Alaska Wolf wars

[thxmrgarand]

Here's a pertinent story about a wolf situation near Anchorage, Alaska, and how the state and federal government are cooperating to deal with it.  All wolves on a large military base are to be killed under an agreement between the US Army, US Air Force and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.  While I don't have time to research it, I would guess that even though the base (two bases actually) is adjacent to a large city (where about half of all Alaskans live) its total acreage is somewhere near the area of Rhode Island.  Rhode Island is a unit of measure in Alaska.  The doctored photo in the article is fun.

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/dispatches

[Cottonwood]

Here's a pertinent story about a wolf situation near Anchorage, Alaska, and how the state and federal government are cooperating to deal with it.  All wolves on a large military base are to be killed under an agreement between the US Army, US Air Force and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.  While I don't have time to research it, I would guess that even though the base (two bases actually) is adjacent to a large city (where about half of all Alaskans live) its total acreage is somewhere near the area of Rhode Island.  Rhode Island is a unit of measure in Alaska.  The doctored photo in the article is fun.

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/dispatches

I have to ask, what does this have to do with the wolves here in Montana?

[thxmrgarand]

What I think it has to do - why I believe it is pertinent - is that on the one hand the federal government is forcing wolves on people in certain western states, upsetting the balance that has been established and maintained since early in the 20th Century, bringing extra costs to agricultural businesses in those states, overriding local public concerns in many cases, and yes, even bringing danger to rural residents and their property; and, on the other hand you have the same federal government cooperating with the state government in Alaska to completely eradicating wolves on a closed and closely controlled federal reservation where there is no livestock, no rural residents, and (reportedly) adequate natural prey to support the wolf population being eradicated.  Note that in the western states case the wolves are being introduced but in the Alaska case the wolves are there and no doubt have been there for at least thousands of years.  It's clear to me that the federal government is being duplicitous, and that is why I believe the article may be of interest to some of the people following this topic.  Thanks.   

[Cottonwood]

But it still does not have anything to do with Montana.

Alaska is a whole nother territory with its own dealings and concerns, and they have been handling things differantly up there for a long time.

This room is for what concerns Montana.

[thxmrgarand]

But it's the same federal government (ruling from thousands of miles away in each instance) that is on the one hand shoving wolves down the throats of local people in Montana (and other states) and on the other hand asking state government in Alaska to help them kill every single wolf (eradication is the word used- not sure how often 21st Century wildlife mgmt uses that word).  Doesn't this strike you as duplicitous?  Do you suppose that the federal bureacrats in Alaska even know about the federal bureaucrats in Montana, and if they do, can they reconcile these two opposite policies?

[Rex in OTZ]

I dont get it? Government?...............Please be specific which Federal Government Branch your refering to.
Alaska Military(Ft.Richardson'army' and Elmendorf AFB 'airforce') had to deal with a localized (Cook Inlet) issue and had to most likely get special permission to do it.

In the end your saying the (DOD) Department of Defence is responseable for repopulation of Wolves in MT?