Last February the courts in Alaska backed the wolf reduction program being run by the Alaska Board of Game. A lawsuit that was filed by a Connecticut based animal rights group, Friends of Animals, saw their efforts go down the drain when Judge Sharon Gleason ruled that the Board of Game was following all the legal guidelines in running the program.
Alaska game officials say that wolves are killing 80% of the moose and caribou populations in some areas. They fear that if not checked, the wolves will essentially eradicate that area of moose and caribou. The areas being affected are remote and densely wooded making it extremely difficult to reach. Traditional methods of hunting the wolf don’t work because of this. The Board of Game began a program to hunt the wolf by air. A hunter could either shoot a wolf from the air or could land and then shoot.
Two other animal rights groups have filed suit to get the wolf hunt stopped. The Defenders of Wildlife and the Alaska Wildlife Alliance have joined forces and have asked the Superior Court to stop the hunt claiming the program is based on faulty wildlife science and that the Board of Game doesn’t have accurate numbers to support their claims.
Tom Remington
