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For Immediate Release
Wildlife conservation group moves to block illegal Upper Yukon/Tanana wolf killing program
Anchorage, AK − Defenders of Wildlife today went to court to block the State’s massive helicopter wolf killing campaign in the Upper Yukon/Tanana region, asking the state court for an immediate injunction to stop the program.
“The Board of Game did not authorize the use of helicopters by state agency personnel as part of the Upper Yukon/Tanana wolf killing program,” said Wade Willis, Alaska Representative for Defenders of Wildlife. “What they are doing in that region right now is illegal.”
Alaska law and regulation prohibits the use of aircraft for predator control unless specifically authorized, and the game management plans for the Upper Yukon/Tanana region do not permit state employees to shoot wolves from helicopters. The Board of Game approved the use of agency helicopters and personnel in this region at its most recent meeting, which ended March 9, 2009, but those new regulations are not yet in effect making the current helicopter wolf killing program in that region illegal.
On March 14, 2009, Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) employees began killing wolves from helicopters in the Upper Yukon/Tanana region of Alaska. The plan calls for as many as 250 wolves to be killed, some of which den in the adjacent Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. The preserve is administered by the National Park Service, which has expressed concern about the action, especially the fact that wolf packs residing within the preserve are targeted. NPS has been studying these wolves − at federal taxpayer expense − to yield better information on predator-prey relationships in the area, information that ADFG lacks. According to the National Park Service’s March 15 briefing statement, if ADF&G is successful in reaching its goal, “this would leave one-to-two wolves per 1,000 square kilometers in the Upper Yukon Wolf Control Area, approximating the lowest known wolf population densities in Alaska.” Upon learning of the state’s plans, the Park Service requested a no-wolf kill buffer zone around the preserve, but the state refused.
“The Board of Game is out of control. The entire Upper Yukon/Tanana program is an extreme, unjustified and semi-hysterical effort to meet wolf kill target numbers that are arbitrary and not based on sound science. The State is acting without authority, without public notice, and without any regard for the integrity of Alaska’s national parks. They are trying to kill hundreds of wolves before anybody has to time to discover the drastic changes in this program,” said Defenders of Wildlife Alaska representative, Wade Willis.
The request for an immediate halt to the program will be filed in District Court in Anchorage today.
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