Communities throughout Southeast have signed a petition to oppose listing the Alexander Archipelago wolf as an endangered species, due largely to the additional restrictions a listing could impose on wolf hunters and the potential risk to the deer population.
Though members of the Wrangell Borough Assembly expressed widespread support for the petition, they took issue with details in its wording at the Feb. 14 assembly meeting and preferred to draft a statement of their own.
The assembly instructed Borough Manager Jeff Good to prepare a resolution outlining the assembly’s stance against designating the wolf as an endangered species and submit it for consideration at the Feb. 28 meeting.
In 2020, The Center for Biological Diversity, Alaska Rainforest Defenders and Defenders of Wildlife petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list this Southeast Alaska wolf as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
The Alexander Archipelago wolf is a unique variety of gray wolf, with a smaller build and a darker, thicker coat that ranges throughout Southeast Alaska — 80% of its habitat is within the bounds of the Tongass National Forest. It is recognized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a unique subspecies and therefore eligible to be listed under the ESA.
According to The Center for Biological Diversity, the most significant threats to its population are legal and illegal hunting, road-building, impacts from logging, human activity and the depletion of its primary prey, the Sitka black-tailed deer.
“Threats to the continued existence of these unique wolves have been worsening for many years, in terms both of habitat loss and mismanagement by the state and federal agencies that are responsible for maintaining the populations at a healthy size,” said Larry Edwards of Alaska Rainforest Defenders in a 2021 press release.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game used to employ a quota-based system, which limited the number of wolves that hunters could take on Prince of Wales Island. In 2019, the department lifted the quota and began limiting the hunt by season length. Hunters took a record 165 wolves in 2020. ADFG estimated the population at 170 in 2018 and 316 in 2019, though the Alaska Wildlife Alliance disputes these numbers.
The small size of the population has led to “inbreeding depression” — mating between related animals has become detrimental to their ability to reproduce.
The center has been working to protect the subspecies since 1996, when it sued the USFWS for denying its petition to list the animal as endangered. It petitioned again in 2011 and was denied again; it’s 2020 petition is still under consideration. In 2021, the USFWS found “substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that the petitioned actions may be warranted” and initiated a status review of the species.
A decision on the most recent petition is expected before October 2023. In the past, petition review processes have taken around four years, according to a CoastAlaska radio news report.
The Klawock Fish and Game Advisory Council has started a counterpetition to rally Southeast communities against listing the Alexander Archipelago wolf under the ESA.
The advisory council petition outlines the importance of hunting, particularly deer hunting, to food security on Prince of Wales Island and to Alaska Native culture. It expresses concern that deer populations would be reduced if Alexander Archipelago wolves, which feed on Sitka blacktail deer, are allowed to proliferate without any check from hunters. “ADFG has been cautious and conservative” in its management strategy, the Klawock petition states.
The cities of Klawock, Craig, Coffman Cove, Thorne Bay and Kasaan have signed, along with the Ketchikan Advisory Council, the Alaska Trappers Association and about 50 other organizations and private citizens.
Attempts to secure the wolves’ legal protections have been going on for two decades now, said Wrangell Borough Assemblymember Bob Dalrymple at the Feb. 14 meeting. He believes that the center’s repeated petitions have failed because they are not warranted.
“It’s not based on hard scientific fact including actual population estimates,” he said. “I also don’t agree that it’s an isolated population and that it warrants a specific categorization under the Endangered Species Act. The idea behind that is that it’s an isolated population that is genetically unique. I disagree with that. There’s too much dispersal of wolves in Southeast Alaska outside the islands.”
Though he applauded the Klawock Advisory Council for developing and circulating their petition, he took issue with certain sections of it. He called the petition “anti-logging” at the Feb. 14 assembly meeting and said in a subsequent interview that it “sounds like they’re against state harvest.”
“I’m against the borough government signing petitions and just adding their name on and saying ‘me too,’” Dalrymple said. “If we feel strongly about an issue, we should have our own wording.”
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