900 Wolves to Die  - Gunned Down from the Air

Alaska is to allow the slaughter of up to 900 wolves during the winter of 2004 in an effort to boost moose and caribou populations for sport hunters.

Permits are being issue that allows families of wolves can be gunned down from airplanes, or run to the point of collapse in the deep snow and then slaughtered when they are too exhausted to escape. 147 wolves were killed in the winter of 2003 by aerial gunning. And this year as the snow falls, the killing will begin again.

Alaska’s aggressive stance against the wolves has drawn protests from animal rights group the Defenders of Wildlife.

Defenders of Wildlife has petitioned Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton to halt the aerial hunting of wolves in Alaska under the Federal Airborne Hunting Act. The group is also collecting signatures on a petition to send to President Bush.

"They have no idea how many wolves are in these areas, yet they're going in with these numbers made up on purely anecdotal information and doing some serious damage to the predator population," said Karen Deatherage, the Alaska representative for Defenders.

But Alaska’s wildlife experts claim there are plenty of wolves to go around. Alaska's wolf population is estimated at anywhere from 8,000 to 11,000 and hunters and trappers on average kill 1,500 a year.

What You Can Do

• Call Alaska's Governor Murkowski on (907) 465-3500 and urge him to stop the aerial killing

• Adopt a wolf from the Defenders of Wildlife