81 Bears and 14 Wolves Killed in Alaska to Help Caribou Calves
The Mulchatna caribou herd has declined by about 97%
Author

Bruce Billingsly
June 26, 2024

In an effort to restore the Mulchatna caribou herd, which has declined by about 94 percent since 1997, Alaskan officials are now in the second year of a new predator control program they hope will do the job.

This year’s edition wrapped up on June 5th and resulted in the killing of 81 brown bears and 14 wolves from caribou calving grounds in Southwest Alaska. The program, which has come under fire and even resulted in lawsuits, proved to be successful, even after just it’s first year. Following the 2023 program that saw 94 brown bears, five black bears, and five wolves removed from the landscape, Alaskan biologists reported an increase in calf survival through the fall with a caribou cow-to-calf ratio of 44 calves per 100 cows. Those numbers end up “well above the 10-year average” of 23 calves for every 100 calves, according to the agency.

“Based on last fall, I anticipate we’re going to see another pretty strong showing of calves pretty quickly,” ADFG director Ryan Scott said.

With a number of collared calves, Alaskan officials are able to track their movements through the spring and early summer. The program also includes a photographic survey set to be completed this summer when herds arrive on their summer range as well as another survey later on in the fall.

While the state admits that there are likely other factors at play, including disease and habitat loss, they maintain that trimming wolf and bear populations has been proven to help calves get through their first year of life. Despite their best efforts to prove this theory, criticism of the program isn’t going anywhere as many advocate for the protections of bears and wolves, despite having incredibly healthy populations of both species in place.

“Bear and wolf populations are healthy in western Alaska,” according to the agency. “The removals of wolves and bears in the western spring calving control area are occurring in a relatively small area that is surrounded by intact habitat on state and federal lands where control activities are not occurring.”

In total, the program cost just a hair over $300,000 to conduct and after losing out to caribou here on the lower 48, that seems like money well spent on dwindling populations on the last frontier.
Keep reading

81 bears holy crap!

A lot of bear

How about 81 more wolves

Should of been 2k wolfs.

I am thinking that would have been some fun shooting. Just wait until the bleeding hearts get involved if they aren't already. Sometimes animals need to be thinned out to help other stuff survive-just the way it goes. Those little caribou are super easy prey for wolves and bears.

That’s nice they’re trying to help the caribou out a bit. Too bad they allowed the population to drop by 94% first though.

My thoughts too!! Why did they wait so long?.....jk

Caribou herds are struggling in a lot of places.
Trappers dont take enough wolves annually any more.
Too many wolves on your line are hard on everything.

Wish we could do that with the bears and wolves here, maybe our big game herds could recover.

Incapable Mericans are gonna have to pay Ocob to come slaptame the grizzly and wolves.

I know Ryan Scott well, (from the beginning of his career, in Juneau), and watched him work his way up the ladder of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
Of the many, perhaps over 100 conversations, Board Of Game meetings, and regulation proposal drafts he and Ii worked on, discussed, and presented, I find him thoughtful, honest as the day is long, and extremly thorough when addressing pretty much anything.
While we haven't always agreed on things, I am 100% on board with him taking action on the long neglected, controversial predator control program that is trying to save and propagate the Mulchatna herd.
I will venture his program will continue until both predators and caribou reach desired levels.

When I was up here in the mid 1990's they were having meetings about the caribou numbers dropping. At that time they said bears were a bigger problem than wolves. I have no idea if they still feel that way or not. They made bear hunting much more hunter friendly in some areas, to try to reduce bear numbers. Off the top of my head you could shoot bears and get a tag after you filled it. You could shoot grizzly over bait and longer seasons are a few of the things that come to mind. Sara Palin hired a guy to head a bear reduction team. Corry Rossi was his name. He ended up getting busted for putting clients tags, he was guiding on bears, they did not shoot and got fired, if I remember correct.

Instead of spending 300k to fly around in a helicopter and shoot brown bear why not open the area temporarily to non-resident without a guide and make 300k? At least someone would get something out of it. I'm not buying the it's for safety reasons either, the same guy that can't hunt grizzly on his own can hunt moose on his own. A dead moose that takes two or three days to pack out is a grizzly magnet.

Exactly.

Open non resident grizzly and turn this into a positive instead of a negative. Non resident can hit the woods and moose hunt as well as black bear but need a guide for grizzly in the same woods. This doesn’t make sense

Grizzly are high on most guys bucketlists. Same goes for sheep. Both require a guide unless you meet that degree of kindred thing they had going. I'm not current on that aspect.

Anyway, I think they believe the countryside would fill up with out-of-state hunters if they removed the requirements. There's just not enough resource to meet that demand. I think that's the biggest part of it.

If the residents are not getting it done, I would bet nonresidents would be little help. Most people have on concept of how big it is. There are places where there are more square miles than is in OK without a road. I flew for hours and never saw a road often. There are roughly 300 grizzly bears taken a year out of 570,380 square miles. That comes out to a bear ever 190 miles.

The residents couldn't care less about shooting them. Besides there are very few residents in the area. I guarantee if they wanted 300 bears killed and opened it up to nonresident 300 bears would get killed,and they would pay the $1000.00 tag fee.

Aerial surveys of the MCH range were first conducted in 1949, when the population was
estimated at 1,000 caribou. The population increased to approximately 5,000 by 1965 (Skoog
1968). In June 1973, approximately 6,030 caribou were observed during a survey. In 1966 and
1972 relatively small migrations across the Kvichak River were recorded; however, no major
movements of this herd were observed until the mid-1990s.
The first intensive effort to accurately count this herd was conducted in 1974 and yielded a
minimum count of 13,079 caribou. In both past and current attempts to obtain a population
estimate of the MCH, the biggest challenge biologists face is finding a representative sample of
caribou on this large and diverse landscape. Because it appeared that underestimating the
population might be the norm, in 1981 biologists deployed 20 VHF transmitters on MCH caribou
to aid in locating post-calving aggregations. During a photo survey in June 1981, ADF&G
biologists counted 18,599 caribou, providing an extrapolated estimate of 20,618 caribou. The use
of radio collars and photography greatly enhanced confidence in the accuracy of population
estimates. Throughout the 1980s caribou population estimates continued to increase and by 1996
the MCH reached approximately 200,000 animals. Following this peak, the population
experienced a precipitous decline of approximately 85,000 caribou by 2004 and 30,000 by 2008.