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Tag Archives: National Parks

3 black bears hit and killed in Banff in span of a week

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Parks Canada says ‘unfortunate circumstances’ at play but deaths a reminder to be aware of wildlife

CBC News · 

A black bear eats weeds at the side of a highway in this file photo. (Robson Fletcher/CBC)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/three-bears-killed-banff-national-park-one-week-1.5239371?fbclid=IwAR3PQuWyr9Z8Xw2zVHOQCkRA6AfWpb_p6j4klbi76oH1NDOkJZQQvAbTVbg

Three black bears have been hit and killed by vehicles in Banff National Park in the span of a week, in what a wildlife expert describes as a series of “unfortunate circumstances.”

Dan Rafla, a human-wildlife conflict specialist with Parks Canada, says the first death happened on July 29, when a sub-adult black bear was struck and killed on the CP Rail tracks near the Banff townsite.

Then on Aug. 1, a black bear cub was hit by a transit bus on Mountain Avenue in the town.

“That was later in the night, around 11 o’clock in the evening, so it was dark,” Rafla said.

And in the early morning of Aug. 5, a vehicle hit and killed an adult black bear on the Trans-Canada Highway, just west of the Town of Banff.

Rafla said the bear had likely climbed over the wildlife fence meant to keep animals off the highway.

“Black bears are quite adept at climbing, so we assume it climbed over and unfortunately got hit when it was crossing the Trans-Canada,” he said.

‘A lot of animals on the landscape’

Bear-human conflicts tend to be more common around this time of year, Rafla added.

“We have a lot of animals on the landscape and there’s a lot of movement right now. We’re in the berry season and bears are voraciously looking for food to feed on and to put on enough weight for the winter, and they’re maybe not as attentive,” he said.

“It was maybe a bit of unfortunate circumstances to have a flurry of collisions and mortalities all within a week.”

That said, Rafla added the deaths should serve as a reminder to obey speed limits through the national park.

“There’s a reason why it’s 90 km/h and you can have wildlife on the road, despite having a fence there,” he said.

“Slowing down allows for better detection of wildlife and also better reaction time.”

Pair of surviving Banff bathroom bears adapting to new wilderness home

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SHAWN LOGAN
Updated: August 6, 2019
Three black bear cubs found in a Vermilion Lakes washroom in April 2017 have been returned to Banff National Park. Photo by Parks Canada

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From the bathroom to the backcountry, two orphaned black bear cubs rescued from a public restroom two years ago seem to have successfully re-established themselves in Banff National Park, officials say.

The two sisters were among a trio of three-month-old bear cubs mysteriously abandoned in a public restroom at the Vermilion Lakes rest stop in April 2017, and were sent to the Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary in Ontario in hopes they could successfully be reintroduced into the wild.

Last July, the yearling cubs were returned to the Banff wilds, though within weeks one was killed and eaten by a suspected grizzly bear.

The remaining two, however, managed to avoid a similar fate and hunkered down in dens to hibernate over the winter months.

Blair Fyten, human wildlife coexistence officer with Parks Canada, said there had been some initial concern in the spring that the now two-year-old adolescents had met with an untimely end.

“When they came out of their dens in the spring, one of the collars went into mortality mode,” he said, noting the tracking collars begin emitting the specialized signal when they are stationary for more than six hours.

“A couple of weeks later, mortality mode went on on the second one.”

Orphaned bear cubs pictured at the Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary in Ontario. ASPEN VALLEY WILDLIFE SANCTUARY FACEBOOK

While it took some time to get wildlife officers into the remote area, when they arrived they discovered the bears had managed to shrug off the collars and venture off, free from overt human monitoring.

The collars had initially been set to fall off on their own at the end of summer, but given the bruins were somewhat heavier than their wild counterparts due to their time in the sanctuary, it’s likely they slipped easily out of the tracking gear after losing weight while hibernating, Fyten said.

“We found the collars, but there were no signs of carcasses or predation,” he said.

