Gunmen Paid To Shoot Wolves From The AirBy Jerry Garner
The Alaskan wolf cull has always been a controversial topic. Opponents describe it as savage and brutal, while proponents say it is necessary for the protection of other species. Alaska has upped the ante once more by offering to pay $150 for every wolf killed in the Alaska interior.
Mankind has always had a fear of the wolf, which often times resulted in hatred. This sparked the species of being hunted to near extinction in Europe, and aroused outspoken protests from ranchers when wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone. Alaska is one of the few places on Earth where wolves have flourished, but that livelihood is in jeopardy as the Government pays hunters to kill the animals from the air.
Shooting wolves from the air has always sparked heated debates in Alaska. It was first put to a public vote in 2000, when the citizens of Alaska gathered around a public referendum to ban the aerial hunting of wolves. Discouraged by the public view, then-Governor Frank Murkowski bypassed the aerial hunting ban by still allowing pilots to participate in land-and-shoot practices.
While the practice outraged many of the State’s residents, who often have a love of Alaska’s wildlife, the land-and-shoot wolf hunts continued for years. In 2003, Governor Murkowski opened the door for aerial wolf hunting, which he called the Predator Control Program. This program has been continued, and now expanded, by Murkowski’s successor, Governor Sarah Palin, despite numerous ballots and petitions to stop the killing of wolves.
Under the revised Predator Control Program, the 180 pilots and gunners who have received permits to shoot wolves from the air will now be paid a bounty of $150 for each wolf they kill. The bounty will be collected when the hunter turns in the left front leg of the wolf, which will be used for scientific study by State biologists.
According to Denby Lloyd, commissioner for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the left foreleg of the wolf can be used to determine the age of the wolf that was killed. This information will help the State adjust the program in future years.
The State estimates that there are 7,000 to 11,000 wolves living in the Alaska interior. The cull on wolves has been implemented to protect Moose and Caribou, by reducing the number of their natural predators. The plan has outraged many Alaskans.
"What the state is involved in here has more to do with animal husbandry than science, the elimination of one species to artificially inflate another." said John Toppenberg, director of the Alaska Wildlife Alliance.
The state was hoping to kill 382 to 664 wolves this Winter, but only 114 have been reported dead so far. With the end of the wolf killing season drawing near, authorities have offered the reward as an incentive for pilots, who have reported difficult times in wolf hunts due to escalating fuel prices and bad weather.
The Department of Fish and Game seems to have taken a “whatever it takes” approach to reaching their annual goal in the wolf cull. The Department stated that it will increase the number of aerial wolf hunter permits if necessary, and even fly in biologists to help pilots track the wolves. The Department even went on to say that, as a last resort effort, State employees may be used to track and kill wolves by helicopter.
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5 comments:
What does it matter if the wolf population increases a bit? Let the wolves be. But their reason to kill them is to protect the elk and caribou? If the wolves eat most of the mooses, then there will be less wolves as they will starve out. THen the mooses and elk come back and then the wolves again, and so on in waves for all of time.
Does anyone realize that this is probably the way its been since forever?
Yeah, I don't see them doing anything to stop man from hunting the moose and caribou, so how low can the population be?
I also notice that the estimate 7,000 to 11,000 wolves. That's a pretty big gap. I would think they would want to at least know how many there are before they start paying people to kill them off.
This is sick and disgusting. Alaska's government keeps sliding backwards on their policy towards wildlife.
Alaskans voted, twice, in 1996 and 2000, to outlaw aerial gunning down of wolves. Their own government is ignoring their wishes.
The wolves have done nothing to harm or interfere with any Alaskan. Yet the government motivated by special interest groups, keeps trying to slaughter these packs.
They don't even have the guts to call it a bounty, what would you expect from the cowards who shoot families of wolves from the sky.
And no, the wolves are not interfering with subsistence hunters, but with trophy hunters who scream at any reduction in the numbers of animals available for them to "harvest."
www.SaveWolves.org
Howl-ins
Politicians have no clue how natural selection works (they have no clue about most things!) so we screw it up by culling the herd where possible. In Yellow Stone we are re-introducing the Wolf but stupidly killing them to raise the population of Moose and Elk in Alaska.
Nature handles this by Wolves starving when their prey numbers decrease, but speaking logical doesn't make sense to politicians who ignore the will of the people at their whim anyway.
The US is slowly diverting from the Constitution and using the bench to legislate. The Wolf is an awesome animal but not of interest to the people in power, if they were Geese (whose number is so great they repave our parking lots with their poop) you would go to jail for killing it.
Kill a Wolf, get $150.00 and a pat on the back, hey, don't forget to remove the left front leg, they need to study it.. sheeesh...
That is sick. When the wolf hunts the moose and caribou, the number of moose and caribou goes down. Soon after, the population of wolves go down, because they starve. And then the moose and caribou population go up again. It's a delecate balence nature gives us, It's "The Circle of Life"
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