Lansing to hear howls over Alaska wolf policy
BY HUGH MCDIARMID JR.
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Howling frequently reverberates around Lansing — typically over budget
cuts.
Now get ready for the real thing.
Animal rights groups expect to bring howling dogs and audiotapes of wolf
howls, and do some howling themselves this weekend on the steps of the
Capitol in Lansing.
They’re protesting the State of Alaska’s predator control program, which
allows pilots and hunters to shoot wolves from airplanes and helicopters
to boost moose-hunting prospects near a town in the state’s interior.
Lansing is one of more than 30 cities where similar howl-ins will occur.
Passersby will get postcards to send to Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski and
will be asked to boycott travel to Alaska until the shooting stops.
“We don’t think they should be killing wolves to make moose hunting more
convenient,” said Priscilla Feral, president of Friends of Animals, the
Connecticut-based group organizing the howl-ins.
In New York’s Rockefeller Center, a “professional howling instructor”
will teach protesters the fine points of raising their voices in unison,
said Feral, who says she has no idea how one attains professional status
as a howler.
But in Lansing, where the state government is dormant during the
holidays, protesters may find passersby hard to come by.
“There’s nothing much going on there,” said state Rep. Kathleen Law,
D-Gibraltar, who admits to howling at the moon with her neighbors “for
fun.”
“That’s really sad, because I would have liked to have heard that,” she
said. “But they’re welcome to come over to my street.”