“The good news is we think these bears are roaming around out there doing what bears do.”

The presumably surviving cubs remain tagged and officials hope they will eventually trip one of the many wildlife cameras that dot the national park to confirm the bears are indeed healthy and thriving.

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Fyten said despite the positive signs, the duo still face an uphill battle, as do all young bears who strike out from their mothers for the first time.

“It is an age where they are out on their own but they are still somewhat vulnerable at two years old,” he said.

“When you look in a natural setting, a female with three cubs, it’s pretty rare all will survive.”

Fyten said roughly 65 black bears are active in the lush valley bottoms in Banff National Park, where they spend much of their days foraging for berries, which have seen a bumper crop this year.

The optimal conditions for bear feeding has also resulted in a bump in black bear sightings by humans this year, he said.

“It’s been super busy with all kinds of bear activity,” he said, noting grizzly bears, which tend to dwell higher in the park’s mountain rangers, have been quieter than usual.

“Last year we had a very good berry crop, so we’ve seen a lot of cubs getting kicked out by their mothers and trying to find their way.”

slogan@postmedia.com

A teen was gored after walking between two fighting bison at a North Dakota national park

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By Scottie Andrew, Marlena Baldacci and Katherine Dillinger, CNN

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/29/us/teen-gored-bison-north-dakota-national-park-trnd/?iid=ob_article_organicsidebar_expansion

Updated 7:20 PM ET, Mon July 29, 2019

Officials remind park visitors to stay at least 25 feet from the mammals.

Officials remind park visitors to stay at least 25 feet from the mammals.

(CNN)A 17-year-old from Colorado was gored by a bison Saturday at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, officials said.

The teen was stabbed in the thigh and is in stable condition, park officials said Monday, declining to name the youth.
The visitor was walking along a trail in the park near a herd of bison; two bison had sparred earlier and stood on either side of the trail.
One of the bulls charged the teen from behind, goring them in the back of the right thigh and tossing them 6 feet into the air, officials said.
The teen was airlifted to a hospital in Bismarck.
“Park staff would like to remind visitors that bison are large, powerful and wild,” officials said. “They can turn quickly and easily outrun humans.”
It’s the second time a bison has charged a visitor in a national park this month. On July 22, a bison threw a 9-year-old girl several feet into the air at Yellowstone. The girl was taken to an onsite clinic and released, park officials said.
Bison have injured more people in Yellowstone National Park than any other animal, according to the National Park Service.
Officials remind park visitors to stay at least 25 feet from the mammals, which can charge at up to 35 mph.

A Surprising Idea About the Risks of Extinction

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A wolf steps out of a metal crate on Isle Royale in 2018
A wolf is released on Isle Royale in 2018.NATIONAL PARK SERVICE / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Isle Royale is 200 square miles of land in the watery expanse of Lake Superior. One cold winter 70 years ago, wolves came over an ice bridge and settled into a largely isolated island existence. Unfortunately, island life has not been good for them.

By 2016, the number of wolves on Isle Royale declined from a peak of 50 to just two, a male and a female. As a result of inbreeding, they were half-siblings as well as father and daughter. They had a pup together that lived less than a year. Even before that, scientists were finding wolves on Isle Royale with crooked spines and extra ribs.

The wolves of Isle Royale inspired Chris Kyriazis and his colleagues at UCLA to simulate animal populations over hundreds of generations. Their findings were counterintuitive: What doomed the wolves is not just the small number that have lived on the island in modern times, but perhaps also the large number of wolves that lived thousands of years ago. Kyriazis presented his study at the Evolution 2019 conference, and the team posted a preprint of the article, which has not been peer reviewed yet, on bioRxiv.

A large ancestral population can lead more quickly to extinction, the authors argue, because harmful but recessive mutations are not purged over thousands of years. The chances of any one individual getting two copies of the mutation is low, so natural selection doesn’t get a chance to act on it. But if the breeding population then dramatically shrinks—as when the wolves of Isle Royale isolated themselves from wolves on the mainland—those harmful mutations start to come into play.

