It is now 12:15 pm. The five free wolves finally give up and begin walking single file northward, along the west side of the south Moody set, directly toward the north Moody set. The front two of the five free wolves look apprehensively at the area of the north Moody Creek snare site, then skirt it along its west side, continuing north in single file. Two of the five appear to be large adults and seem to be particularly savvy. They are the ones doing most of the reacting to the north Moody, and they seem to be doing the leading. We watched them continue north, upslope into trees one hundred and fifty feet northwest of north Moody, at which point we stopped observing them, and hence do not know where they ultimately went. We returned south to Moody, so that we can land out on the river bar in front of the set and examine on the ground before ADF&G arrives.
At 12:45 pm, we land in front of the snared wolves, at which point SR, BH, and I go into the set to observe, photograph, and video-tape the snared wolves, close up, before ADF&G arrives. It is about thirty-five below zero at this site on the ground. JF remains at chopper to monitor radio and periodically start it to warm it up. Meanwhile, AW is off in the Cub, flying in the Dean Creek area to check that snare set. While there, he encountered MM flying an ADF&G scout, and talked to him in the air. He told him he was flying for me and that we were on the ground with snared wolves at Moody Creek. MM then came to south Moody and began circling, ultimately calling in the ADF&G helicopter, whereupon RS and EC arrived.
Of the three newly snared pups, one is already dead, caught around the neck. A second one is caught just above the right front paw and still in good condition. The third is caught by the right front leg and has become entangled against a small spruce. Its leg is chewed off at the elbow, and marks on the spruce indicate it did some of the chewing, but some of it may have been done by others, trying to help free it.
At no time do any of the snared wolves act aggressive. The dominant response is passiveness and looking away. They do not even make any sounds. This is even true of the adult, even when EC walks up to it, to about five feet away, to shoot it. The adult does not look at him but continues sitting down and strains a bit to look away.
Even the pup that EC shoots repeatedly makes no attempt to lunge at him and shows not the slightest hint of aggression. It, instead, looks glassy-eyed at him, hurt and scared.
We have about one hour with the snared wolves before MM arrives overhead and the ADF&G helicopter lands. AW returns to south Moody and is circling overhead with MM. AW says there is nothing in the Dean Creek set. The ADF&G helicopter takes three of the four dead wolves off to the east, to a small lake along the north side of Yanert Valley, where MM could land the Scout to pick them up. Meanwhile, EC remains at south Moody to reset the snares.
At 2:45 pm, we take off in the helicopter, flying down Moody Creek to refuel near Healy. AW had left earlier, flying back to Fairbanks. After refueling, we fly east across the foothills to Wood River, right where it emerges from the mountains, but see no current activity. The light is becoming dim, so from there we fly directly to Fairbanks.
At 5:10 pm, we land at W's. AW said he watched MM check a snare set in Moody Pass, “at a pond in Moody Pass.” MM had not seen AW, and when AW radioed him, MM pulled up abruptly and began flying away from the area, as if wanting to prevent him from learning about that set.
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Snapshot: This Guy Is Hard Core
Joel Bennett
Joel Bennett, an Alaska resident for forty-three years, is an internationally recognized natural history and wildlife filmmaker. He served on the Alaska Board of Game for thirteen years and has been active in many wildlife conservation causes over the years. Gordon Haber was a personal friend and provided critical information and interviews in several of Bennett's wildlife films.
Gordon's PhD and wolf research put him right up front in terms of someone in the north who had academic credibility regarding wolves, but Gordon had a roller-coaster relationship with both the state and the National Park Service. It depended on which way the winds were blowing politically and who was in positions of authority. Sometimes he enjoyed a preferred position as an authority, and sometimes he was a pariah.
Of course, ADF&G doesn't like to hear from someone not in-house, and he was always pushing them to bring forth positions that could be defensible biologically. He came to all the Board of Game meetings; he'd show up with long statements and usually get cut off because of the time limit, then he'd huff and puff back to his seat. Still, he always stayed engaged in the process even though things didn't usually go the way he thought they should. When I was on the board, I enjoyed a good relationship with him because he honestly believed that, unlike other board members, I had a personal sense of what was right and not right in terms of hunting ethics, and what was a permissible line to cross in terms of predator control and management.
Toward the end of my time on the board, we were involved in the contentious issue about Denali National Park buffer zones. I spearheaded a plan to create a small buffer on the east side, and that got whittled down through compromise to a point that Gordon wasn't happy at all, but I'd tell him, something is better than nothing. We had lots of spritely dialogues about this, how the board required some degree of compromise, and wouldn't it be better to have 60 percent of the buffer than none at all? He'd say, “It's not going to work, I don't agree with it.” But I'd tell him that the board is so political it doesn't matter what biologists bring to them. He'd be completely disgusted with the way the buffer situation has gone now.
Gordon was never convinced that the ballot initiatives to limit wolf killing would be worth the effort, either. When we won the first one in 1996 and literally stopped aerial hunting for three years, he realized the initiatives were a good thing. He did help us with the Jack Frost case. Frost was the orthopedic surgeon who was convicted of illegal aerial hunting; catching him exposed the whole “flying doctor” ring and was the catalyst for stopping land-and-shoot hunting, which is still closed statewide except in a few control areas.
