Missoula News

As an Alaskan, wolf control is a very important tool in game management. Most Alaskans (for which these wolf controls are implemented) live in "Bush Alaska". There is no road access, no going down to Safeway to buy your groceries etc. (Milk in Nome is going to $7.50 a gallon because of shipping). Most of these frontiersmen/women subsist on the wildlife in their area, be it moose or caribou.

When wolves and bears kill 100% of the calves around your area, and there is no meat to feed your family, then the State must step in to rectify the situation.

Has this caused controversy? Yes, but mostly from outsiders or lower 48 animal activists (Animal Activist Wacos we call them) who fail to understand our way of living and the challenges that we face on a day to day basis. In Alaska we call PETA, “People for the Eating of Tasty Animals.” Some of our Governors, such as Toney Knowleges have given in to these extremist, most have not.

Our State Constitution mandates in Article 8:

Article 8 - Natural Resources

§ 1. Statement of Policy

It is the policy of the State to encourage the settlement of its land and the development of its resources by making them available for maximum use consistent with the public interest.

§ 2. General Authority

The legislature shall provide for the utilization, development, and conservation of all natural resources belonging to the State, including land and waters, for the maximum benefit of its people.

§ 3. Common Use

Wherever occurring in their natural state, fish, wildlife, and waters are reserved to the people for common use.

§ 4. Sustained Yield

Fish, forests, wildlife, grasslands, and all other replenishable resources belonging to the State shall be utilized, developed, and maintained on the sustained yield principle, subject to preferences among beneficial uses.

The entire article can be seen at: http://ltgov.state.ak.us/constitution.php?section=8

The state must maintain a sustain yield for its citizens. I don’t think any other state has this kind of language in its constitution.

The problem we Alaskans have is folks from the lower 48 who think they know what is better for Alaskans that we do. Alaskan history also comes into play here because for many years, while we were a territory, until 1959, we had no say in the way our State resources was ravaged by those only interested in making a profit and not caring about the citizens that lived here in this Great State.

I thought it was a good article, but kind of left out why Alaska wolf control is the way it is. Thanks for using us an example as to wwhy game management is so important.

I would like to point out that Wyoming did not misss the mark so much as the mark was moved. If you remember 10 of 11 expert wolf biologists felt the Wyoming plan was acceptable, none the less the feds decided it was not acceptable to them.
One way to solve this sort of situation would be to make all of the rules, both delisting, and management at the very beginning. No lawsuits, no fights, no parsing of wods, facts or anything else.
The ESA is being used to control people and impose the values of one group of people on another group.

Quote " Alaska hunters kill less than 3% of the game population. The rest is done by predators, winter and such" Quote.

That would be a compelling quote if it was true Ray. Maybe if you threw in hares and birds and squirrels and mice, etc., you might be close. But let's take moose for starters, because that is where this quote came from.....The web site of the Alaska Moose Federation who's motto is.....Let's grow moose! If you go to their moose facts and click on "Believe it or not" you'll find the very quote you spouted. Now the moose population is usually the excuse given up here for the need for predator control.......which means predator elimination to the die hards. There aren't enough moose! Never mind the fact that the moose harvest has been fairly constant at 6,000 to 8,000 per year. We want more! Now the moose population has also been fairly stable at about 150,000 animals for quite some time. Certain areas might have low numbers, but others such as unit 20 near Fairbanks have so many moose that the killing of cows and calves is sometimes encouraged by Fish and game.