Now, if the ancestral population were smaller, the purging of harmful mutations could have taken place beforehand. Of course, a population too small to get rid of harmful mutations might simply go extinct. What the simulations find, Kyriazis says, is a “sweet spot” for population size.

“People usually just think about how small is the population now—and how small it’s been over the last 100 years,” Kyriazis says. These simulations suggest the deep history of a species even thousands of years ago can be relevant for conservation today.

The team next simulated what this finding might mean for the practice of genetic rescue, when individuals are brought in to diversify an inbred population. The Isle Royale wolves actually went through a natural genetic rescue when a lone male wolf arrived on this island and had 34 pups. But this “rescue” ultimately failed, ending with the two wolves left in 2016. In 2018, the National Park Service actually moved the first of 15 wolves to Isle Royale as part of a planned genetic rescue. The simulations suggest that rather than aiming to introduce the most genetically diverse wolves from the biggest populations, one might go for wolves from more moderately sized populations.

In practice, though, actually applying these findings will be easier said than done. “It can be a useful guide to help us to think about those deleterious, recessive mutations, but at the end of the day you have to do what you have to do because there’s only wolves in so many places that can be moved,” says Kristin Brzeski, a conservation geneticist at Michigan Technological University who studies the Isle Royale wolves. Eight of the recently relocated wolves came from Michipicoten Island in Canada, where caribou, their usual prey, had disappeared. The wolves were starving and had to be moved if they were going to survive.

Philip Hedrick, a population geneticist at Arizona State University who has studied the wolves at Isle Royale, says the simulations oversimplify a few things. Greater genetic variation also helps a population adapt, for example, especially as climate changes in the future. And often, having just one copy of a deleterious, recessive mutation can slightly decrease an individual’s fitness, he says, so the mutation’s frequency could be low even in large populations.

In the meantime, the genetic rescue at Isle Royale has hit a few unrelated snags. Two relocated wolves died and another left the island when an ice bridge formed during the polar vortex this winter. But scientists have been studying the wolves there for 50 years and will likely continue to for much longer. Isle Royale has one of the most well-studied wolf populations in the world, and it may well reveal how genetic rescue actually works.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

Close encounters with the bear kind

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The very places that attract visitors and newcomers for their proximity to wildlife grapple with a spike in bear-human incidents.

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Paige BlankenbuehlerPHOTOSJune 14, 2019

At the height of the tourist season at Rocky Mountain National Park in 2018, a plump black bear ambled into the lobby of the nearby Stanley Hotel. It climbed onto a large, cherry wood table, examined an antique couch, gave it a deliberate sniff and then sauntered back out the door it had come in.

Estes Park, Colorado, the gateway community to Rocky Mountain National Park, has what most would consider a problem. Overzealous bears regularly wander into unexpected and inappropriate human places: the warmly lit kitchens of residents, inviting alleyway garbage cans; they commonly thrash their way into tourist vehicles to investigate a scent.

As the population of Colorado’s Front Range swells, visitation to Rocky Mountain National Park, too, has spiked. That’s only meant more encounters with wildlife and increased reports of “problem” bears that have become highly accustomed to humans and consistently rummage for scraps.

But it’s the very possibility of encountering these animals that encourages so many people to move to places like Estes Park and to visit its surrounding wildish areas. As much as our proximity to wildlife confounds our natural resource managers, it continues to delight a great many humans.

In recent years, Colorado Parks and Wildlife managers have worked with the city of Estes Park to adopt practices to better cohabitate with our non-human neighbors. In 2015, the town passed a wildlife ordinance that’s lessened a hungry bear’s access to its greatest temptation: trash. Residents must use either a wild-resistant container or put trashcans outside only on pickup days. Beyond efforts among the residential streets, the city also replaced all of the public trash containers in 2016. And though it was an expensive project, a whopping $1,200 for each individual canister, the community pitched in through an innovative sponsorship program.

