Much-Studied Wolf Killed in Alaska

[dArKeR]

The alpha wolf that led a famous Denali National Park pack in Alaska was killed by a hunter last weekend.

The wolf was the alpha male of Denali's Toklat family, a group of wolves that has been studied for more than six decades and which has often seen by visitors to the national park. The wolf was shot legally by a guided hunter after it ventured out of the park boundary, officials said.


The 7-year-old wolf, which was identified by a radio collar that had been attached by researchers, was one of several recent losses for the much-studied and frequently photographed Toklat group.


The alpha wolf had been behaving erratically and wandering near an area outside the park where two females, including the alpha's mate, were killed in traps in the last two months after they had left the park in search of food.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=latimests/muchstudiedwolfkilledinalaska

Missions Accomplished! You Sleazy WHORES!

[ramblin_dave]

1. Did the hunter eat him or make a rug out of him?

Just curious....

[Lorien]

2. That sort of hunter only kills

to compensate for his miniscule penis.

Geez-see an animal with a RADIO COLLAR on it, and you might think that it's important to someone!

[Liberty Belle]

3. I'm sorry to hear that. We saw this wolf in Denali last summer;

quite a sight to behold.

[nine30]

4. The only things legal to hunt should be hunters.

[DoNotRefill]

5. OK, deal.

as long as we get to shoot back....

[nine30]

13. Fair enough

..at least then you would be up against an adversary who can put a bullet right through you, not some unarmed, defenseless , non agressive animal drinking water from a water hole that you sneak up on, or a bear baited out with food..or whatever.

[Lindacooks]

14. Thank you. That's what I think too.

eom

[Piperay]

24. So do I eom

[primavera]

26. Same here

I always wonder how many hunters would still hunt if it were at all an event contest and the hunter stood the slightest risk of being killed. I wonder if hunters would have that same look of joyful pride in holding up the smashed skull of some deer they've shot if it were one of their own whose murdered body was the trophy. Would it still be "such good sport"?

[DoNotRefill]

31. Well, look at the "accidental hunting deaths" that happen...

I can't recall a single year where fewer than 5 hunters didn't get shot and killed in my state...Now taking Bubba's skull as a trophy would be illegal as hell... ;)

[nine30]

16. If you really enjoy shooting/killing that much..

..why don't you go to Iraq and volunteer your services, we will see how skilled/brave you are, facing a REAL opponent that will fire back at you, instead of killing the unarmed trying to run away from you.

[DoNotRefill]

18. Because I'm A) too old, and B) already hold a position....

of great responsibility here with "Tha G".

Would you rather EVERYBODY in the Judicial branch of government be a Republican?

BTW, I have been shot on several different occasions. And if you shoot at me, I'm going to shoot back. You DO know that shooting people, even hunters, is generally illegal, don't you?

[nine30]

22. Yes..

..that's why my title said "SHOULD be"

[bling bling]

6. That's really sad.

I feel sorry for the wolf and for the group who put so much work into studying it.

[Gregorian]

7. You can usually find a hunter by the trail of beer cans in the forest.

Once upon a time, you could hunt. Now you have too many people running around killing everything they see. We've screwed up the ecosystem, so that at times there are too many of one specie or another. And that gives people a good reason to go out killing them.

I just moved to Oregon, from California, and I'm finishing up a house that was on my property. Every single person who has shown up, including the mailman, is a so-called hunter. But what I have noticed is that there aren't many animals. Where things were teeming, there are 2 ducks, one great blue heron, 12 elk, one muskrat, and a couple of beavers. It's sad.

One thing all of the people have in common is that they have no sympathy for the animals they shoot at. I find it most offensive. I also find that they mostly appear to be republicans.

I can't really criticize, since I eat meat. But I try to confine my appetite to meats that aren't subjected to cruelty, like chicken and pork are. If I do, then I find local producers.

I believe that hunting is actually better than putting animals in stockyards. But with our given population, we could easily overwhelm the animals with our bullets.

I just believe that most people shouldn't have guns. Especially republicans. Sorry. I had to say that.

[FreedomAngel82]

9. To me personally

the only reason why someone should be a hunter is if it's to help their family. Like with food and using the fur for clothing or to keep warm in the winter months. If it's for sport and you're not even going to at least eat it then that, to me, is disgusting. My cousin and her husband are hunter's but they at least eat what they kill and don't do it that much.

