This Island has supported wolf numbers in the hundreds before humans ever made up this fairytale of needing to control Wolf Populations!!
JUNEAU — Wildlife regulators have imposed an emergency wolf harvest closure on Prince of Wales Island, but groups fearing the wolf population there is already at risk say no harvest should have been allowed in the first place.
Prince of Wales in Southeast is the state’s second-largest island, behind Kodiak Island, and its productive timberlands make it the heart of the state’s logging industry. The island is in the Forest Service’s Craig and Thorne Bay Ranger Districts, and it and some neighboring islands make up most of the state’s Game Management Unit 2.
The Forest Service and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game jointly manage the wolf population there, an increasingly contentious task in recent years. Environmental groups blame logging for some of the decline in wolf numbers, along with legal and illegal harvest.
Federal and state regulators Tuesday instituted a hunting and trapping closure, saying they feared that the regulatory year’s quota would otherwise be exceeded.
They determined that a harvest level of nine wolves would be sustainable, but when five wolves had been taken an emergency closure was instituted. Wolves can still be taken until Dec. 20 because trappers have five days to get their equipment out of the field.
Also, hunters and trappers don’t have to report their harvests immediately, so other wolves may have been taken but not yet reported, said Ryan Scott, regional supervisor for the state’s Division of Wildlife Conservation.
“It’s likely we’re going to get to that nine-wolf quota; that’s why we used five” for the closure, he said.
In past years, the harvest has been much higher. In regulatory year 1996, 132 wolves were legally killed. Others may have been poached.
Recent estimates have shown far fewer wolves on Prince of Wales Island than there once were, but Scott said the population can still support a harvest.
“Our job is to manage a sustainable population and sustainable opportunity, and given the apparent decline in wolf numbers in Game Management Unit 2, we set a very conservative harvest level,” he said.
But several environmental groups say there shouldn’t have been any harvest at all!
Prince of Wales wolf harvest shut down over population concerns | Alaska Dispatch News.