http://www.adn.com/2013/12/06/3216465/compass-wolves-of-the-alexander.html
Compass: Wolves of the Alexander Archipelago need protection
By REBECCA NOBLINDecember 6, 2013
For thousands of years the distinctive image of black wolves roaming the snow-covered islands of the Alexander Archipelago has been an iconic part of Southeast Alaska’s natural history.
But even in this remote stretch of more than 1,000 islands and glaciated peaks, the Alexander Archipelago wolf has been no match for industrial logging, road building and overharvest.
There are two well-understood reasons that Alexander Archipelago wolves cannot coexist indefinitely with clearcut logging:
• The wolf population is directly tied to the health of the black-tailed deer, which in turn is directly tied to the health of the old-growth forests that offer protection from deep snows and promote a variety of under-story plants.
• As road density increases, so do wolf kills, both legal and illegal. In the Tongass National Forest, logging roads provide access for wolf hunters and trappers. Road density on much of Prince of Wales Island is already beyond sustainable levels.
Yet, the U.S. Forest Service continues to plan big timber sales in key wolf habitats, including the Big Thorne timber sale. That decision, now under appeal, would allow the clear-cutting of more than 6,000 acres on Prince of Wales Island that would accelerate an already sharp decline of the wolf population there.
As we approach the 40th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act next month, the ongoing threat of logging and road-building to the ever-more fragile status of Alexander Archipelago wolves is a stark reminder of the irreplaceable role the Act has played in protecting our nation’s most imperiled plants and animals and the ecosystems we share with them.
The first page of the law leaves no doubt about why lawmakers felt it was necessary:
“The Congress finds and declares that … various species of fish, wildlife, and plants in the United States have been rendered extinct as a consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation.”
It’s clear the Archipelago Alexander wolf now needs the help only the Endangered Species Act can provide. That’s why the Center for Biological Diversity, where I work, joined with Greenpeace in filing a petition two years ago asking the Fish and Wildlife Service to award the Act’s protections to the wolf.
And it’s why earlier this month the two conservation groups reminded the agency that it is now a full two years late on initiating a status review of the wolf.
During those two years the health of the wolf population on Prince of Wales Island has dramatically worsened, mostly due to ongoing large-scale logging of old-growth trees in the Tongass National Forest that began six decades ago.
Earlier this year the Center, Greenpeace and three allied organizations asked the Forest Service to cancel the Big Thorne timber sale. The resulting decision to put the sale on hold came after preeminent Alexander Archipelago wolf biologist Dr. David Person concluded the Big Thorne timber sale would be the “final straw that will break the back of a sustainable wolf-deer predator-prey ecological community on Prince of Wales Island.”
By Person’s accounts, the estimated wolf population in the area of the Big Thorne sale declined by about 80 percent just last winter.
All the facts point to the same conclusion: to survive, Alexander Archipelago wolves need the protection of the Endangered Species Act, which has prevented the extinction of 99 percent of the plants and animals it protects.
And the unbridled destruction of that natural ecosystem from clear-cutting is clear evidence of why the Endangered Species Act is so important to making sure we get that balance right again once we’ve disrupted it.
Rebecca Noblin is an Anchorage-based staff attorney and Alaska Director for the Center for Biological Diversity, where her work focuses on protecting imperiled plants and animals.
Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2013/12/06/3216465/compass-wolves-of-the-alexander.html#storylink=cpy
Exposing the Big Game 
All that, plus there seems to be a higher demand for black wolves by trophy hunters. Nothing drives thoses assholes like shooting and stuffing the last few creatures of a kind.
First of all, thank you for sharing this article. I wouldn’t have known that these wolves are in need of protection. Like many other endangered species we have on this planet. I’m not sure what game hunters are thinking when it comes to endangered species but I have done enough research to clearly see why these animals are becoming extinct. Every animal game hunters hunt down & kill are not just theirs to kill. The animal kingdom belongs to each & everyone of us who live upon this earth & whether they like it or not we have the human right to disapprove of their unlawful acts upon nature. I’m not saying we can’t move forward but we can certainly address issues for the benefit of our wildlife! There is way too much killing of these animals, game hunting should be band! Universal law states only kill what you intend to eat to survive & the only species that isn’t following Universal law is the human population. There are billions of humans who inhabit this planet, there are just over (I believe) 6,000 wolves that roam this planet and probably less if wildlife services correctly & honestly counted. There is approximately one million hunters? Just by the figures I have put up (please research on the number of wolves we have left because I’m not 100% sure if I have that correct) but we overpopulate this planet not our wildlife. Our wild life are very intelligent & the only difference between us & wild life is the fact we use our intelligence to build sky scrappers (like the ants) hunt for food (like the wolf) look after our babies (like the bear) & these are just some of the resources our wildlife has given to us, lets give back to nature & Stop the game killing!
