POW sounds like a wolf factory! I saw a fellow on AK trappers this winter and wow was he taking a bunch of wolves there. Forget what his seasons catch was but it was impressive!

The antis never quit. Look what happened to the Iditarod this year...sickening.

Science deniers!

We need to remind them about the study that clearly showed that the Alexander Archipelago wolves were clearly NOT a separate species or subspecies of wolf. In SE AK, like the rest of Alaska, a wolf is a wolf is a wolf.

The original intent of trying to protect those wolves was part of a larger strategy to stop logging. This latest action appears to be wolf-centric...

Pete

They caught more wolves on POW this year than what the wolf worshipers said was the total population. Tell me how that happens. So, what was the actual population; twice, three times what they were claiming?
This fact needs to be rubbed in their face every time one of their "experts" gives any sort of testimony.

What was different down there that can explain the increase in harvest...if it is real ?

Removal of the quota explains at least part of the increase in harvest. Obviously the population numbers were seriously skewed. From my experience down here you are never going to annihilate the wolves with trapping. But they'll never believe that.

The harvest was real for sure. From the pictures I saw my guess is they had a good stretch of weather. Young guy that I saw. Looked like he lots of energy.

Effort.
Not too many guys really trap wolves in SE because of the fur value, although the fur is used of course, it's more of a civic duty and for the challenge and sense of accomplishment.

We get decent wolves here, but not like artic pillows. And Juneau our conditions were far from ideal last winter.
P.O.W. has more forgiving weather, and is laced with logging roads. Access is very good, deer abundance is good, (although a good number of wolves are/were taken with the use of boats and skiffs), and the department got out of the way.
A few really good trappers seized the opportunity, and got busy.
Plenty of wolves left, however.

Well you can't harvest that many if they aren't there to begin with.
As long as the grub base is good they will get with the breeding program I'm sure

I was thinking the same thing. By harvesting a number of any given population you are often times helping the survivors to thrive.

Something I found to be very interesting this past season was wolf territory and just how important it is to the pack and how quickly possession of said territory can be lost. I trapped three packs of wolves all in the same area over a period of 3 months. I don't believe that the area was the edges of the three packs but the area with the best food source. The first pack had seven animals and were the most dominant pack. They were fat and their numbers equaled or exceeded the size of surrounding packs. They had claimed the country with the highest moose population. However after removing the majority of the pack, pack number two moved in. Their numbers were equal to the first pack but were not in as good of shape. After the majority of this pack was removed pack number three came in with less members than the first two packs, but now more. It only took about a week and a half for the next pack to move in after they were able to dominate the previous pack. Right now I bet that last pack is getting ready to rear some young ones and continue working on the moose population. As long as the food source is there more wolves will come whether that is by reproducing or another larger pack moving in. This is my limited experience.

I happen to know a few of those guys down there on the island that did a real great service this last season. They only had a two-month season from November 15th to January 15th and the last two weeks of January season we're pretty much Frozen in as it got very cold and many of the Bays and Creeks froze over and put a lot of gear out of commission. The increase in Harvest was because there is too many wolves on that island and Fish and Game really doesn't know how many there are. My issue with their sampling method which is a DNA Mark and recapture method is that it is largely dependent upon the number of hair samples taken and recaptured. I believe this is also not a good method to use on a Logging Road system where you are only potentially measuring and sampling only a certain percentage of such a large island. I really hope the board of game grills and questions the managers and biologists on their data and the science behind it. Thelocals say there are at least 100 to 200 wolves on that island currently. And of course the females will have six to seven pups this spring. I happen to know the one guy that caught 28 in a single area down there. It was basically four packs of 7 each. He did a lot of preseason scouting and prepworks. I was able to help them out by sending down for totes of beaver carcasses. The other issue I have is that the board of game already gave specific Direction at the last Board of game cycle for Southeast as to how many wolves they wanted on the island. And the Regional supervisor and deputy director here in Juneau specifically asked Ted 4A number and the board of game gave that to them yet they ignored that direction from the board of game and did their own.. I'm not one to dog and talk down on people but there are some real clueless people in the department heads in southeast. It blows my mind that this type of liberal garbage goes on. I hope the board of game gets to bottom of some of these Greenie ingrained wolf issues that the department of fish and game goes along with down here. The same issue goes along with other issues such as one brown bear every four years even though we have probably some of the highest concentration of brown bears on our Mainland not including the ABC islands. Again the department doesn't have numbers of those populations because they choose to spend research money studying what wolves eat and looking at Wolf poop instead of actually studying large Apex animals that in my opinion based on my in the field research with boots on the ground observations, are really hurting and suppressing moose and deer populations.
So now you have the media sensationalism and all of the high dollar animal rights groups up in arms about this. it reminds me of the same type of situation that happened back in the early days in Alaska that Jim Riordan wrote about in one of his books. You have people from New York trying to tell us how to manage wolves. And for the record it is not an endangered subspecies as they lie about. The state prove that back in 2002 the DNA is the same frigging DNA as any other gray wolf. yet you will continue to hear everybody talk about the rare endangered Alexander archipelago wolf.. the Department of Fish and Game still has this Miss information on their website and I really question who and what entity and financial backing is behind this kind of misinformation.

Thanks for the input.

I know it has been a political football......as all wildlife issues have become.

Gulo was hired a couple years ago to trap some of those POW wolves to address the issue of 'distinct sub-species'. I hope he has a few words to say about this.

Are there Feds involved with 'management' on the island ?

The forest circus does have an impact unfortunately..and imo are hugely swayed by politics and those "special interest" groups out of Sitka and Dc. Why they even have a say in state wildlife management is beyond me.
Can we say govt overreach?
These groups know the states general stance on predators and typically can't get anywhere with the BOG, so they cry to big brother about it, and have been suppressing the economy on that island via politics for some time. There's a fb, group called POW wolf sightings...and locals post photos and video of wolves around the area and there are more than 5 left

Thanks !! I'm not surprised.

At the end of the article white linked, it says logging has destroyed habitat for wolves/deer. I met the new state asst. bio for that area last spring. She was from that area I think. Pretty sure she said logging had improved deer habitat, which would mean more food for the wolves.
Before this past season, wolf harvest was managed by quota. Obviously the quota was low. Left plenty of wolves to breed. Likely, the quota was low enough that wolf pop. increased each year. This year with just a straight 2 month season trappers caught a more representative number of wolves for a very healthy population.
But that doesn't fit the anti agenda. ADN has a BS article by Bill Sherwonit today.
mt

I thought that same thing.......that logging would actually improve deer habitat

In fairness, logging does indeed initially spur the growth and nutritional value of browse for deer. But it also alters the shelter that deer get from stands of large trees, particularly when it comes to snow accumulation under the canopy.

Don't get me wrong here..... I've laid out/administered more timber sales than most trappers on here! I'm not against logging.

But it is not a clear benefit without any negative effects.

Pete

I would also think it increases access to resource users

Look at any true old growth forest and you'll see a dying forest. As they say a healthy forest is a black forest. Logging can replace some of those benefits.