The city continues to educate newcomers and visitors through a regular “Bear Booth” at the weekly farmer’s market, and provides tip sheets for behavior to keep wildlife safe that are enclosed in city utility bills and newsletters. Residents are advised that all bird feeders must be suspended and out of reach of a clawing bear. Police department volunteer auxiliary officers help patrol garbage cans and dumpsters with weekly driving rounds and provide information to rule-breakers.

While the town has made progress, there are still challenges ahead. More people visited the area during the 2018 season — more than 4.5 million people — than ever before, a trend that is expected to continue, and many tourists are unaware of safe wildlife interaction practices. It’s also an ongoing challenge for wildlife managers and town officials to police the many new small-scale vacation rentals that pop up.

And while chubby black bears awkwardly navigating the ever-intruding human world are undeniably endearing —wildlife encounters frequently go viral online, after all —the best advice wildlife managers offer is painstaking simple: Ignore them and let them be wild.

Yellowstone news: Climate change is DESTROYING national park, experts warn

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https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1049384/yellowstone-volcano-news-climate-change-global-warming

CLIMATE change is DESTROYING Yellowstone National Park and experts say it is a matter of decades before the face of the region is radically changed.

By SEAN MARTIN

Yellowstone volcano: Super eruption seems LIKELY says scientist

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Yellowstone is not only home to one of the world’s most powerful volcanoes, but is the only remaining place in the United States where large packs of wolves and bison roam freely. However, this will soon change for the snow-covered national park, with experts warning that rising global temperatures will soon put a halt to this. Researchers who have spent years studying the 8800 square kilometres say the next few decades will see decreased snowfall, increased fires, less forest and more grassland.

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Since 1948, the average annual temperature of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, which is a massive 89,030 square kilometres across the State of Wyoming, has risen by 1.1 degrees Celsius.

With this, scientists say winter has become 10 days shorter on average.

And this steady warming will see Yellowstone National Park drastically change.

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Patrick Gonzalez, a forest and climate change scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, said: “For the Northern Rockies, snowpack has fallen to its lowest level in eight centuries.

yellowstone

Yellowstone news: Climate change is DESTROYING national park, experts warn (Image: GETTY)

bison

Bye-bye bison: Animals are leaving Yellowstone (Image: GETTY)

“By the time my daughter is an old woman, the climate will be as different for her as the last ice age seems to us.”

Recent years have seen a migration of elk away from the park as there is less of a ‘green wave’ – where greenery flourishes during summer.

And where the elk go, the wolves follow, meaning the ecosystem is steadily changing too.

Andrew Hansen of Montana State University said: It is a very interesting mix of land-use change and climate change, possibly leading to quite dramatic shifts in migration and to thousands of elk on private land.”

Yellowstone: Rare moment Ear Spring geyser erupts

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Waterways are also receding which will have a huge effect on the landscape of Yellowstone National Park.

Daniel Isaak of the US Forest Service told the New York Times that as waters recede, fish become more concentrated allowing disease to more easily spread, which in turn will contribute to their die off, and those of animals higher up in the food chain.

He added: “We can very definitely see warming trends during the summer and autumn.

“Stream and river flows are declining as snowpack declines.”

Ontario wolves to be trapped, transferred in effort to restore population on Michigan island…

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Weather permitting, wolves will be moved by helicopter in January

Amy Hadley · CBC News · Posted: Nov 21, 2018 7:30 AM ET | Last Updated: 3 hours ago

<https://i.cbc.ca/1.4847490.1538505763!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_780/isle-royale-wolves.jpg>

The first female wolf to be transported to the island this fall is captured by a remote camera, before emerging from her crate. The first four wolves to be cleared for transfer were from Minnesota. (U.S. National Park Service)

Wolves from Ontario will soon be moved across the border to try to help restore the dwindling population in Michigan’s Isle Royale National Park.

