State to shoot wolves on island

"The situation constitutes a dire conservation emergency," Fish and Game Commissioner Denby Lloyd said in a letter sent to Rowan Gould, acting director of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. "Immediate action is necessary."

Missing from the announcement at U.S. Fish and Game headquarters was any representation by Fish & Wildlife, on whose land wolf control would take place. Unimak Island, the only island in the Aleutians with a native caribou population, is dominated by the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. Federal managers are in the midst of making an environmental assessment of reducing wolf numbers.

"I've heard nothing about a response today," said Bruce Woods, a spokesman for Fish & Wildlife in Alaska. "We're conducting a review and continue that process."

But the state intends to act.

"We will do something by about June 1," said Pat Valkenberg of Fish and Game. "We are the primary wildlife managers on all federal lands in the state."

The two agencies have been meeting since November, and Fish and Game officials described the sessions as cordial.

Although no official estimate of wolf numbers on the 1,571-square-mile island exists, biologists who often encounter wolves during caribou surveys believe there are no more than 30 animals in three to five packs.

Under Fish and Game's plan, two biologists and four pilots would kill wolves by shotgun during a three-week effort focused on the caribou calving period, shooting nearby wolves while collaring calves as part of a mortality study.

"The targeted technique limits the number of wolves taken to those on the calving grounds," said Lem Butler, a state area management biologist from King Salmon. "This technique allows us to achieve our caribou objectives while removing the fewest number of wolves possible."

Once numbering about 5,000 animals, Unimak caribou have declined from more than 1,200 animals in 2002 to about 400 seven years later -- roughly 20 percent a year.

Ninty-nine percent of the calves perish before they reach 1 month, Butler said. And there are only five bulls for every 100 cows, many of them older animals.

"That's the heart of the issue," Butler said.

Moving bulls to Unimak from the nearby Southern Alaska Peninsula caribou herd is also being considered.

"Without taking action this spring to remove wolves on the calving grounds, an extremely low level of calf survival due to wolf predation will accelerate the downward spiral of the (caribou) and eventually the wolves themselves," Lloyd predicted.

The state Board of Game closed all caribou hunting last year.

Fewer than 100 people live in False Pass, the major town on the island.

"Residents of False Pass are extremely concerned about the precipitous decline in caribou on the island because caribou have been an important part of our subsistence lifestyle for thousands of years," wrote Nancy Dushkin, president of Isanotski, the Native village corporation in False Pass, in a letter to Fish and Game. "Now we see no caribou at all and ... the number of wolves and bear appear to be at all-time highs."

Fish and Wildlife has conducted several predator control programs to protect and enhance bird populations in recent years, including a $3 million effort to poison the rats that overran Rat Island on the western edge of the refuge. But virtually no predator management programs have been conducted to protect ungulates on national wildlife refuges in Alaska.

Reach reporter Mike Campbell at mcampbell@adn.com or 257-4329.