The department said Thursday that starting around June 1, two biologists and four pilots would kill wolves by shotgun during a three-week period.
State area biologist Lem Butler says the plan will limit the number of wolves shot to those on the calving grounds. Biologists believe there are fewer than 30 wolves on the 1,571-square-mile island.
“The situation constitutes a dire conservation emergency,” Fish and Game Commissioner Denby Lloyd said in a letter sent to Rowan Gould, acting director of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. “Immediate action is necessary.”
The state Board of Game closed all caribou hunting last year.
“Without taking action this spring to remove wolves on the calving grounds, an extremely low level of calf survival due to wolf predation will accelerate the downward spiral of the (caribou) and eventually the wolves themselves,” Lloyd predicted.
Unimak caribou have declined from more than 1,200 animals in 2002 to about 400 last year.
Most of Unimak Island lies within the boundaries of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. Federal managers are making an environmental assessment of reducing wolf numbers.
“We’re conducting a review and continue that process,” said Bruce Woods, a spokesman for Fish and Wildlife in Alaska.
Fish and Wildlife has conducted several predator control programs to protect bird populations in recent years, including a $3 million effort to poison the rats that overran Rat Island on the western edge of the refuge.
The state isn’t waiting for the feds to protect caribou.
“We will do something by about June 1,” said Pat Valkenberg of Fish and Game. “We are the primary wildlife managers on all federal lands in the state.”
The two agencies have been meeting since November, and Fish and Game officials described the sessions as cordial.
Ninty-nine percent of the calves perish before they reach 1 month, said Lem Butler, a state area management biologist from King Salmon. And there are only five bulls for every 100 cows, many of them older animals.
“That’s the heart of the issue,” he said.
Fewer than 100 people live in False Pass, the major town on the island.
“Residents of False Pass are extremely concerned about the precipitous decline in caribou on the island because caribou have been an important part of our subsistence lifestyle for thousands of years,” wrote Nancy Dushkin, president of Isanotski, the Native village corporation in False Pass, in a letter to Fish and Game. “Now we see no caribou at all and ... the number of wolves and bear appear to be at all-time highs.”
Thank you USFWS!!!!!
I don't have the information about what factors may have contributed to the caribou decline. It's possible that over-population led to forage overgrazing and limitations, and are a [unmentioned] strongly contributing factor, in an area with a finite limit to caribou range. Or perhaps the weather cpnditions for the last few years have cause extra stress in winter and early spring, as has been known to happen in island caribou populations.
It's unclear how the cow/bull ratio got so poor, but I doubt it happened over just this last winter. And such a ratio is *definately* going to contribute to poor reproduction rates.
Neither of these problems will be solved by reducing wolf populations, of course. Both could/should have been noticed and addressed by management before such extremes ocurred.
But, having neglected actual management up to this point, it does appear that the situation may be approaching emergency status [if Ak F&G stats are correct], if the caribou population is to survive. Reducing wolf numbers will not solve the problem of course, just buy a little more time to address the underlying causes, whatever they are determined to be.
max0330 - I asked because the tenor of your comments appeared to imply that you did not consider the Fed gov't to be your govt, but rather an 'alien' power. So, I was curious if that was the case.
I believe this is another attempt by F&G to protect the sport hunters and outside trophy hunters. Guiding services operate in this area and F&G offers brown bear permits. This is the only island in the Aleutians with a native caribou population. I don't believe the residents are their priority but once again, the big game guiding businesses.
Federal law preempts state law in this case. This is federal land managed by the USFWS and land that was not a part of state land. All public lands were retained in federal ownership at statehood. That is the law whether you like it or not!
It has also been argued that Alaska's 1994 game management law is in conflict with the Organic Act and ANILCA. In the 1941 Hines v. Davidowitz case the Supreme Court ruled that where state law stands as "an obstacle to the accomplishment of and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress" it must be preempted. (This case will probably also be cited regarding Arizona's immigration law.) The "property clause" of the Constitution (Article IV, Section 3) also gives the Federal government the right to legislate concerning its land and the wildlife on it.
Fish and Game has no legal authority to conduct predator control on federal lands. It is time for the federal government to make that very clear to them.
“We are the primary wildlife managers on all federal lands in the state.”... Pat Valkenberg of Fish and Game.
"Any person who knowingly violates or fails to comply with any of the provisions of this Act or any regulations therunder shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both."
USC 16.5A, Subchapter III, sec.668d is about the National Wildlife Refuge System: "With respect to refuge lands in the State of Alaska, those programs relating to the management of resources for which any other agency of the Federal government exercises administrative responsibility through cooperative agreement shall remain in effect, subject to the direct supervision of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as long as such agency agrees to exercise such responsibility."
I think Parnell needs to get his Department of Law going on this one before he sends out his gunners again.
To my knowledge Alaska hasn't seceded yet.
Pat
However, if the caribou really have fallen anything close to that low, and the wolf population is about 30, I can see how at this point there is need for fast action. I just wonder, with the caribou declining so far so fast, and the bull/cow ratio and age being what is stated, why has F&G waited this long to take *any* management action, apparently?
The caribou on that island are assets of the people of the state of Alaska and are not subject to federal management. True, the feds are always trying to usurp that authority - which was never given to them by the states in the first place.
"Give them a chance to do their job." Nah. It's not their job. And, if it were, all they'll do is study it some more until there are no more caribou - then they wouldn't have to do anything. That's their undeniable track record.
Meanwhile, explain to the moms out there who don't have caribou to feed their families how the feds are "studying" the problem from their Anchorage high rise.
No way you are anything but one of those pro-fed compromisers who wants to sacrifice state sovereignty. You should be ashamed.