Protests Kill Alaska Wolf Hunt

Unlike the rest of the country, the Alaska wilderness is prowled by thousands of gray wolves.

Concerns about the state’s wild image--and the money that image generates--have ensured that hundreds of the animals will live at least a year longer.

The state Board of Game adopted a plan in November to shoot about 300 wolves from the air to build up caribou and moose populations in two areas near Fairbanks.

But the plan ran headlong into a loud and unified protest by animal-rights groups in the continental United States. The groups ran ads in a number of prominent newspapers urging a worldwide boycott of Alaska’s billion-dollar tourism industry.

Gov. Walter J. Hickel’s office was bombarded with thousands of letters and phone calls, while activists picketed at Alaska booking agencies and staged “howl-ins” across the country and in Europe. Tourism businesses reported fewer reservations and some cancellations.

The pain became politically unbearable just before Christmas, when the state Department of Fish and Game pulled the plug on aerial shooting in 1993. The animal groups responded by calling off their boycott.

“We want the Alaskans and thousands of Americans who have called and written about this controversy to know that we are not indifferent to their concerns,” said Carl Rosier, Fish and Game commissioner.

The state said, however, that it was still committed to the idea of predator control and that it was not ruling out future wolf kills.

“Many Alaskans depend on caribou and moose for food, and we have an obligation to rebuild those herds which have been severely depleted by predators,” said Hickel.

Conservationists have argued that the wolves were being sacrificed to improve conditions for hunters and that moose and caribou numbers could be increased without aerial shooting.