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I vote for wildlife abundance
Posted by David Johnson (Host)
on Mar 08 2006
I certainly respect the perspectives on this issue that have been posted, both recently, and as we have sporadically touched on this issue in the past. It’s good to have these discussions, because none of us has all the answers on how best to be good stewards of Alaska. It is important to the community discussion that we don’t all think in lockstep. It’s pretty obvious from reading here on just about any subject that there’s no real risk of that. <grin>
Let me more broadly explain my position.
I have a very clear memory of flying over the Fortymile country about 30 years ago with a Fish and Game pilot. We were in the ADFG Beaver on our way from Tok to Ft. Yukon.
As I looked down at mile after mile of black spruce I was struck by how much of Alaska is pretty hungry country. Moose densities in the area at the time were quite low, likely a result of poor habitat (in large measure because of successful fire suppression), predation, a few really tough winters, and human use. The Fortymile herd was looking pretty poor at the time, too.
That memory has stuck in my mind, and out of it and many more bits of information came this perspective: Alaska has the potential for wildlife abundance. What it takes to achieve abundance is habitat management, predator management, good harvest management – and a bit of luck in the weather department.
Population estimates – whether they are of people or of wild things – have always been controversial. You’d think that with people we could get a pretty good nose count, but even they are really only just estimates. For the big money spent on US censuses, you’d think people wouldn’t complain, but it’s a constant struggle, because someone’s ox is always being gored. In my experience it’s kinda like that with wildlife numbers, too. People who like the numbers hold them up and those that don’t like them criticize them.
Interestingly, if one takes the lowest population estimate reported by the News-Miner for two decades ago and compares it to the highest recent estimate, the population could almost have tripled. <grin> But, seriously, I’m not really suggesting that. To me, whether or not Alaska’s overall wolf population doubled or 1.3ed or tripled isn’t nearly as significant as the fact that it has increased in the face of wolf control.
The Associated Press took a picture of a wolf hide auction at ADFG in Fairbanks in the mid-1970’s, and I happened to be identifiable in the picture, so was named in the caption. A woman in the Lower 48 somewhere enclosed a copy of the picture, and in her letter wrote that she wanted me to have the picture so that when wolves were eliminated from Alaska, I could show this to my children.
Now, three decades later, not only has her dire prediction failed to come true, wolf numbers have actually increased. Wolf control works, and it does not cause wolf populations to come tumbling down.
I, for one, am perfectly willing for Alaska to employ wolf control from time to time where it is needed. I don’t see it as a problem, but as a solution. We’ll never come to a place where everyone who wants a moose or a caribou will be able to take it, but wildlife of all kinds can be much more abundant in some areas than it currently is.
Along with that, of course, must come habitat management. Unless fires are allowed to burn in a more natural regimen, forests are not renewed, and in much of the state we get endless miles of virtually unproductive black spruce as a result. And we must appropriately manage harvest as well.
I recognize that wolf control is abhorrent to some, and I’m sorry for that. My hope is that as people begin to recognize that it is being done in an environmentally sensitive way, it will become accepted.
Alaska has great potential for providing wildlife abundance, and wide diversity of human experience. It’s an amazing place to live. But as long as we humans are part of its ecosystems, we are going to be manipulating those systems. I maintain that we can do it well, albeit imperfectly, and that people and wildlife will benefit in the long run.
My vote is for wildlife abundance.
David
Previous: Not maximum abundance! David Johnson Mar 10 2006
Next: Rebuttal to rebuttal ... and a new slogan David Johnson Mar 09 2006
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