This fall, officials at the park began a multi-year effort to move wolves from the mainland to the island, to try to restore the balance between wolves and moose on the isolated island, which is located on Lake Superior, not far from Thunder Bay, Ont.

<https://i.cbc.ca/1.4857118.1539187600!/fileImage/httpImage/image.png_gen/derivatives/original_780/isle-royale.png>

The multi-year wolf transfer will involve capturing and moving mainland wolves from Michigan and Minnesota, but Isle Royale National Park superintendent Phyllis Green says they now also plan to move a pack from nearby Ontario.

The first wolves to be moved were trapped in Minnesota, but officials were hopeful that Canadian wolves would also be added to the mix. That plan has now been given the green light, said park superintendent Phyllis Green.

* Canadian wolves may be added to U.S. park service’s work to revive island population <https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/isle-royale-wolf-transfer-1.4846093>
* U.S. National Park Service will soon transport wolves to Isle Royale <https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/isle-royale-wolves-moose-1.4701281>

“Actually we were fortunate that Michigan’s Governor [Rick] Snyder had a conversation with [Ontario’s] Premier [Doug] Ford and talked about the importance of the project,” she said.

“And so after that conversation we were able to have further conversations and we’re definitely going to be — weather providing — receiving wolves from Ontario this winter.”

The wolves will come from Michipicoten Island in northeastern Lake Superior, where a very different wildlife management problem has made headlines. While Isle Royale’s wolf population has faced near extinction, wolves on Michipicoten were weakening the caribou population.

* Dwindling caribou population being moved off Michipicoten <https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/michipicoten-caribou-relocation-1.4487408> Island — by air

If weather permits, suitable wolves will be trapped during a normal collaring exercise done by Ontario researchers in January and transferred to Isle Royale by helicopter, Green said.

<https://i.cbc.ca/1.4847451.1538505093!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/phyllis-green.jpg>

Phyllis Green, superintendent of Isle Royale National Park in Michigan, stands in front of an empty crate that held one of the first wolves to be transported to the island. (National Park Service/John Pepin)

‘Robust’ Canadian wolves desirable for genetic strength

The Ontario wolves are desirable for several reasons, said Green, including the fact that the animals on Michipicoten are well-studied by Ontario researchers who will be able to identify alpha males and females that might be well suited to the trip.

“And also we actually know that they’re actually pretty prolific on pups, and that’s certainly what you would hope to see when you start a new population.”

“And the other positive is that they’re very robust genetically,” Green added.

“On the U.S. side, we’ve had situations where the wolf population has dropped and then there’s some incursion of coyote or dog genetics into the population.”

<https://i.cbc.ca/1.4913655.1542748542!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/isle-royale-wolf.jpg>

A trail camera photo shows one of the female wolves transferred to Michigan’s Isle Royale National Park this fall, as part of a multi-year effort to restore the population and balance the ecosystem. (U.S. National Park Service)

Two wolf fatalities so far

The wolf transfer is not without risks. During the first phase of the project this fall, a wolf that had been cleared for transfer died before it could be moved to Isle Royale, prompting changes to protocols in an effort to reduce stress on the animals.

One male and three females were successfully moved to the island, but in November, the National Park Service confirmed that the male wolf had been found dead. The cause of death is not known, Green said, but necropsy results expected in December should yield more information.

Some natural mortality is to be expected, Green said.

“It’s unfortunate but in the wild population about 25 to 30 per cent of the wolves die annually,” she said.

“It’s a tough life out there for them.”

The transferred wolves are being monitored using GPS technology and the other three are doing well, Green said.

