Problem loading page. Declining wolf numbers will mean fewer Denali sightings. FAIRBANKS — Visitors to Alaska’s most famous national park might be disappointed this summer if they had their heart set on seeing a wolf.
The National Park Service says the number of wolves in Denali National Park and Preserve is the lowest it’s been in almost 30 years. Your current subscription does not provide access to this content. Please click the button below to manage your account. Or, use your linked account: Denali National Park Wolves. Denali National Park Wolves: The Issue Jump within this page to: History / Current Events / What You Can Do (Most of the text on this page has been lifted from the letter attached below in current events.
The letter does an excellent job of summarizing this issue and its history, and is well worth reading in its entirety.) Young male wolf found dead in Denali, cable snare on neck. Outrage Visited on Alaska Wolf Trapper Misplaced. There are now people who want Coke Wallace executed, and for what crime?
He killed a wolf. Every wildlife scientist who has studied wolves in Alaska considers the death of this wolf meaningless. The wolf was one of thousands to die last winter in the 49th state. Most succumbed to the weather, hunger, accident or each other. Wolf Pack Under Siege. “A necropsy revealed that the alpha female sat in Coke’s trap for 10 days to two weeks, eating dirt and rocks.
She lost 15 percent of her body weight and broke all of her teeth. The puppies didn’t know they were being hunted. On a hillside above the Teklanika River, they pounced on their mother, nuzzled their father, and wrestled each other, chewing on snouts and tails. Denali wolves, the Grant Creek wolf pack. I’ll be in Denali National park in a few days on a photography permit and it was disheartening to learn of the recent trapping death of the alpha female from the Grant Creek wolf pack.
She was snared by a trapper just outside the park boundary. I, like many photographers and visitors to Denali have photographed these animals for years, as they have denned near the park road and have been a common sight. Trapper who killed Denali wolves scoffs at notion of buffer zone. SEATTLE — The prime breeding female wolf snared outside Alaska’s Denali National Park this spring — opening new controversy over hunting and trapping on the outskirts of the 6-million-acre park — was so thin that her backbone and hipbones were protruding, according to the trapper who caught her in a snare.
“I know quite a bit about animals, and I’m telling you, she was emaciated,” said Coke Wallace, a Healy, Alaska, hunting guide who snared the wolf after leaving the carcass of an aging horse as bait about a mile outside the park. “Those wolves have a tough deal. I always assumed the wolf lived like our Labrador pets, 10 or 11 years? Uh-uh. Dogs of War: The Battle Over Denali's Toklat Wolf Pack. Backpacker Magazine – January 2009 by: Tracy Ross 10-week-old Toklat pups (Gordon Haber) The shed at Wallace's compound.
(J. Vandenoever) A wolf skull. Wallace at his hunting camp. Gordon Haber (Photo by Julia Vandenoever) Wallace tows dead female wolf. A drying rack. Wallace in front of wire snares. Denali wolf with snare. Barrette working in his tannery. Denali wolves: Slain breeding female was emaciated, trapper says.
Todd Hardesty/Alaska Video Postcards Inc.
One of the Grant Creek pack's two primary breeding females during the 2009-10 season at Denali. The wolf died of natural causes this spring, while the other female was snared in a trap. SEATTLE — The prime breeding female wolf snared outside Alaska’s Denali National Park this spring — opening new controversy over hunting and trapping on the outskirts of the 6-million-acre park — was so thin that her backbone and hipbones were protruding, according to the trapper who caught her in a snare.
“I know quite a bit about animals, and I’m telling you, she was emaciated,” said Coke Wallace, a Healy, Alaska, hunting guide who snared the wolf after leaving the carcass of an aging horse as bait about a mile outside the park. “Those wolves have a tough deal. Blow the Whistle! Help Stop Renegade Denali Wolf Trapper. Coke wallace of Denali uses unethical means to trap and kill wolves.
Help stop this. write governor Sean Parnell and Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Image by Brad Josephs Hey guys, While I am guiding in China, I am a lot out of the loop on Alaska bear and wolf news, so I often rely on the Alaska Wildlife Alliance, an wildlife advocacy group founded in 1978, to keep me up to date on things. They sent me another hearbreaking piece of news that was just released. Please help by asking our State Government to 1) implement an emergency closure to halt hunting and trapping on state land bordering the northern edge of Denali National Park, and 2) re-establish the Denali Buffer Zone (abolished in 2010), which protects the park wildlife along its borders. 3) Reitierate that Alaska hunting guides should have respect for the wildlife and the country, and have common sense.
Please send a message or call (or better yet, both) to the following: Gov. Denali Wolf. Of the top reasons tourists travel thousands of miles for a 12-hour round-trip bus ride into Denali National Park, wolves rank right up there with grizzly bears and the sight of 20,320-foot Mount McKinley on a rare bluebird day.
To the few who know, members of Denali’s wolf population are also some of the longest, continuously studied animal groups in the world, besting even Jane Goodall’s chimps. But in recent years, wolf numbers in the 7,370-square-mile park have decreased even faster than the TV audience of Sarah Palin’s Alaska on TLC. In 2007, Denali Park biologists counted 147 wolves in nine groups that roamed the 93-year-old park.
But in their most recent count, taken last autumn, numbers had declined to 54, the lowest since 1986. Some, like the Alaska Board of Game, blame this die-off on natural causes—wolves killing wolves and low sheep populations. We’ll start with the protective buffer zone. Related stories on TakePart: • Shock! Game Board again shoots down Denali wolf trapping buffer zone. Once more the Alaska Board of Game has refused to reinstate a wolf buffer zone around Denali National Park and Preserve, wherein trapping is banned. Moose that inhabit the area, which generally supports the highest concentration of the big ungulates in the 6-million-acre federal reserve, might be happy, but environmentalists are howling mad.