Serena, you are on the right track but if you want to figure out wolf numbers, you have to tape a map of the US (or where ever you are counting) to the back of a piece of glass or plexiglass, get some dry erase markers or little sticky notes, and color code for levels of endangerment. The numbers change daily as reports come in. You can get numbers by calling each state’s wildlife (mismanagement) agency. These are subtracted from the starting total. At the end, figure in an additional 10% for human related killings and maybe 2% for other causes. Remember nobody really knows for sure at the start. The starting figure is likely lower in reality, as is the ACTUAL wolf depredations on farm animals. Each state has different seasons. Except Wyoming, 80% of which is a death trap for wolves year ’round without manditory reporting in most of it. So basically, Wyoming is pushing the state’s rights issue and ignoring the ESA and messing with USFWS like the school yard bully. Ignorance and apathy in their population is the problem but only a lawsuit, which is only days away, will stop this before Wyoming completes it’s wolf genocide. The other states with wolves are just waiting to see if the federal delisting decision favors them, then they will eradicate wolves, too. The poachers are killing off the critically endangered Red Wolves and the Mexican Gray Wolves. Wolves mate for life. There is a short window where they can mate once a year. They only mate about 5 times in their lifetimes. Not all matings produce pups. Not all pups survive. More are killed by hunting than can be reproduced in the wild and survive their first year of life.
In theory, if the number set under the ESA is breached, the ESA numbers change by state, but it is usually 100 to 150 live wolves. Then they must stop hunting wolves in that state. But we do not yet know how the delisting is going to go? If they decide to go through with it, the reintroduction is over and the wolves are at the mercy of the states, which all want total genocide.
But I must stress Wolves are not numbers. They are families. Any so called management plan will fail as long as it is only 100 wolves and not 100 mated pairs of breeding age, it will fail.
I believer their is no reason to kill wolves because they will never be a food. And more importantly, they are necessary to the ecological functioning of the planet!
Serena, I’m not sure where you take this 6000? Were you talking about US? Because here, in Canada, we have over 50’000 wolves, as well as Russia that have – I think – way more than this. But hey, it’s just a number, that doesn’t we should hunt and kill them. If so, why are we so over-populated? If we don’t like a species getting “over-populated”, then i think we should look at ourselves and regulate our own over-population!
Just a wild-ass guess on the 6,000 figure but that was the figure used for the lower 48 US States before the wolf hunt? It has been widely circulated.
I highly doubt Canada has 50,000 wolves although Siberia is said to? Canada has rare and beautiful pockets of unusual sub-species that live on a few islands, some off the BC coast and some highly endangered mini sized wolves on one island in the arctic circle. There are only 20 +/- of those little white wolves. So Ted, the whole point is to save these little island wolves! ( and save the few alive ).
Ok bring them over if u have time .. I’m not sure they will work too far gone ?
Sent from my iPhone
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Somehow a text I sent got on this reply page technology circumventing the world . !!!! A drone delivered it ! Scary ! . But my reply to this post is ESA has been eviserated by Obama administration .. No one gets protected anymore .. And they will kill the wolves who will stop this besides a human chain of folks making a link around the area.. We are back to zero again on protection !
“There are only 20 +/- of those little white wolves. So Ted, the whole point is to save these little island wolves! ( and save the few alive )”
Melody, i agree about 1000% with you, but the thing is, Canada is (to my opinion) the “happy” ending of this wolf madness that happens in US. I said it in other blogs, hunting and trapping for reacreational and commercial purpose, is nothing but pure sadness and is completly indefensible. People see wildlife as a resource that can be harvested infinitly, without considering that every animals has its own personality, its own emotions and with wolves, its own family.
So i ask you, how is delisting (of any species) suposed to be “happy”, “enjoyable”? When you know it directly leads to their death?