The Isle Royale wolf relocation effort is expected to take three to five years, with the eventual goal of moving up to 30 animals.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/ontario-wolves-isle-royale-1.4913527

<https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/ontario-wolves-isle-royale-1.4913527>

Ontario wolves to be trapped, transferred in effort to restore population on Michigan island | CBC News <https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/ontario-wolves-isle-royale-1.4913527>

The first female wolf to be transported to the island this fall is captured by a remote camera, before emerging from her crate. The first four wolves to be cleared for transfer were from Minnesota.

http://www.cbc.ca <http://www.cbc.ca

Denali Wolf Update: A little good news, more bad news

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The Alaska Department of Fish & Game approved an Emergency Order closing the wolf hunting/trapping season adjacent to Denali National Park. However, the proposed Denali Buffer legislation is stalled in the Legislature, and controversy sparked over a hunter’s braggadocio photos of dead wolves east of the Park.

First, a little good news: ADF&G issued an Emergency Order immediately closing the Stampede Trail corridor (state land along the northeast boundary of the Park, home to the most easily viewed wolves along the Park Road) to hunting and trapping wolves.

A formal request for the Order was submitted March 24 based on information from Park biologists that five radio-collared Park wolves already had been killed by hunting/trapping this winter. Because only about one in four wolves are collared, there was concern that the total harvest would be much higher – and unfortunately it is. According to the ADF&G, eight wolves were killed so far this winter in the Stampede area, twice the average annual number. That total will increase again when the final state harvest report and spring Park wolf survey are complete.

According to the Order, hunting in the area was closed effective April 2, and the trapping season will end April 9. The seasons were scheduled to end April 15 and April 30, respectively. Trappers have 30 days after the season to report their harvest, so the final tally of wolves killed won’t be known until mid-May.

One of the wolves (apparently) trapped was the alpha male of the Riley Creek pack, which claims territory along the Park Road west of the entrance. Sightings of members of the Riley Creek pack increased the likelihood of visitors seeing wolves from about 5 percent in prior years to 17 percent last summer. Loss of the alpha male is critical to the future of the pack: the remaining wolves may fail to produce pups this spring, or disburse altogether. In recent years the loss of key breeding wolves resulted in the demise of the Grant Creek and Toklat packs; both had territories adjacent to the Riley Creek wolves.

AWA and other groups solicited comments to ADF&G Commissioner Sam Cotten in support of the emergency closure request. Our concerns were heard in the administration, although in practice the closure shaves only a very minimal amount of time off of the full hunting/trapping seasons.

Bad news: Just a day before the emergency closure request was submitted, the Alaska Senate Resources Committee “set aside” House Bill 105, which would establish a no wolf hunting/trapping buffer on state lands adjacent to Denali’s northeastern boundary. That action stalls – and more than likely kills – the legislation.

Again, AWA and others solicited public comments in favor of HB105 for the Committee hearing. Many were received – so many that Committee Chair Cathy Giessel (R-Anchorage) actively solicited comments from the opposition. In a public online trapping forum, Sen. Giessel wrote to Fairbanks trapper Al Barrette:

“…If there are others who oppose the bill, please have them send emails, Al.

I have literally hundreds of support emails…and your one opposition email.”

Rep. Andy Josephson (D-Anchorage) sponsored the bill and worked tirelessly to get it passed by the full House last May, which was a rare win for pro-wildlife legislation. He predicted it was a long shot to move ahead in the more conservative-minded Senate, and that proved true at its first committee hurdle. Nevertheless we owe Andy a heartfelt “thank you” for his heroic work on this and other bills supporting wildlife and the environment.

Bad news, illustrated. The Denali wolf controversy flared on social media last weekend when graphic photos circulated of a hunter proudly posing with an AK-15 semiautomatic rifle, snowmachine and 10 dead wolves. The two photos can be viewed on our website at:http://akwildlife.org/february-2018-wolf-kill-photos/

(Warning: they are graphic and disturbing.)

The initial anonymous email accompanying the photos implied they were Denali wolves killed in the nearby Healy area. When queried, ADF&G and the Alaska Wildlife Troopers issued a press release asserting that the wolves were not killed in the Stampede corridor/Denali area, but were harvested legally about 70 miles east of Denali in February. (Therefore it is unknown if the wolves denned in or could have been seen in the Park.)

