Alaska’s wolf killings ruled illegal

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – A judge ruled Tuesday that Alaska’s lethal wolf control program, under which hundreds of wolves have been killed, is illegal.

Superior Court Judge Sharon Gleason ruled that the state failed to follow its own regulations when authorizing the aerial wolf control program, in which pilot and gunner teams are allowed to shoot wolves from the air.

Matt Robus, director of the state Division of Wildlife Conservation, said soon after the judge issued her ruling that the program has been suspended. People with permits to kill wolves in the five areas of the state where the program is under way were being notified, he said.

Gleason found that the Alaska Board of Game did not follow state regulations when authorizing the program in the five areas.

More precisely, the state failed to provide required justification for the program, including previous measures that failed to work, Gleason said. The game board also failed to explain why alternative means for reducing the number of wolves would not work, the judge said.

“The board is bound by its regulations,” Gleason said. “A review of the enabling regulations for aerial wolf control programs … indicates that the board failed to adequately address some or all of these regulatory requirements in each of the applicable GMU (game management units) in which it has authorized wolf control.”

The ruling was a victory for Friends of Animals, a national animal rights group that led the fight against the wolf-killing program and previously had failed to get the judge to issue an emergency injunction to stop it.

The law “requires that they have data and present the data and establish the facts that are required in those regulations. They can’t just make stuff up,” said the organization’s lawyer, James Reeves of Anchorage.

The state’s lawyer is reviewing the judge’s decision, Robus said.

“We need to evaluate what Judge Gleason had to say and what action to take,” he said.

Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner McKie Campbell called the ruling “a minor setback.”

He said the program was invalidated because the judge found the Board of Game’s regulations were inconsistent. “The state can make its regulations consistent,” Campbell said.

The board planned to meet next week to address the ruling.

The program is aimed at boosting the number of moose and caribou in areas where residents say wolves are killing too many, leaving too few for hunters to harvest for food. State biologists estimate that Alaska has 7,000 to 11,000 wolves. Robus has said there are some early indications that the program is working.

Since the program began in 2003, more than 400 wolves have been killed. The state set a goal of another 400 this winter. The state issued more than 100 new permits last month.