Gordon used to be invited to Frost's cocktail parties as an authority on wolves. Frost was so arrogant and thought he was so untouchable that he would literally invite into his own home his hardest opposition. And Gordon would go to the home of arguably the most effective wolf hunter in the state.
Well, Gordon would tell us about the parties; he'd tell us there were wolf pelts everywhere in Frost's house, wolf pelts hanging every three feet on the banisters. He gave us an insider's view of Frost and his world—information that contributed to the effective monitoring of Frost's illegal activities.
We talked often on the phone when he was doing field research, especially in the Tok area. I remember thinking, man, this guy is hard core. There he is flying in February and January, right on the margin of sanity, in freezing weather, bundled up in a small plane, when it's dark most of the time, and then holed up in this threadbare room in Delta Junction. This guy is dedicated; he doesn't let up.
And sure enough, he was doing it up until the moment he died.
That's what made him as effective as he was. He never stopped; he was stubborn like a pit bull on the state. And they knew he was a credible scientist who could show up at these conferences around the world and cause trouble for them, so they had to deal with him. He was intense, and he was a formidable player in the last forty years of wolf management history.
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Snapshot: Mortality Call
Barbara Brease
Barbara Brease has lived in and around Denali since the mid-1980s. She currently works for the National Park Service, within the Cultural Resources Division of Denali National Park and Preserve.
I met Gordon at a Board of Game hearing, when I was on the Nenana Advisory Board in the early 2000s. I was astonished by his eloquence and grace before the board. He was out there seeing these terrible things that were happening to the wolves, and he'd call me to share this sorrow, so I could witness through him what h
e was seeing. I'm sure that's how he dealt with the pain of having to witness these things directly. He'd share the stories and see if I could make any sense of it.
Being on the advisory board, I heard a lot of talk about where people were going to hunt and trap wolves. There was one trapper who worked for Alaska Department of Fish and Game and was having more of an impact on the park wolves than the other two trappers; this trapper seemed to have access to the park's tracking information on the wolves and was being very quiet about it.
Gordon had a reputation as being cantankerous, but I never thought he was cantankerous, I just thought he was outraged, and I thought everyone should be outraged. He was actually very gracious.
I remember one beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon in fall; he was at our house and got a beep on the mortality caller. I thought it would be a good experience to take my two girls with us. He didn't think it was going to be a trapped wolf. We hiked around the Stampede area and couldn't find it, and then we kept following the beeping to a friend's house. It was a shock.
But Gordon was so polite. Instead of embarrassing my friend and making the girls feel awkward, he waited until after I took the girls home to confront my friend's husband, the trapper. Still, it opened my daughters' eyes to see who was killing the park's wolves.
Gordon really liked kids; he liked to do things like pull a penny out of their ear. My daughters both loved him; he would always see them at hearings and was very supportive when they would testify.
One of the most compelling stories Gordon told me was about a wolf in the Yukon–Charley Rivers area whose mate was killed in the predator control program. That wolf took his mate's carcass and buried it, then lay down on top of it for ten days. It was so moving. He was upset about it but also more moved than ever to help others understand the unique social relationships these wolves had, and what made them such a complex species.
And then there was the desperation he felt when the Toklat alpha female was caught in that trap, how he tried to get the trapper to release her, and how she was in that snare for nearly two weeks until the trapper came and shot her and dragged her body away on the snowmachine.
There was also that Sanctuary wolf pup that was the only survivor of the group, a yearling, the rest had been trapped or shot. He tried to help her; he orchestrated a food drop for her. But then a trapper got her.
And it wasn't just wolves he tried to help. He was involved in several rescues for climbers, too. He showed the same perseverance trying to help climbers as he did trying to help wolves.
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24 Read more about these losses in the epilogue.
25 See the epilogue for more on viewing statistics and how these have dropped by more than 70 percent.
26 See the epilogue for an update on wolf population numbers in the park.
27 The Alaska Outdoor Council is the largest hunting and trapping lobbying organization in Alaska.
28 In later years, Haber realized that these areas just outside the park weren't simply extraterritorial forays but had actually become part of these two wolf groups' territories.
29 This snaring incident occurred as part of a State of Alaska predator control program begun in 1993. The video that Haber made of the scene he describes in these journal notes was viewed worldwide, initiated a tourism boycott, and contributed to the cessation of that round of state predator control. The state began using aerial gunning rather than snares for wolf control, although the state still teaches the snaring method described here to trappers, who use it widely, including along Denali National Park's boundaries.
30 Haber always recorded all wildlife he saw, but in this instance he is also noting just how many moose and caribou are in this area, where the state claims wolf control is necessary because of low prey numbers. As chapter 12 describes, Haber concluded that the state's prey population methodology was seriously flawed.
