Almost all the wolves on one Alaskan island were killed by trappers this winter
97% of wolves living on Alaska's Prince of Wales Island were legally killed during the 2019-2020 trapping season. The last estimate of the population was 170, as of fall 2018.
ARISTOS GEORGIOU: Conservation groups are calling on the U.S. Forest Service (FS) to take urgent action in order to protect a vulnerable population of wolves living on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest after it emerged that 97 percent of the known population, given the most recent estimate, was legally killed during the 2019-2020 trapping season.
In early March, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) announced that trappers had killed 165 Alexander Archipelago wolves — which some consider to be a subspecies of the northwestern wolf—living on the island and surrounding islands. The last estimate of the population was 170, as of fall 2018.
Non-profits Defenders of Wildlife, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council say that this is a record number of killings. Furthermore, the figure does not include any potential illegal killings, which have not been uncommon in the past…
Conservation groups say that the wolves on Prince of Wales Island are facing several threats, including unsustainable trapping and hunting, as well as the destruction of their forest home through industrial logging and road construction. Between 1994 and 2014 the population of these wolves decreased from an estimated mean of 336 to 89…
“The unprecedented killing of these imperiled wolves is an appalling and completely predictable result of reckless mismanagement,” Shaye Wolf, a scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “It’s difficult to see how state and federal officials can allow hunting and trapping next season without completely wiping out these wolves. They have a duty to protect these beautiful animals from extinction”…
However, officials note that the trapping of wolves may need to continue on the island. Many southeast Alaskans are dependent upon subsistence, with trappers and hunters often relying on deer meat to live. In Alaska, a valid state hunting and/or trapping license is required for hunters to kill wolves, which are usually trapped as a management tool for maintaining game species.
In a statement provided to Newsweek responding to the concerns outlined in the letter, a spokesperson for the FS said: “The Tongass National Forest is working with local communities, regional leaders, our colleagues with the State of Alaska and federal partners to maintain long-term sustainable wolf populations while ensuring rural Alaska residents can continue their subsistence way of life.” SOURCE…
RELATED VIDEO: