Alaska Wolf Family starving to death because Hunters shot or trapped the rest of the Pack Members!!
A new wolf den just outside Denali National Park and Preserve holds at least two newborn pups that may be the last vestiges of a once-thriving and long-studied park pack.
But uncertainty swirls around the future of those tiny wolves.
The pups and their mother may be the last surviving members of the park’s famed Toklat or East Fork Pack that biologist Adolph Murie began studying in the 1930s. The park, home to nine packs in total, is considered one of the best places in the world to see wolves in the wild.
The East Fork wolves ventured near the park road, which meant the pack was a common sight before its numbers shrank in the last two years from 14 to perhaps these last three.
The state in early June pledged to rescue any pups born in the den and place them with a wildlife center or zoo if it became clear they would die without intervention. That offer came at the request of Anchorage biologist and wolf activist Rick Steiner.
Now Steiner contends the pups — and the black female who is their mother — are starving to death because state officials aren’t watching them closely enough before initiating a rescue.
“I think it is likely the pups are already dead and the mother long gone, but I hope I am wrong,” he said in an email Thursday. “The only way to really know is to get to the den on ground, which I am pressing the state to do.”
No state plans to monitor
A hunter on lands east of the park last month apparently killed the last radio-collared wolf in the East Fork pack.
The gray male was spotted with the female over the winter and may have been her mate, raising questions about whether she can care for pups on her own.
Park officials say there’s no indication the female has died, and the pups were alive as of June 7.
Source: Uncertainty surrounds fate of pups from fabled, dwindling Denali wolf pack – Alaska Dispatch News