ANCHORAGE — The Alaska Board of Game has delayed a proposal that would have expanded the use of snares to kill grizzly and black bears.
Former Gov. Tony Knowles, Alaska wildlife scientists and conservation groups last week condemned proposals that would have allowed additional snaring of bears to increase populations of moose that could be killed by hunters.
Snaring of black bears is now limited to an area across Cook Inlet from Anchorage, and snaring is allowed for grizzlies in a smaller portion of the same area. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game proposed expanding west to an area between Aniak and Stony River.
Wolf control has been conducted in the game unit since 2004 to aid the moose population, and wolf numbers have been reduced by at least 60 percent since 2005.
The result? No apparent increase in the number of moose.
Adding bear removal, according to the department, would help address that.
In addition to snaring, the department proposal would have authorized reduction of grizzly and black bear populations by hunting sows and cubs, removing the bag limit and, allowing hunters to kill land and shoot bears as long as they were at least 300 feet away from the airplane.
Former department bear researcher John Schoen said last week that snaring usually means hanging a bait bucket and placing a snare inside. When the bear reaches into the bucket, the animal trips the snare around a front paw. The snare tightens as a bear fights the cable.
The bear remains entangled until the trapper returns and shoots the animal.
Schoen presented a statement backed by 78 biologists with Alaska wildlife experience who oppose snaring because it’s indiscriminate, capturing males, females or even cubs. Cubs left behind when their mother is killed likely also will die, he said.
Knowles, a Democrat who completed his second consecutive term as governor in 2002, called snaring an “unscientific and unethical policy.”
The board tabled the measure until its next meeting, scheduled for March 2-11 in Fairbanks.
The board Tuesday approved aerial shooting of bears for the first time as it voted to protect musk oxen in Arctic Ocean drainages west of the Canning River.
According to the department, the musk oxen population has not reached the department’s objective of at least 300 animals. Grizzlies killed most musk oxen between 2007 and 2011, the department said, and officials asked for “selective, lethal brown bear removal” to let musk oxen recover.
The board approved the killing of grizzlies from aircraft by a department employee or someone accompanied by a department employee.
KSKM-FM reported Monday that the board approved wolf predator control on the Kenai Peninsula for the first time.
Board member Ted Spraker said the board couldn’t let the moose populations continue to decline and that heavy snow this winter is likely to increase calf and adult moose mortality.
John Toppenberg, director of the Alaska Wildlife Alliance, said lower moose numbers on the Peninsula are a habitat problem, not a predator problem, and that habitat has degraded because of a lack of wildfires.
Comments (12)
Add commentIf for no other reason...
...I will vote against Sean Parnell in the next election due to his position on this.
Fortunately, there are plenty of other reasons to vote against him, too.
Your tagline
says it all Jeremiah's.....
The only good bear...
...is a berry fed bear!
You are all offensive :(
Yeah, just animals, who cares? Keep smoking those cigs and leave the critters alone. Nature can take care of itself without the aid of you lovely yahoos.
Yup, I am offensive,too, when provoked.
Test
Test
2- Legged Predators
Rossi's arrest for poaching is just one more example of BIG GOVERNMENT SOCIALISM interfering with Alaskans living the Alaskan life style (of the late 1800's), without the need to sweat, courtesy of every form of mechanical transportation dear to the heart of big game hunters and big business.
Rossi and his buddies have the right idea. Let’s end public ownership of wildlife. Commercial big game guiding is just a baby step in privatization. Let’s go all the way and divide Alaska into a few dozen corporate game ranches. Let them own and manage our wildlife. Let entrepreneurs sell moose and caribou to the highest bidders. Wolves and bears would become corporate property and could be conserved or killed without concern for how any bleeding lung liberal environmentalists feel on the matter. No more cost to taxpayers. Capitalism at its best, creating profits, jobs, tax revenues, and more graft for politicians.
Uh oh. How would that affect me? My family? My neighbors?
No more Alaskan life style for anyone except millionaires who like pretending to be mountain men.
No more moose steaks or caribou sausage on our tables.
No more jobs for thousands of us supported by the $700 million spent here each year by folks who want to howl with wolves or watch bears nursing cubs and sparring in our streams.
Opps. Time to re-read our Constitution and restore common sense, science and integrity in Alaska's resource management.
Before Rossi and his ilk took control of Alaska’s Department of Fish & Game, we had one of the world's best wildlife management programs, based on solid science. Wolves and bears were "controlled" only where this could reliably help ungulate populations; and then the wolf and bear populations were allowed to recover.
The kind of predator that really needs "intensive management" walks on two legs, not four, and tries to consume everything it can grasp with its sticky palms. Time for the 99% to take back control of our natural resources.
Art, your link is busted.
Art, your link is busted. Please tell me you can do better than to use the rag as reference material.
Of course...
...towards the end of the film, Will Gear's character says he's hunting "grizz" up high in the mountains because they have all been trapped out in the lower areas.
Ironic. How will Jeremiah shore up his male self-image when his own behavior has turned Alaska into New Jersey?
Ignore the troll
Nothing to see here. Move along.
The same way
he does now fromdustreturned...blue diamond.