|
The two primary breeding females from the best-known wolf pack at Denali National Park a pack viewed by tens of thousands of visitors each year have been killed, one of them by a trapper operating just outsidethe boundary of Alaska s premier national park. The incident has raised an outcry among Alaska conservationists.They're demanding an immediate halt to wolf trapping in what wasformerly a buffer zone northeast of the park, an area made famousas the scene of the abandoned school bus in Jon Krakauer s Intothe Wild. The trapper apparently shot an aging horse and left it as a lurefor the wolves, according to residents in the area. Park officials,who have unsuccessfully sought to maintain a no-hunting bufferalongside the park, said two wolves, at least one of them from thewell-known Grant Creek pack, were fatally snared near the carcass. 'Always disappointing' One of the dead wolves was equipped with a radio collar attached byscientists; it was the only female from the pack known to haveraised pups last year. The pack s only other known breeding femalewas found dead near the pack s den, probably of natural causes. Athird wolf, also snared near the horse carcass, was a male that mayor may not have been part of the Grant Creek pack, said Tom Meier,wildlife biologist for Denali National Park. It s always disappointing to lose animals that close to the parkboundary, and it also was disappointing because it was inside whatused to be the buffer zone, Meier told the Los Angeles Times. Rick Steiner, an independent wildlife conservation biologist andformer professor at the University of Alaska, has petitioned thestate commissioner of fish and game for an emergency closure of theformer buffer area northeast of the park to allow the pack toregroup. The loss of the pack s two primary breeding females could resultin the dissipation of one of the park s most visible wolf packs,Steiner and others said. This is one of the most highly valuable, highly viewed wolfpacks, not just in Alaska or the nation, but the world. And nowthey will not have pups this year, almost certainly, Steiner saidin an interview. What we know is if they don t have pups, sometimes the packssimply disintegrate. This has happened before. And it s allbecause of the state prioritizing the rights of these one or twotrappers over the rights of hundreds of thousands of parkvisitors. Stampede Trail Steiner said he was told that the bait was an aging horse alreadyon the verge of death. It was not clear whether the trapper shotthe horse at the scene of the snare or transported it by snowmobileto the location. It did not appear that any laws were broken,officials said. The state-owned areas just outside Denali and in this case, anarea known as Stampede Trail that extends as a finger inside thepark have long been subject to controversy over hunting andtrapping because of their proximity to the park, where animals areprotected. Conservationists succeeded in persuading the Alaska Board of Gameto establish a no-hunting buffer zone in the region in 2002. The National Park Service, which had initially been neutral on theissue, decided that wolves at Denali were in enough danger that theagency in 2010 joined conservationists in seeking to extend andeven expand the buffer zone. Instead, the Board of Game later eliminated the buffer zone,leaving hunters and trappers to operate on state lands up to theboundaries of the park boundaries that are fairly arbitrary forwildlife moving in and out of the park. Denali wolf population shrinking The wolf population at the 6-million-acre park is at a 20-year low-- just 70 wolves in nine packs down from 103 wolves in 15 packsas recently as 2006, Meier said. He said biologists are unsure what has caused the declines, butthey worry about the loss of the top two breeding females in a packsuch as Grant Creek. The collared female caught in the snare had been part of a study,still under way, to determine whether closing the buffer zone wouldaffect the population of the wolf packs most important to parktourists, Meier said. This is certainly an important piece ofinformation, he said of the incident. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as CNC Lathe Machines , Slitter Rewinding Machine Manufacturer for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Bag Making Machinery.
Related Articles -
CNC Lathe Machines, Slitter Rewinding Machine Manufacturer,
|