However, without a buffer to protect wolves from hunting/trapping, such killing is legal – and certainly does occur – adjacent to the Park boundary.

Furthermore, such egregious killing is all too common statewide under the guise of Alaska’s ongoing Intensive Management (predator control) programs utilizing extended harvest seasons and liberal (or non-existent) harvest limits across multiple species, including bears and coyotes. This “slaughter”, not to be confused with reasonably regulated “hunting” using the principles of fair-chase, is commonplace across Alaska. It’s just not often the public is able to see the perpetrators’ brazen bragging.

If you have not already done so, please sign the online petition, started by Among Wolvesco-author Marybeth Holleman in 2015, asking the federal and state governments to agree to create a no-wolf-kill buffer adjacent to Denali. To date 360,000+ people have signed on.  https://www.thepetitionsite.com/423/700/229/halt-the-killing-of-denali-national-park-wolves/ 

Finally, again, thank you for supporting the Denali wolves and AWA. We are sorry we don’t have better news to report, but accomplishing anything “pro-wildlife” in this state where most politicians are openly “pro hunter/trapper” is an uphill struggle. However, there are still other avenues to pursue, and we will always keep up the fight for these wolves and all of Alaska’s wildlife.

Wolf hunting and trapping along Stampede Trail closed by emergency order

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Denali wolf
A wolf stands in the brush near Wonder Lake in Denali National Park and Preserve.  File photo courtesy of National Park Service
 Denali National Park wolf buffer bill goes to Alaska House floor

FAIRBANKS – State biologists issued an emergency order Friday closing the wolf hunting and trapping season on state land along the Stampede Trail, including land adjacent to the eastern boundary of Denali National Park and Preserve.

The area has been the site of a years-long political and public policy battle about the killing of wolves that roam on state and federal land.

“Preliminary data indicate up to eight wolves have been taken this year in the area near the Stampede Trail, though exact harvest locations are unknown,” a news release from the Department of Fish and Game reads. “Over the last five years, the average area harvest has been about four wolves per year.”

Hunting season for wolves had been scheduled to run through April 15, and trapping season was to end on April 30. The wolf season will remain open for hunters until 11:59 p.m. Monday and for an additional week for trappers, until 11:59 p.m. April 9.

The final number of wolves legally killed in the unit won’t be known until trappers report their harvest. They have until 30 days after the season closes to file their report.

“Current levels of wolf harvest do not cause a biological or conservation problem for wolves in Unit 20C, which includes a large portion of Denali National Park and Preserve,” Division of Wildlife Conservation Director Bruce Dale said in a news release. “However, there is the potential for more wolves to be harvested this season.”

The wolf population around Denali National Park has been a highly controversial subject for decades. Opponents of wolf hunting and trapping the area say the number of wolves being killed is having a detrimental affect on the overall wolf population in the region, especially in Denali National Park, where reported wolf sightings by visitors have declined in recent years.

“This high level of take has impacted several wolf family groups, ecological dynamics, and the prospects for wolf viewing for hundreds of thousands of visitors to the park — our top value tourism destination in Alaska,” said Rick Steiner, a years-long vocal advocate for a no hunting or trapping buffer zone on state land along the Denali National Park boundary.

Steiner praised Gov. Bill Walker and Cotten for the decision, though he said the closure affects an area smaller than what he and others sought on March 24 in a letter to Fish and Game Commissioner Sam Cotten.

“It is a recognition of the exceptional value of Denali wildlife to the state’s tourism industry,” he said in an emailed response to the emergency closure. “The fact is that this area should never have been open to wolf hunting/trapping in the first place.”

“The area we proposed to be closed is much larger than what the state has closed here, but at least it is something,” he said.

A bill to create a buffer zone in the area passed the Alaska House in May 2017 but was not taken up in the Senate until last week, where it was heard in the Senate Resources Committee and held.

House Bill 105 passed 22-18, with all of the votes in favor coming from the Democrat-led majority coalition. The bill is not expected to pass the Republican-controlled Senate.

