Sorry, but again you are pointing fingers at another and making very incorrect noise...Originally Posted by Gigmaster
It is not legal to shoot wolves from helicopters in Alaska and has only lately been reopened for shooting from small airplanes. And that due to the incredible damage wolves have done here.
A past Governor, Tony Knowles (a name I have trouble even typing without bile rising in the back of my throat... Cannot begin to express the antipathy I feel against the man) unilaterally banned shooting wolves from the air and eliminated all wolf and bear control programs. The biologists were ignored. Wolves are very cyclic creatures. In the good times they breed rapidly and kill indiscriminately. They literally wipe out all big game in their area rapidly and move on.
Their numbers soared following the ban. Caribou and moose are not high density animals, especially in Alaska. Sitting on a high ridge glassing for a day will expose all bulls in the area for many, many miles. The small number always surprises folks, even when we think there are lots. Caribou are thicker than flies in the herd, but herds are spread out over vast country.
A few of the real problems for keeping ungulate numbers up is calving ground, which both concentrates birthing cows and lures big predators. Typically, a large boar bear will do most of the calf killing in a given calving ground... Yes, I meant just one. Predator control plans that do not kill that one bear do little good.
When I grew up here in AK in the '60s, there were lots of moose and caribou and precious few wolves. As a teenager I got my picture in the paper with a large black wolf I shot while caribou hunting. It was unusual to see wolves outside the park. Now it is unusual to see moose or caribou outside the park.
The black bear limit was 6 per year and the hides could legally be sold. Today the limit is one or two in areas which have not been designated for control. The designated areas which are being expanded rapidly every year have varying limits and rules, but most allow unlimited black bear and wolf shooting and liberal brown bear seasons and the gall bladders and hides may be sold.
Aerial wolf hunting is open to limited numbers of 2-man teams, a pilot and a gunner. It is extremely tough flying. Many planes and bodies have been mangled in the process. And they love it.
There have been repeated votes with tremendous sums of outside money being spent on media campaigns to stop wolf hunting from small planes and frankly all they have done is waste many millions of dollars which would have been far better spent on wildlife... When the obvious shows up the people have decided they had to go back to predator control.
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