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Board of Game Won't Consider Emergency Zone for Denali Wolves

National Park Service http://1.usa.gov/Ujyjkp

Fairbanks, AK - The Alaska Board of Game will not consider a request to establish an emergency no-hunting zone along the eastern border of Denali National Park and Preserve to protect three wolf packs that roam the area.  

Board Executive Director Kristy Tibbles says the action requested in the petition did not meet specific criteria outlined by the state. “An emergency is an unforeseen or unexpected event that either threatens a fish or game resource," she explains, "or an unforeseen resource situation where biologically allowed harvest would be precluded or delayed unless the board took action."

Reports that one of the packs disbanded after the loss of two breeding females and a lack of surviving wolf pups this spring prompted a handful of wildlife advocacy groups to request the emergency action.   Tibbles could not say whether the state is monitoring Denali area wolf packs.  She says there are no future plans to consider any action, in lieu of a Moratorium the Board approved in March of 2010.

"Unless the current board changes that moratorium, we won’t be accepting public proposals,” she says. 

When the Board set the moratorium, Tibbles says the Board considered the wolf population in the area to be healthy.  There is still one living, collared and breeding female from the Grant Creek Pack.  The National Park Service will count the wolves in October to get a better idea of how the population has changed.