Wolves get additional protection
DENALI NATIONAL PARK: Neither side particularly happy with vote.
By Joel Gay
Anchorage Daily News
(Published: October 12, 2002)
The most visible wolves in Denali National Park and Preserve received a
measure of additional protection from hunting and trapping pressure along
park borders Friday, but it was either too much or not enough for those
most interested in the Board of Game decision.
“This is a step in the right direction, but we wish they would’ve done
better,” said Paul Joslin, executive director of the Alaska Wildlife
Alliance, which proposed the buffer zone.
On the other side of the wolf divide was Jesse VanderZanden of the Alaska
Outdoor Council. “It’s another example of Outside environmentalists
influencing Alaska’s wildlife management process,” he said.
The battle is just the latest skirmish in a statewide war over wolves that
goes back decades and is unlikely to end soon. In this case, it pitted
thousands of people who believe there is an aesthetic and economic value
to protecting Denali wolves from hunting and trapping against thousands
more who feel their rights as hunters and trappers are being lost, inch by
inch.
It started out looking like a compromise was possible. The Middle Nenana
Fish and Game Advisory Council surprised many by supporting the
continuation of a 90-square-mile buffer zone that protects the East Fork,
or Toklat, wolf pack.
“We had made our line in the sand” two years earlier when the buffer zone
was created, said Bruce Carter, vice chairman of the group, which is
heavily tilted toward hunting and trapping interests. This fall, however,
they voted to “take a step back” and support the buffer zone on the
condition the board would not expand protections elsewhere.
Board members Joel Bennett of Juneau and Vic VanBallenberghe of Anchorage,
however, quickly made it clear they wanted to expand the protection zone
for wolves from the Margaret pack. The wolves live farther east than the
Toklat/East Fork pack and are the ones most likely to be seen by visitors
who take buses or drive their cars the first 15 miles of the park road.
“I want to protect the whole eastern end” of the park, Bennett said. If
it’s worthwhile to protect the Toklat pack, the board should extend the
same protections to the Margaret pack, he said.
It’s not a biological question, Bennett said, because only a handful of
Margaret wolves are shot or trapped every year; many more are killed by
other wolf packs: “We’re talking about other values that this board often
recognizes and uses in making decisions.”
Other board members supported different levels of protection, and the
proposed boundaries changed several times. Eventually, they agreed it
should follow the new electrical intertie from just north of Panorama
Mountain to Healy.
The Margaret buffer zone falls far short of what wolf backers had hoped,
and was well beyond what opponents were willing to accept, but it passed
the board 4-2. Members then unanimously agreed to eliminate the sunset
clause of the original Toklat/East Fork zone.
The decisions leave the door open for further wrangling, and several said
they expect it.
Gordon Haber, an independent scientist who has studied Denali’s wolves for
nearly 40 years and had hoped for a much larger protection zone, was
furious with the board’s action: “Frankly, I think we’d have been better
off if they had just thrown the whole (buffer zone) out. Then we wouldn’t
have to come back and get what we need. And believe me, I will be back.”
Carter, the Healy trapper, said he was “pretty disgusted” with the board’s
decision. Hunting and trapping is minimal in the area, he said, but it’s
an important part of area residents’ lives. He looks forward to having a
new governor and Game Board that he hopes will better reflect his views.
The Game Board will not have much rest before the next round of the wolf
wars. In November it convenes in Juneau for a weeklong meeting, including
several proposals dealing with wolves in Southeast.