This summer I spent a week in Denali National Park visiting with hundreds of tourists, answering their questions about Alaska, and sharing books about the wildlife of our great state. These visitors from all over the world often bubbled with excitement as they shared stories about watching bears and moose, caribou and Dall sheep, and seeing the magic of “The Mountain.”
Yet, not one of those visitors reported spotting a wolf.
I remember the face of a young girl who dreamed of seeing a real wolf in Denali. Like most people, she lived in a place where wolves only exist in books and movies.
We shouldn’t forget that wolves, once the most widespread land mammal on earth, have been eliminated from most of their historic range. Seeing a wild wolf is a treasured experience for many, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a chance to feel for a moment that you’re part of the wilderness that once embraced our whole country.
There was a time when visitors to Denali had a better opportunity to see a wolf. From 2000-2010 lands that border the park were closed to trapping and hunting. That buffer zone ran along the 22-mile long Stampede Trail, a narrow corridor that oddly juts into the heart Denali Park and Preserve as though someone goofed when drawing the boundary lines.
This corridor is roughly 5 miles north of the Visitors Center, a short stroll for the wandering animals of Denali.
Park studies show that the buffer zone worked. Researcher Bridget Borg found that the probability for wolf sightings in Denali more than doubled during the buffer years. She further noted that wolves may avoid humans after being exposed to hunting and trapping and this could reduce sightings. The total park population is now at an all time low of 49.
Six years ago the Alaska Board of Game repealed the buffer zone, opening this sliver of land to trapping, hunting and worst of all, bear baiting. We know that bears and wolves have a tremendous sense of smell and will travel many miles when they catch a scent.
When it comes to the ethics of baiting national park animals, Fairbanksan Carl Benson said it best: “if people invite you for dinner, it’s not polite to kill the guests.”
Denali bears, wolves and wolverines have been lured to bait stations, trapped, snared and shot, in the backyard of Alaska’s most popular national park that hosts a half-million visitors each year. If we invite visitors to see Alaska’s iconic wildlife, it makes no sense to kill the animals they’re hoping to see. Snapshot today, snapped trap tomorrow.
The East Fork Toklat wolf pack, one of the most viewed and studied wolf packs in the world, once had 20 members. Now that pack is virtually gone. The fate of the last adult member of the pack, a female whose mate was shot last spring, is unknown. When the park service last checked the female’s den site, there was no sign of the female or her two pups. Porcupines had moved into the den.
When the beloved Cecil the lion was baited and killed near a national park in Africa, it became an international tragedy. Yet, the Alaska State Board of Game has authorized bear baiting, hunting and trapping in all the game units surrounding Denali National Park.
Did the board forget the economic value of tourism and wildlife viewing?
Denali Park is of great value to Alaska with millions of tourist dollars pumped into the economy. The Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly recognized this when they recently passed a resolution urging Gov. Bill Walker to close the corridor adjacent to Denali National Park and Preserve to the trapping and hunting of bears, wolves and wolverines.
The governor and National Park Service should work together to find a long-term solution such as a conservation easement to better protect animals that are accustomed to visitors with cameras.
I hope the governor acts, and that other Alaskans and visitors to our state raise their collective voices to protect one of our most valuable and unique assets, the wildlife of Denali National Park.
• Debbie S. Miller is a 40-year Alaskan who has authored many nature books for children and adults. Visit debbiemilleralaska.com to learn more.