Did anyone notice a problem with the numbers that I just gave? You can find the 6,000 to 8,000 harvest per year and the 150,000 total population numbers right on the Alaska Moose Federation's web site. http://www.growmoremoose.org

Here's the problem with the so called fact. And I'm gonna be generous and give the benefit of the doubt to whoever came up with this fact. We'll say that 100,000 of these moose are mature cows and they give birth before any moose die, so for a short time, there are 250,000 moose. Now we'll start with hunters. we'll go low with that and say they took 6,000 moose that hunting season. That leaves 244,000 moose. But hunters supposedly kill only 3% of the moose in Alaska. At 10% natural causes are next. !0% is 3 1/3 times more than three percent, so if we multiply 6,000 times 3 1/3 we get 20,000 moose dying of natural causes. That leaves 224,000 moose left. Now the biggie, those nasty predators at 87% which is 29 times more than the hunters' 3%. Multiplying 6,000 times 29 you get 174,000. That only leaves us with 50,000 moose after the first year. That can't be because Alaska has had a stable population of around 150,000 moose for many years. And even if that last 50,000 were all mature females and they all managed to have a calf, you'd only have 100,000 moose after birthing, and all the moose would be wiped out in the second year.

The hunters killing only 3% of the moose each year is propaganda pure and simple. It is used to inflame people to take action against predators.

A funny thing, guides up here are all for killing off wolves as they think a rise in the moose population will translate into more clients and money for them. But they are balking at killing off bears which have proven to kill more moose calves than wolves. Why do you think that is? Because they don't make anything when their client takes a wolf to speak of, but brown or grizzly bear hunts can sell for $10,000 and up and black bear hunts can be $3,000 and up.

Lastly, you imply that predator control is only for a few remote areas and the people who live there. Unit 13 is a good example of a unit where that isn't true. While few people live in the area, it is a popular area with Anchorage, Mat-Valley and Fairbanks hunters because it is dissected by the Denali highway. At the Alaskan Moose Federation site, they mention the dramatic downturn in the moose harvest in that unit. But they fail to mention that with the popularity of ATV's that unit has been inundated by road hunters and ATV hunters who blazed trails into areas which were unreachable by hunters on foot. Before the advent of ATV popularity, the vastness of the area was an insulation to human hunting, but with hunters reaching evey practical corner of the unit, the population started a decline that resulted in the unit being mostly a subsistance unit. Of course the local wolf population is taking the blame for that and being killed from airplanes.

The real wolf issue is about wolves and what they eat AFTER the game is gone or scarce. The issue is who takes care of ranchers, farmers, homestead subsistence livestocks owners, and hobby farms of the horse, llama, sheep , goats, ect. types. Where do people fit in the equation? People can live with wolves if the wolf proponents, the public, will support the private property people. And therein always lies the rub: they won't. If the public lands belong to all of the people, then the US Govt should be paying the livestock people for their losses. Not the States, or Green organizations, but the US Govt. The wolves are theirs, and they should pay. Until that happens, there will be no end to the "conflict" that people talk about. All politics is local. One private wallet should not pay the bill for trespass by public resources. If the pubic resource (wolf) is a livestock killer, costing the Treasurey a lot of money, the US might be best served if that wolf is sent to wolf paradise. No matter, the private livestock owner should not have to spend one dime suing, petitioning, begging, to be compensated. Doing the right thing can't be that hard. Pay the owner for his loss, and be done with it. A simple, cut and dried process. And even though the carcass can't be found, it should take very reasonable doubt for a payment not to paid, and not this current deal where a team of wildlife accident investigators has to do forensic work at the scene to determine if a payment might or might not be made. Do the right thing. End the whole conflict by stepping up to the front and paying the man. It would save a huge amount of money just in the litigation process over time. Even if in a little doubt, err on the side of the rancher and the conflict will go away.

The general public is exercising its right to drive public land managnement policy. The American public no longer wants its public lands managed under the 19th century utilitarian model. It wants and it now getting a more forward thinking preservationists model that include entire ecosystem and watershed management which values and includes the full gamet of species. Those who still live and believe in the 19th century policies of game management and public land stewardship (i.e. Man should have dominion over the land and its beasts) are on their way out and their whining is getting less sympathy with evey passing year. Oh well those that thought slavery was the way to go eventaull died too.