[DoNotRefill]

12. How about animal husbandry?

around here, they have a group of hunters that hunts and donates the meat to groups that feed the hungry. This serves two purposes: It feeds people, and it keeps the deer population in check. Around here, deer are nuisance animals. Sure, they're pretty, right up to the point that they come through your windshield. Also, not that long ago, they drastically cut back on deer hunting. The net result was widespread starvation of the deer during the winter. That year, I saw trees where the deer had eaten the bark off of trees a good seven feet up. Deer don't normally eat tree bark. The next season, they eased the hunting regs, and the deer did fine.

Culling the deer population is far less damaging to the deer than leaving them alone...they overpopulate due to the lack of predators, and then end up dying horribly in car accidents or from starvation.

[Dude_CalmDown]

17. As long as people are killing deer I'll be a happy person.

Deer - their only purpose seems to be destroying immaculately kept cars. They sit on the side of the road and wait until a nice shiny car comes by at which point they leap into the middle of the road and fulfill their life goal. And don't tell me that they don't wait - I've seen it. Kill as many as you can and leave their heads on the side of the road as a warning to others.

[DoNotRefill]

19. Yup....I once got Kamikaze'd by a deer....

the bastard hit the front quarterpanel of my car, I didn't hit him. He was WAITING for me, I tell you!!!

[bullwinkle428]

20. Here in Iowa, deer become a serious problem

every autumn. A couple of years ago, I was driving at night on a 4-lane divided highway, and suddenly a deer came charging out of the ditch in the center median. The road has a 65 mph limit, and I was probably going around 68-70. I had milliseconds to prepare myself for the impact, not knowing if he would come through my windshield. I ended up clipping him with my driver's side mirror, and he was essentially brushed by the left side of the car. I slowed down to a stop in an effort to just get my heart slowed down, and circled back to see exactly where the deer ended up. He was gone! Apparently, he didn't suffer anything serious enough to stop him in his tracks.

Overpopulation has become more and more of an issue in recent years, and I guess I feel better knowing that many of those hunted and killed end up providing meat for food banks, as opposed to starving to death over the course of the winter. I have a real problem with things like the movement to allow the killing of mourning doves - this just seems like an excuse for some drunken idiots to blast things out the sky. I guess they get tired of killing squirrels...

[Withywindle]

23. Yeah, but it's apples and oranges...

Deer meat is good, and I grew up around a lot of deer hunters and they all ate what they killed or gave it to someone who would eat it. And deer are overpopulated. I don't have a problem with that. But why are deer overpopulated? Well, one of the reasons is that humans have killed off all their natural predators. Like wolves, which are an endangered species and which people generally don't eat.

[DoNotRefill]

25. Grey Wolves are an endangered species in Alaska?

According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, they aren't even threatened in Alaska. That's prolly why it was legal to shoot it...

[blindpig]

28. the reason for the hunt

is to take the natural predator pressure off of moose in order that the big game outfitters might have a bonanza. I have no problem with harvesting off surplus moose from the population as long as it is sustainable.But when you start persecuting predators so a handful of assholes can have a banner year I call bullshit. That's why we're up to our assholes in whitetails in the lower 48, no natural predators.
Automobiles are not natural predators, though quite effective. If people didn't drive so fast in deer country and paid attention it wouldn't be nearly so bad. I live in deer central, average seeing one a day.

We've thourghly fucked up the rest of this country, can we not leave some of it the way it is supposed to be?

[Withywindle]

29. Yeah, I was wrong about that....

Good catch.

I still think if an animal is rare enough to be considered endangered somewhere on the same continent, people shouldn't go shooting them just because they can.

[DoNotRefill]

30. Well, sea bass are certainly endangered where I live...

with the ENTIRE local population being stored in salt-water aquariums. There's not a SINGLE ONE left living in the wild within 100 miles of me. Of course, I live in the mountains where there is no salt water, so I guess that makes sense...

[FreedomAngel82]

8. How sad

:cry: I love wolves. They're such wonderful creatures.

[SoDesuKa]

10. Sport?

What's sporting about killing an animal with a high-powered rifle? It looks like cowardly cheap thrills.

[FreedomAngel82]

11. Beats me

:shrug: Don't they call hunting a sport? :shrug:

[DoNotRefill]

15. well, it's cheap meat...

Figure $20 for licenses and ammo, and you get 60 pounds of meat out of it if you just kill one deer. Take your limit (which varies from state to state) and it gets a LOT cheaper. Figure 5 deer at 60 pounds of edible meat each (300 pounds) for $25... It's also a hell of a lot more humane than eating non-free range cows...

[AlienGirl]

21. I don't figure anyone eats wolf, though.

[primavera]

27. Sadism

It's little boys who never grew out of pulling the wings off of flies as children and now, as adults, attempt to apply a veneer of legitimacy to their ingrained thirst for violence, cruelty, and bloody murder by calling it "sport."