters that we most assuredly will have if we meet Intensive Management harvest objectives (And IM law is behind all of this pred control) will effectively ruin certain areas of Alaska, or make hunting in these areas over-crowded to the point that Alaska becomes...well, not like Alaska. I suppose some will say all this is inevitable, "don't buck the future, Mark," and all that, but I don't think it has to be. My other concerns are the image of hunting and hunters this portrays to the public, and the continued misunderstanding hunters have of predators like bears and wolves and their valued place in our ecosystems up here. We are seeing more and more bear-control proposals in the books and I fear just how far this may go. Luckily, our administration, and thus our Board of Game, realizes that bears are a hot-button issue they don't really want to deal with as they are with wolves. We probably won't see airborne hunting of bears, or even same-day-airborne hunting of bears approved by the Board.
In all of this, what I've noticed is that we have a system of extremes. And somewhere there is a sound middle-ground approach, and many in ADFG have told me they'd like to see us get back to middle ground approach. Alaska is finite. Our game is finite. We are trying to increase the supply side in order to "please" various hunting orgs and hunters who push for more moose and caribou and less predators, more of a slice of the ungulate pie, if you will. Sounds reasonable on the face of it, "Why should wolves and bears get to kill 60% and more of the ungulates while we humans only get to kill 2-5%?" "Aren't we more important than non-human predators?"
It's funny-strange, because that is the same ideology that caused the extirpation of bears and wolves in the lower 48. Not that that will happen up here statewide, but some of the comments hunters make are simply not the kind of thing you'd expect to hear from hunters. "Wolves are vermin." "I'd be happy if there weren't any wolves." "The only good bear is a dead bear." These kind of thoughts, I've noticed, are beginning to permeate hunting and more and more hunters espouse them these days. So that scares me greatly.
In most areas of interior Alaska, moose populations probably are typically in low-density states in an equilibrium with predators like wolves and/or bears. And it's been that way for thousands of years. This is the "balance" nature seems to favor. And many don't accept this and want to manipulate it. And we can manipulate it, and have, as in Unit 20A on the Tanana Flats. Some don't like the crowds now on the Flats, and all the cow and calf hunts. Irony of ironies, there is a proposal now before the Board to take away controlled use restrictions on atvs along the Wood River so that we can bring the moose population in 20A DOWN, because there are too many moose there now due to the success of the wolf-control programs that went on there and the continued high levels of trapping going on. In essence, we may have over-achieved in 20A, and all it will take is a couple of deep snow winters to cause a massive die-off.
The fact that the widespread fires in some places have not been taken into consideration really bothers me as well. So many thousands of acres burned, and we KNOW this will have a positive effect on moose populations ten to twenty years down the line...yet we still go ahead with wolf and bear control in some places that saw widespread square miles of habitat burned.
It's a tough call, for sure, with various opinions and "feelings." I've interviewed and talked with all sides, from Haber and McNay to our moderator and Priscilla Feral. I try to respect all sides. Sometimes I have myself gotten heated and lost control <grin>. All the biological data I've researched shows that wolf numbers will rise dramatically in lightly-harvested areas after control ceases. And that it won't take long before we're back at square one. The only viable way to achieve what AOC and or current BOG seems to want is ongoing predator control forever. We will change things...some want Alaska to be like Sweden. Some would like to see few wolves and bears roaming the country. Some don't mind seeing thousands of hunters in the field.
Greed. What drives this is mostly greed. There are too many who stand to profit from less wolves and bears and more moose and caribou. I don't necessarily oppose this...I've got no problem with air-taxis and guides and outfitters wanting to make a buck. But I think the big picture (the future) isn't being looked at objectively. I'm looking twenty and more years down the line. If we max out Alaska with hunters, is that what we really want? Maybe many of us do.
Best, Mark
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