This story will be updated.

Endangered Science

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By Camilla Fox

2016-05-30-1464631104-7599176-StandingUpForScienceWolfBanner.jpg

As Americans enjoy this long weekend of remembrance, many will find their way to a national or state park hoping to see wildlife in their natural habitats. Last year over 300 million people visited the national parks alone, the highest number on record. Tourists photographed bears and bobcats, bison and moose, foxes, wolves, prairie dogs, coyotes, eagles, owls, and more.

What most visitors didn’t see is the work that goes on behind the scenes to make sure that our wildlife is protected, and species on the brink of extinction don’t disappear. Project Coyote is just one of many organizations committed to protecting our public lands and public trust, ensuring that the wild animals visitors hope to see receive the protections they deserve, as outlined in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) decades ago.

One of the fundamental requirements of the ESA is that decisions about protecting wildlife are based on the best available science. This sounds obvious, but in order for science to be credible, it must be independent, which means free of political or commercial interests.

Unfortunately, respect for independent science within wildlife management ranks is as endangered as the animals we try to protect. One of many examples includes the Department of Interior’s alarming decision in 2014 to declare gray wolves recovered nationwide because the Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) claimed the wolves occupied most of the remaining suitable habitat in the U.S. In truth, nearly two-dozen states in the historic range were, and still are, vacant. The FWS declared them unsuitable on grounds that human tolerance for wolves was low there and that wolves would be poached by citizens or killed by government agents seeking to protect livestock interests. This is the same year we witnessed wolves returning to their native home of California where they had not been seen since 1924. If FWS policy had been implemented, California might not have seen this important and historic return.

The fact is that none of the available science supported the FWS claim, and what evidence there was actually showed that tolerance for wolves was even higher outside their current range.

According to the ESA, our federal wildlife managers are supposed to address threats that may push a species to extinction, not circumvent the threat by redefining “suitable habitat.” It is required to combat threats and recover listed species, as the ESA states, “across all or a significant portion of range.” (ESA 16 USC § 1531)

Instead, FWS pointed to a non-peer-reviewed analysis suggesting the northeastern U.S. was not gray wolf habitat because a new species had lived there. The criticism that followed eventually led to an independent scientific review process that “unanimously decided that the FWS’s earlier decisions were not well supported by the available science.”

Project Coyote Science Advisory Board members Adrian Treves, Jeremy Bruskotter, John Vucetich, and Michael Nelson co-authored this study refuting these assumptions, and there are more examples of FWS ignoring science, including the department’s recent delisting decisions about wolverines and grizzlies that not only omitted independent scientific review, but rejected the recommendations of agency biologists.

If we look at the history of decisions about carnivores under the ESA, we see similar disregard for the best available science. Since 2005, the FWS has lost nearly a dozen federal court cases trying to remove protections for wolves, grizzly bears, and wolverines. In each case, the courts sided with plaintiff’s claims that the Department of the Interior misinterpreted the ESA or did not follow the ESA mandate to base its decisions on the best scientific data available.

Which is why the recent Endangered Species Day was the perfect occasion for me to join with members of Project Coyote’s Science Advisory Board in collaboration with the Union of Concerned Scientists, to compel Interior Secretary Jewell and Commerce Secretary Pritzker to enforce the ESA and serve the public trust by using the best available science. We submitted a petition with the signatures of nearly 1,000 US scientists and scholars, and our request was simple: respect the law and put the independent scientific community back in charge of determining the best available science.

All Americans can be proud of the cooperative vision that produced the Endangered Species Act in 1973, and protects the abundance of wildlife and beautiful landscapes that our federal agencies are charged to steward. Let’s not be the generation that allowed standards to slip so far that, for some species, it’s beyond recovery. When independent science is threatened, so are our keystone species, and the healthy ecosystems we all depend on to survive and thrive.

Learn more about the ways scientists are working for wildlife by visiting Project Coyote’sScience and Stewardship Program and Notes from the Field blog.