Jeff: By accident, purpose, or ignorance, your idea of an ecosystem of preservation is a late 20th century idea that preserves the American public policy of cultural genocide towards Native Americans, who manipulated and managed plants and animals on a landscape basis for more that 10,000 years prior to the European invasion more than 500 years ago. The only "preserved" ecosystem is the one we now have had for about 20 years. The results are becoming clear as 20 years of no activity while vegetation grows, is resulting in landscape altering of vast areas of forest and range by stand removal fire. 1,500,000 acres of heritage forest, off limits to logging and all other uses, for the sole purpose of "saving" spotted owls, has been destroyed since 2000. That is a failed policy. Now, the spotted owl is being displaced by its more aggressive cousin whose breast feathers are barred rather than spotted in color, the Barred Owl. Spotted Owls interbreed, or leave, but the habitat is taken over by the Barred Owl. That was an Eastern bird, but European influenced tree management, and a change from Native American fire regimes, resulted in the Barred Owl being able to work its way from East of the Mississippi River up into Canada and then down the West Coast to where it is aggressively ousting Spotted Owls. The USFWS answer, on the board right now, is to take decoys and calls, and start shooting Barred Owls to save Spotted Owls...the VietNam burn the village, shoot the residents, to save the village from Communists strategy. And who said enviros are not fascists?

The published and voiced responses to environmental issues by the Green Lobby closely resemble Bush Administration responses to foreign policy. Both are damned right, and any other points of view are damned wrong!!

So, Jeff, I want you to know that your belief that this new, unproven, and so far failing, land ethic based in urban Central Park views of the world, is your denial that the Eden found by European explorers and the likes of Lewis and Clark was a Native American system of plant and animal relationship relics remaining from the physical and cultural genocide brought about by disease and weapons introduced from Europe. The glory of American landscape was determined well before the Colonists, who by accident or design, killed the land managers who maintained what you want to preserve. Like cottage cheese in the refrigerator, preservation only lasts for a very short time. And then what do you do?

This link below may be of interest to some:
http://rationalhunter.typepad.com/rational_hunter/2007/04/wolf_management.html

The lessons to be learned from Alaska do not in my opinion bode well for future wolf management in the states. Alaska has been unable to formulate a consistent wolf management scheme and politics has completely trumped biology to where we now legislate game management schemes and allocations. We have a a history of extremism vs extremism, either "no predator control ever" or "widespread predator control always." This leads to a boom-and-bust style of management instead of one that tries to smooth out the natural peaks and valleys of wildlife populations. The current lesson to be learned from Alaska is that we are now focusing on evermore bear control as well as wolf control. Governor Palin introduced Senate Bill 176 last week that seeks to amend our Intensive Management statutes and would make it much easier for our Board of Game to institute both wolf and bear control programs and to make other areas IM areas as well.

It's time for a heavy dose of moderation, and the org I co-chair is trying to influence this. We manage ungulates so it's a no-brainer that we should also manage wolves and bears. How we do it and how far we go is the big crux. That will also be the big issue in the states.

Overall, I think the wolf reintro in the states has done a lot of harm to the perception of hunting, and I have seen it further the perception among hunters that wolves (even in Alaska) are just bad news. Hunters in general are moving away from any notion about why apex predators are so important to overall ecosystem functions and dynamics. In the states, the long absence of predators has created irruption densities of ungulates that hunters have become accustomed to. My take is that elk and deer populations will be influenced by wolves; that is just common sense really because they will take a portion of the ungulate pie. So...many hunters clamor about this new "sharing." Ranchers rightly worry over stock losses. Groups like Defenders of Wildlife further inflame the issue by portraying wolves as cute and cuddly animals that should never be trapped or hunted, which leads to your opposite extreme among the hunting ranks that the only good wolf is a dead wolf. Look at Idaho's push to eradicate the wolf. USFWS is greatly concerned by such rhetoric, and I would be too. I've reviewed Wyoming's plan and they wouldn't have had to compromise much to get the wolf delisted, yet they stubbornly refused. Meanwhile wolf populations are growing and spreading. Some of the states are biting off their nose to spite their face.

Polarization would seem to be complete. The rhetoric from both sides has become absurd. What Martin Nie said in his piece was good advice. Transparency in the process and a collaborative effort among all user groups. But when you have polarization such as we have now, this extremism on both sides, any sense of compromise and moderation gets drowned out by the extremists. The public, meanwhile...hears this and is taking sides. And a part of whatever side they take is affecting how they perceive hunting and hunters.

