The biggest problem with Alaska's latest rush to intensive management of wildlife was ablaze on the Internet this week. And the problem is this: the good killing programs get smeared along with the questionable killing programs.
A very sensible decision by the Alaska Board of Game to allow state wildlife biologists to shoot some grizzly bears on the North Slope of the Alaska Range -- using airplanes if they must -- got lost in the hysteria of what the Los Angeles Times called "a new package of (Alaska) policies criticized even by some hunters."
The story appeared not only on the L.A. Times website but on a legion of others linking to it a sensational story with this headline: "Alaska expands aerial shooting of bears".
The headline makes it sound, to the uninformed, like there must be a lot of aerial shooting of bears going on in the 49th state now. There isn't. What the state proposes is something new, and for good reason.
All of this, unfortunately, got lost in the tumult of what appears to be, even to some reasonable people Outside, an Alaska war against predators.
"In some parts of the state, wolf pups can be gassed in their dens, bear cubs and sows can be hunted, and wolves shot from helicopters," wrote reporter Kim Murphy. It's all true, and some of it is justified.
"The stepped-up measures are designed to appease long-standing concerns among a broad swath of Alaskans about declining populations of moose and caribou, upon which much of rural Alaska depends for food," Murphy added.
Give her credit for bending over backwards there in an effort to be kind to Alaskans. Areas of rural Alaska -- not "much of rural Alaska" depend on moose and caribou for food these days. Those areas depend vitally on moose and caribou, but much of rural Alaska is now clustered in regional hubs that in some ways have more in common with other Alaska cities than the rest of the Bush. And the historic reality is that all of Alaska has long depended far more on salmon than any wildlife. There aren't all that many big-game animals in this state.
Not to mention that the "long-standing concern" come not from rural Alaskans but predominately from urban hunters. Hunters like me. In some cases, these concerns about predation are justified. In others, they reflect what can only be described as a poor understanding of Alaska ecology. Moose and caribou need winter food to survive. They can't find it if it no longer exists, as is the case now on good parts of the newly forested Kenai Peninsula, or if it is
buried under 8 feet of snow, as has come to be the case in good parts of the upper Susitna and Yentna river valleys of the Mat-Su Valley in recent years.
The reality a lot of hunters don't want to accept -- the reality a lot of Alaskans of all stripes just don't grasp -- is that this is a really, really good place to be a bear. Bears are like tourists. They come out in the summer. They feast on the bounty of Alaska through those few, glorious months of the midnight sun. And then they disappear for the winter.
Bears can survive in parts of Prince William Sound where there is so much snow that people have to dig like gophers to keep from being buried alive.
Bears have evolved beautifully to deal with this. They sleep the winter away, which is why the natural order of things in this state is lots of bears, a few moose, a few wolves, and depending on the time, place and circumstances, a lot of caribou. They roam in herds. There are usually either many or none.
Man's power to change this natural dynamic is limited. There are, without argument, situations in which killing wolves and bears will help moose and caribou survive, and thus over time increase their numbers. There are also, without argument, situations in which killing wolves and bears will only decrease the numbers of those animals while doing little or nothing to increase the numbers of moose and caribou.
The Alaska Board of Game would be doing all Alaskans a service if it kept that in mind, but we're kind of now in a situation where the prevailing attitude of those in power seems to be something along the lines of "Kill them all, and let God sort it out!" It's like a mirror image of 20 years ago when the prevailing board view seemed to be "Have you Hugged a Wolf Today? They're our friends."
Few in America, of course, got upset when past boards refused to approve killings wolves no matter how grim the situation for their prey. Many in America now appear outraged at the latest turn of events, and in their outrage responsible predator control seems smeared along with the questionable killing.
Dare one say "questionable killing" these days without being pilloried as anti-hunting in Alaska? I don't know. So let's just leave it at that and get back to the good killing.
Murphy described state proposed bear kills, possibly using aircraft, thusly:
>>State game agents (are) to begin helicopter and fixed-wing hunting of bears along the Dalton Highway corridor in the high Arctic, where a precarious population of musk oxen has been threatened by predators.
This is an understatement on several levels. First, this is not a hunt. It is an execution. A number of bears have been given a death sentence, not because the population of musk ox is "precarious" but because it is "threatened."
Bears are smart animals capable of basic learning. Muskox are dumb animals that gather in a circle to try to defend themselves. Some of the bears have learned to attack that circle with fang and claw and very efficiently kill ox. This has been going since the 1980s. It is well documented. Over the years, some bears have only grown better at what they do. A muskox population which once numbered 800 animals is now down to 200.
Could the bears kill them all? Most biologists tend to believe not. The cases of predators killing off all of their prey are rare. But it has happened. Just after statehood, when the Alaska Department of Fish and Game was dominated with biologists who loved wolves, state biologists turned a male and female wolf loose on Coronation Island off Southeast Alaska in hopes the wolves would control the exploding Sitka blacktail deer population there.
The wolves did that for a time. They flourished for a time.
By 1964, there were at least a dozen wolves on the island. They soon ate all of the deer. By 1966, nearly all of the deer were gone, as were most of the wolves. The latter would all eventually die. The deer, which swim around the Panhandle more than most people realize, would eventually recolonize the island.
The muskox, like the wolves of Coronation Island, are transplants to the North Slope. Grizzly bears there, like the deer, are the species better adapted to living in the region. It is not beyond belief that left alone they could exterminate the muskox because, to repeat, Alaska is a great place to be a bear.
That has already made part of the North Slope a bad place to be a muskox. If ever there was a place where man's intervention in nature seemed warranted, this is it. But it's sure to take a beating now from Outside critics of Alaska's recent, aggressive, intensive wildlife management decisions.
Alaska Dispatch encourages a diversity of opinion and community perspectives. The opinions expressed herein are those of the contributor and are not necessarily endorsed or condoned by Alaska Dispatch. Contact Craig Medred at craig(at)alaskadispatch.com