Board to review wolf buffer
HUNTING: Game panel to consider future of extended Denali park closed
area.
By Joel Gay
Anchorage Daily News
(Published: October 9, 2002)
A controversial buffer zone to protect wolves from trapping and hunting
pressure near Denali National Park and Preserve comes up for review at a
special meeting of the Alaska Board of Game this week.
The Game Board in 2000 banned wolf hunting and trapping on the Stampede
Trail west of Healy. Proponents of the ban argued that Denali wolves that
become habituated to humans in the park become easy targets when they
stray outside park boundaries.
The board expanded the closed area to 90 square miles last year but added
a two-year time limit. The protections expire in March, prompting this
week’s special meeting.
The Department of Fish and Game has proposed leaving the buffer zone at
its current size but eliminating the sunset clause so it continues
indefinitely. The Alaska Wildlife Alliance has proposals to expand the
buffer zone farther to protect a second pack of wolves.
The board, which currently has five members who have not been confirmed,
will take public testimony Thursday and Friday starting at 8:30 a.m. at
the WestCoast International Inn. Buffer zone backers say they will bring
thousands of signatures and letters from an Internet-based campaign.
Board takes up Denali wolves buffer zone
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
FAIRBANKS – The Alaska Board of Game meets Thursday and Friday to decide
whether wolves that stray out of Denali National Park and Preserve onto
state land should continue to be protected.
The Game Board more than two years ago created a protective buffer zone
for wolves that wander out of the park, where hunting and trapping is not
allowed. The buffer prohibits wolf hunting and trapping on 72 square miles
of state land bordering the northeast corner of the park.
The buffer is due to end March 31. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game
is asking the Game Board to keep the buffer.
“We think it’s a very reasonable approach to the management of a highly
viewable wildlife species,” said Rob Bosworth, deputy commissioner for the
Division of Wildlife Conservation.
The Alaska Wildlife Alliance proposes tripling the size of the buffer. The
proposal would add 235 square miles to protect the Toklat and Mount
Margaret wolf packs, seen by thousands of tourists each summer along the
Denali Park Road.
The Game Board will consider the requests in a special meeting in
Anchorage, the first since Gov. Tony Knowles appointed five new members to
the seven-member panel.
Knowles made the appointments in July after the Legislature rejected his
previous five nominees.
The current buffer zone, which parallels both sides of the Stampede Road
Trail near Healy, does not cover the entire ranges of the two wolf packs,
said Paul Joslin, conservation biologist for the wildlife alliance.
“This is a viewable wildlife issue,” Joslin said. “The difference between
the few hundred dollars the hides of these wolves represent to a few
trappers is nothing compared to the value they have for the thousands of
people who see them.”
The Middle Nenana River Fish and Game Advisory Committee in Healy, one of
about 80 local committees that advise the Game Board, opposes any kind of
buffer zone.
“They expanded Denali Park and now they’re going to add a buffer zone,”
committee chairman Mike Pearson said, referring to the 1980 Alaska
National Interest Lands Conservation Act that expanded the original park
from 2 million to 6 million acres. “The next thing you know there will be
another buffer zone and another buffer zone.”