Mark Richards
co-chair Alaska Backcountry Hunters and Anglers
http://www.alaskabackcountryhunters.org

Marion:Quit thowing labels around to make yourself feel superior. The majority of Americans (if calling them environmentalists makes one feel better go ahead) want to preserve what remains of the wild public lands out west. To accomplish this the traditional uses of public lands such as mining, grazing, and timber will be phased out, it is already happening. I obviously struck a chord with those of you who are in the minority when it comes to the future of public lands, sorry you're the last of a dieing breed. By the way I live and hunt in the West. I can't wait until the cows leave the public lands and return to private property where they belong. As I look at a land ownership map of the entire U.S. there is more than enought private acerage of higher quality back east and in the midwest for America's meat supply. The consumer won't even notice a difference in the price of a steak.

Good Point Marion.

Quote "If the pubic resource (wolf) is a livestock killer, costing the Treasurey a lot of money, the US might be best served if that wolf is sent to wolf paradise. No matter, the private livestock owner should not have to spend one dime suing, petitioning, begging, to be compensated. Doing the right thing can't be that hard. Pay the owner for his loss, and be done with it. A simple, cut and dried process." Quote by bearbait

By your logic bearbait, the State of Alaska should be paying every Alaskan who's car is wrecked in a collision with a moose. Either that, or since moose cause so much damage, maybe they should all be sent to moose paradise.

On the Alaska Moose Federation website, fact #3..... 600+ moose each year are hit by cars costing $9,000,000 anually. And they want to grow more moose! Maybe that organization should be responsible to pay for the damage if the number of moose/auto accidents rise dramatically after they increase the moose numbers. After all, they want to raise moose numbers even if it means more monetary loses and personal injury to humans and even their pets. Moose have been known to raise heck with dogs, and livestock. They also do untold damage to gardens and shrubs and trees in people's yards. I'm thinking people should start suing all the beekeepers in America too as those darn things sting people.

And you guys quit trying to make wolf control sound like it's purpose is to help a few poor people out in the bush. The driving force behind wolf control in Alaska is the Alaska Outdoor Council. This is a group dominated by hunters from the road system, Fairbanks, Anchorage, and the Mat Valley. Most of these people could care less about people who live in the bush.

Lastly, let's get those cattle and sheep off the public lands and use them to raise wild animals that all Americans can enjoy. Keep you livestock on private property.

Alexis, thank you so much for a very clear and to the point post. The whole issue is tied up in so much wishful thinking & desire for manmade perfection that there is no reason left.
thank you again.

However the wolves are federally protected even on private land in my state, eating privately owned livestock. Not only are wolf proponents not willing to pay for the damage caused by planting these animals, they want the states that have been imposed upon to pay all of the costs of managing wolves, and do it the way the proponents want them managed. In other words they want all of the control and absolutely none of the responsibility for introduced wolves.

I just want to point out, I'm not against managing animals, but I am against wiping them out. There needs to be a reasonable balance.

As long as Congress writes laws taking all management for any particular animal away from states, the runaway wolf deals, the sea lions sitting in the fish ladder, the sea otter eating the last Pismo clam, a total reordering of whole rural economies, will be how we live.

On the other hand, Congress did close the public domain to common use by laws like the Taylor Grazing Act. Using surrogate animals and their precarious hold on life, Congress closed most of the public forests to logging. The danger in that type of management is that you change econonomies and have no way to control that change, with unintended results often causing more havoc than the original problem.

No logging has brought no revenue. No matter how the Green Lobby wants to spin it, the USFS and BLM had a great revenue stream with logging that they were able to pad with expenses for a littany of non logging enterprises, recreation being one. Today, without that revenue stream, the agency devolves annually, incrementally, with its primary expense trying to contain the fires oxidizing all the fuel they grow but do not remove each year. It is not grazed off, logged off, but burned off.

Billions have been spent to "save" salmon on the Columbia River. But there is nothing, not one thing, that regulators can do about a sea lion 120 miles up a freshwater river eating salmon in the fish ladder. Or a newly settled colony of Caspian terns, now the largest in the world, that exists and raises their young on salmon smolts as they adjust to the salt water in the Columbia estuary. Native Americans would have not allowed those kinds of activity by critters to take their livelihood. That was not a taboo management action, the taking of animals that threatened their food supply. I guess their European conquerers are more atuned to how to live in an ecosystem. Become a vegetarian and ride a bicycle, and it doesn't make any difference.

The very worst, most egregious, afront to wildlife in North America is the household cat and its feral kin. U of Wisconsin says a billion, with a capital B, billion birds per year in North American taken by cats. Those cats whose food aisle in the grocery takes more room than that of human babies, have become surrogate children, and have even better protection in our current society. And now we find they are sea otter limiting creatures as well. Evidently, cat poop has a parasite that gets to the ocean on flood events, and the flood water plume remains intact long enough for it to impact sea otters, who acquire the parasite, and die over time. It is the reason lower 48 conservation efforts to re-establish sea otters have failed to this point except on some parts of the California coast that have few watershed contributions.. Good deal for crab fishermen, clam diggers, but nevertheless, an indictment of cats. If a farmer's pesticide use killed a 100 birds, it would be news, and another reason to take pesticides off the shelf for ag (although pesticides would probably be still available for home use). We are no less bowing to the cat as a cultural and religious diety than the Egyptians of old. Selective animal protection is still alive and well, in town and in the forests.

There is a great rural myth story in Oregon about a meeting in Jordan Valley with cattlemen and the BLM and Oregon Fish and Wildlife about coyotes killing calves, especially eating them while the calf was being born and the cow in the throes of labor. An ernest young lady from the environmental left rose and spoke to the need to capture and sterilize coyotes to control their numbers instead of shooting them from airplanes. From the back, a sun and wind eroded old cowboy stood up in answer and said "Lady, them coyotes ain't screwing the calves, they are a eatin' them." There really is an urban-rural divide, and it is not perception, and it is alive and well today. The tyranny of the urban majority is real. If not so, Congress would have changed the ESA and Marine Mammal Act to reflect reality, and unintended consequences of those laws as they exist today.

Jeff-

I am curious as to your feelings of rangeland management. Although cattle may not be a native species on your public lands, they are essential to the ecosystems, if managed properly. I have hunted the same over grazed land you have, but also have hunted more often lands that recieve a proper amount of grazing. The American West is an ecosystem that was built for large grazing herds to move over them and many of the plants on the prairie are dependent on being grazed. The day of the buffalo roaming the prairie is gone, and I hate to break it to you, but you will never see the great heards migrating again. We need cattle, and I emphasize that they must be properly manged.

I also wonder what your interpretation of the public is? Are ranchers not public citizens? Without access to public grazing lands, many cattle operations are no longer viable. Then we are getting our beef from CAFO's. Is that what you would rather see? Independent cattle producers are very, very important to this country and our economy.

I think you should pay a little more attention to history as well. American Indians were far more sophisticated than the general myth allows. Manipulation of the environment has been apart of the American landscape since people got here, not since Europeans got here.

Your conception that the public is exercising their right to exert their influence on public policy is flawed. You're ignoring the fact that what you discuss is the simple tyranny of the majority. Most people are not in agriculture and visit open country as tourists or as occasional hunters. Those of us who make a living on the land see it as something far more than just a pretty place to visit or hunt. It is everything to us. For most, good stewardship of that land and the ecosystems are vital to our way of life.

A wolf population doesn't hurt anything as long as it is carefully managed, just like cattle. It can be great benifit in certain respects. However, to take away the right for folks to defend their property against wildlife when a situation arises is foolish. As public policy, it implies that someone's wolf photography vacation is more valued than an agricultural way of life.

Last of a dying breed, eh Jeff? Next time you eat a burger, maybe you should give thought to what will happen when this breed is gone.