CHAPTER 12
SCIENCE GONE AWRY: ALASKA'S WOLF-KILLING PROGRAMS
HABER'S STUDY AREAS OUTSIDE DENALI FOCUSED ON AREAS WHERE THE STATE WAS initiating predator control, particularly in the Fortymile area, which is adjacent to Yukon–Charley Rivers National Preserve—thus putting preserve wolves at risk, much as Denali's wolves are at risk when crossing boundaries onto state land. Haber came to know many of these wolf family groups with a similar level of detail as Denali's wolf groups. As he observed how predator control affected them, he became even more convinced that human-induced mortality has a greater negative impact on wolf families than natural mortality. He expanded upon the conclusions about wolves' roles in the ecosystem that he described in his dissertation, and also increasingly wrote about the state's complete failure to prove a biological emergency for prey populations, and therefore the necessity of predator control, in any area of Alaska.
With the shifting political winds, and as the state ramped up predator control, Haber's conclusions fell on deaf ears. However, as Joel Bennett noted, Haber never gave up. He continued to go to every Board of Game meeting, continued to state his case, and continued to stay engaged even though things rarely went his way. After his and Rick Steiner's efforts in 2008 failed to effect change, they draft the “Sound Science Act” in the spring of 2009 and forwarded it to select legislators. The act would have required an independent scientific peer review, made available to the public, of all wildlife management proposals by ADF&G or the Board of Game. The bill was not introduced, but Steiner continues to advocate a similar bill.
In this chapter, Haber makes his case against Alaska's misguided and destructive predator control. Not only are the state's data in error, but there is no hunter hardship, and predator control isn't cost-free. The ecological, economic, and ethical costs, he argues, are unacceptably high. What's more, the hunting, trapping, and aerial killings by which humans have tried to reduce wolf numbers are instead most likely to have the opposite effect—to increase them. He also reveals the state's “hidden” predator control: in order to avoid public process on predator control, the state has set liberal seasons and bag limits, thus using hunters and trappers to reduce wolf populations.
PICTURE A FAMILY GROUP OF WOLVES—PARENTS, CURRENT PUPS, earlier offspring—together in the hills, interacting in all their ebullient, highly advanced ways. Then imagine the scene transformed into panic and chaos as one or two planes suddenly appear just over a nearby ridge and, in a blast of blowing snow, swoop down ten feet over the wolves. One by one, wolves are targeted and chased to exhaustion. As they flee, they fall head over heels in the snow, crash head-first into trees, and attempt to hide in thick brush. The gunner leans out of the plane and shoots wolves, killing some, but often not all, of this family of wolves, leaving the rest—often the younger, less experienced wolves—to fend for themselves.
Wolves are being killed in Alaska in greater numbers, over larger areas, with more deception, and based on worse “science” than most Alaskans realize. What is needed is a rethinking of wolf management policies from top to bottom to help to end this dark chapter of wildlife “management.”
The current formal wolf control program began in 2003 and now includes five areas totaling about sixty thousand square miles, or about 10 percent of Alaska.31 After a semblance of a public process via the policymaking seven-member Board of Game, the state issues aerial shooting (and “land-and-shoot”) permits to private pilots and their gunners to kill wolves. Since 2003, aerial permittees have killed more than a thousand wolves.32
These wolf killings grew from a failed attempt to reduce wolf numbers through an ill-conceived nonlethal program of sterilizing and relocating wolves. In this failed nonlethal program, the alpha pair was sterilized and returned to their territory, while the rest of the group was transported hundreds of miles away. Some of the transplants showed tremendous heart in struggling all the way back home over the following months, only to be chased down by helicopters again and hauled off to more distant locations. One such returnee, a male of the Granite family group, finally gave up and died alone in a dark crat
e, after again being chased to exhaustion, snatched from family members, and transported hundreds of miles away.
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Tweet
June 13, 2009
“Pro-wolf” lawsuits say sustained yield OK. But for wolves, SY means can kill 30–40%+ per yr, which shreds basic wolf biology.
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It was a sad spectacle as parents, offspring, siblings, and mates were so callously ripped from each other. One of nature's most interesting and exquisite creations, a vibrant extended family with exceptionally close, sophisticated emotional ties and a form of social organization at least as advanced as any found on the planet, was converted to a sterile, two-wolf shell of itself.
Hidden Control
The current aerial killing program is only the tip of an annual wolf-killing iceberg in Alaska. Much more killing goes on behind the scenes, largely hidden from public notice. At least five thousand wolves were killed by other means throughout the state during the first five years of the current predator control program, including in the aerial killing areas. The total annual reported kill is usually about fifteen hundred wolves, but anyone who is savvy to the ways of the Alaska bush and village life understands that at least 10 percent of the wolves killed are not reported.
For the most part, this killing is authorized under the guise of providing routine trapping and hunting opportunities. However, board members, ADF&G biologists, and others occasionally let their guard down with comments that make clear the primary intent: to suppress wolf populations in order to avoid the more difficult and contentious formal public process required for aerial killing.
Among Wolves: Gordon Haber's Insights into Alaska's Most Misunderstood Animal Page 18