Monday, May 08, 2006

Airborne Hunting of Wolves in Alaska

Wolves’ population today is very small. Today, Alaska is the home of most of the wolves in America (Defenders of Wildlife, 2006). There are about 7,000 to 9,000 wolves in Alaska and they are endangered, because between 1996 and 2001, more than 7,000 wolves were killed. At this rate, grey wolves will be extinct in the near future.

The population of wolves in Alaska is decreasing sharply and Alaskans ignore that fact believing that wolves have no use, and that they are dangerous to the moose population, while according to Mr. Talbott (2005), brown bears are even more dangerous to the moose population than wolves, and they are more useless to us. Wolves can be trained to guard our houses and properties, as dogs do. They can also be trained to pull ice cargos as they are in many icy regions as well as Alaska, because they are very strong, and they can live and survive in such a cold place because of their thick skin and fur. Alaskans started to think about hunting bears as well, but they do not practice it as much as hunting wolves.

Some Alaskans tried to stop or reduce the aerial killing of wolves by voting against it, but they failed because there were not enough people opposing it to succeed in winning at the ballot, and the game board allowed their friends to hunt wolves using their private aircraft. “Shooting wolves from aircraft is the inevitable consequence of a delusional game management program based on … delusions”, according to Mr. Wittshirk (2006, par. 6), and they are as following. First, most Alaskans depend on moose meat for food and survival; this is not true because there are a lot of animals that can be depended on as source of meat and a survival substance such as fish. Alaskans can also buy and import meats and other kinds of food, because they have a lot of money from the huge profits of selling and exporting Oil. The second delusion is that wolves attack moose herds in popular areas of motor hunting. The third delusion is that the nature, no matter what, will provide Alaskans a large number of moose every year even though we are killing wolves by aircraft, having all of this mechanized population in Alaska and encroaching on moose habitats.

When aircraft fly in a low level near to the ground to hunt wolves, they scare moose and other types of animals that Alaskans can use as food sources. It’s noisy and that makes animals panicked and forces them to leave these areas to find more peaceful places to live in. Aircraft also use fuel to operate, while it is a big loss of aircraft fuel. It also causes a lot of air pollution and damages the environment, which can affect moose, other animals and humans. It can also cause a lot of health problems and diseases.

After Judge Sharon Gleason made her narrow decision in the case of the game board and the aerial wolf killing, the game board was caught violating their own regulations (Wittshirk, 2006). That indicates that hunters didn’t care about wolves or even laws, and it’s obvious that no one did anything about it, because we can see that there is still airborne hunting and aerial hunting of wolves in Alaska. We and Alaskans should start having actions to oppose it and reduce it because it is an effective action to eliminate wolves in Alaska.

Organizations that care about wolves and the wildlife should make studies, do research and give lectures to indicate and show Alaskans that wolves may be very useful to them in many ways, to make them acknowledge other sources of food, and to find other useless animals to hunt. So if airborne hunting was really necessary for some people, especially notable people with connections and political power, to have their enjoyment, we should convince them to hunt other species such as the brown bears especially because they exist in many other places than Alaska. When Alaskans recognize that, they will react faster and oppose the airborne and aerial hunting of wolves in Alaska even more. Most Alaskans may ignore the fact that wolves can be trained to do a lot of things (Wolf Park, 2000). They can be trained to pull cargo since they can resist the very cold weather and walk miles without getting tired. Wolves are also very strong; they can be trained to guard houses and other properties even better and smarter than dogs. Lundberg (2001) cites McLoughlin as saying, “In a wolf-sized domestic dog, the brain is often as much as 20% smaller than in wolves”. Creating and building centers to train them to do such useful work would be a very good job to be done by government.

Alaskans have the right to make new laws (Talbott, 2005), so when they believe that wolves shouldn’t be hunted in this inhumane way or else they will be extinct, they will vote for reducing or even stopping airborne hunting of wolves.

The Government should also apply strict laws to those who are caught hunting wolves in rural areas. In another way, government should allow wolf hunting in general for people with legal permits only if necessary, and apply a hard punishment to those who are caught hunting illegally. In addition, the government should employ more national guards to stop illegal hunters before they even hunt.
Those who are accepted to have permits to hunt wolves should have special qualities to have permits. They should have to be employed by the government and have special training such as learning how to hunt a wolf by only injuring it and not killing it and in a special way that makes it possible for the wolf to be treated.

Wildlife guards are really important to reduce the airborne hunting as well. They can be given modern airplanes and helicopters to watch the sky and prevent unauthorized hunters of hunting in rural areas. Wildlife guards can also help injured or sick wolves by taking them to medical centers or even apply first aid on them in case the injury is not too bad.

Aircraft fuel should be controlled so that it is only used for necessities such as traveling or ………… goods. Airlines fuel also can be taxed when used for entertainment and that would discourage hunters to hunt by using aircraft. The reason that we should as former is because aircraft as well as other machines and vehicles use fuel to operate. Fuel is burned in the aircraft and after that it goes out of it as a very bad mixture of greenhouse gases as consumptions. These gases are toxic and cause a lot of air and water pollution, which damages nature and the environment. They also cause a lot of diseases to people who breathe them. That means that they don’t only affect animals, but they also affect humans. Fuel used in aircraft is very expensive (Schiller, 2006), so by hunting wolves, which isn’t a very useful thing to do, fuel is wasted unnecessarily.

Besides its physical effects both on animals and humans, aircraft have other effects. Aircraft are very noisy when they are operated. When airborne hunting teams want to hunt wolves or other animals, they fly at a low level. Animals get scared and panicked from the noise of the aircraft, so animals escape and find more peaceful places to live in especially females with little babies, because they get afraid for their babies. And that is a big factor that Alaskans might not know about. This factor is one of many that make animals such as moose and caribou, which provide Alaskans with large amounts of meat, escape and travel to other places. That will make Alaskans lose a lot.
So there are three main solutions for this problem. First, the organizations that care about wolves should make studies, give lectures and do research in order to show Alaskans that wolves are more useful than useless. Second, the government should apply strict laws for unauthorized hunters. Finally, aircraft should be prohibited to fly within Alaska’s air zone, because of their negative effects on animals, humans and environment.

I hope that my research would encourage people to start thinking seriously about it and take a step forward in order to reduce airborne hunting of wolves in Alaska and help these helpless poor animals.


Bibliography:

Defenders of Wildlife (2006, March). Latest news. Defenders of Wildlife website. Retrieved in April 25, 2006 from:
  • http://www.defenders.org/wildlife/wolf/alaska.html


  • Lundberg, M. (2001). Power vs. dignity: The wolf in Alaska & the Yukon. Explore North. Retrieved May 1, 2006 from:
  • http://www.explorenorth.com/library/yafeatures/bl-wolf2.htm


  • Menatory, A. (2004). The art of being a wolf. New York: Barnes & Noble.
    Schiller, B. (2006, May). Climate wise. Green biz. Retrieved May 2, 2006 from:
  • http://www.greenbiz.com/news/columns_third.cfm?NewsID=30809


  • Talbott, C. (2005, Nov. 8). Group targets airborne hunting. Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Retrieved from Lexis-Nexis database, March 31, 2006.

    Wittshirk, R. (2005, Feb. 24). Machismo, myth, money fuel wolf kill. Anchorage Daily News (Alaska). Retrieved from Lexis-Nexis database, March 31, 2006.

    Wolf Park (2000). Wolf training & socialization: An important aspect of life that all captive wolves should enjoy. Retrieved May 1, 2006 from:
  • http://www.wolfpark.org/training/index.html
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