Wolf Pack Trapped, Scientist Warns

Trappers are picking off the remaining members of a wolf pack that has strayed from Denali National Park and Preserve onto state land, a researcher who has studied the pack for a decade said Friday.

Gordon Haber, whose work is paid for by the animal-rights group Friends of Animals, said it was alarming and he would again appeal to the state for an emergency closure of hunting and trapping in the area.

“All of these wolves have been trapped,” Haber said. “This group that has been around for the last 40 years is virtually on its last legs.”

Alaska trapping season runs through April 30.

Haber said he would make a personal appeal to the Alaska Board of Game.

The wolf pack, known as the Toklat or East Fork wolves, are one of Denali’s most visible wolf packs, delighting thousands of park visitors each year.

Haber’s account at this point is unsubstantiated, said Philip Hooge, Denali’s assistant superintendent of resources. But he said the park was worried enough to send wildlife biologist Tom Meier to the area where the alpha, or breeding female, was trapped and killed last month.

“Obviously, we are concerned and we are out looking,” Hooge said.

Hooge said the park had heard reports that a second female in the pack was trapped and a pup was running around with a trap on its leg. Those reports, too, are unconfirmed, he said.

Haber wants the state to issue an emergency hunting and trapping closure where the remaining members of the pack have been seen after the death of the alpha female. It is within a few hundred feet of the park’s northeast boundary and on the outside edge of a wolf buffer zone.

The state refused a previous request that Haber made in a letter Feb. 17 to Wayne Regelin, acting commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Regelin responded five days later in a letter that said the loss of one wolf did not rise to the level of an emergency.

Regelin did not immediately return a call for comment Friday.

Haber said the Toklat group is one of the and most-studied packs in Denali.