Outdoors/Adventure

Park Service says no to extended wolf hunting season in Alaska

Yet one more showdown is shaping up between the state and federal governments in the 49th state as the Alaska Board of Game continues to push wolf-control programs to boost moose and caribou numbers.

Kenai National Wildlife Refuge officials on Tuesday said they can't go along with state plans for aerial gunning for wolves there. On Wednesday, the National Park Service pushed back on new Alaska hunting and trapping regulations intended to extend wolf seasons in Southwest Alaska preserves. The state extended to the end of June the seasons in the Lake Clark, Katmai and Aniakchak preserves, causing the park service to announce it won't go along with killing wolves when they "are denning and raising vulnerable offspring and their pelts have little to no trophy or economic value."

The federal agency says it will end all hunting and trapping March 31, consistent with subsistence rules for the preserves. "The state of Alaska's justification for the extended season is founded on intensive management predator control objectives and creates unacceptable impacts to the preserves' purposes and values," the agency said in a press release. "State actions that seek to manipulate natural wildlife populations for human consumption, or have that practical effect, are inconsistent with NPS statutes, regulations, and policies ..."

Park spokesman John Quinley said the agency "has asked the Board at various times to exempt these natural preserves, but since they won't, we're going to have to use the clumsy tools we have." The so-called park "compendiums" set hunting and trapping rules for the 2012 season. Find them here.

Craig Medred

Craig Medred is a former writer for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2015.

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