In Alaska, wildlife managers are killing grizzlies in an attempt to save caribou : NPR
NPR’s Ailsa Chang speaks with Max Graham, a writer for News from the high country, about Alaska’s declining caribou population and the state’s plan to save them by culling predators like grizzly bears and wolves.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Not long ago, residents of Alaska’s Bering Sea coast could find dozens, even hundreds, of caribou passing within a few miles of their homes. The animals provided a reliable source of food in an area with few grocery stores and accessible only by boat or plane. But the days when caribou were abundant in the region are largely gone. The southwest Alaska herd has declined by about 90 percent in recent decades, from 200,000 animals in the late 1990s to fewer than 20,000 today. And state wildlife officials have adopted a controversial solution to try to reverse that trend. Max Graham wrote about this for High Country News. He lives in Anchorage and joins us now. To welcome.
MAX GRAHAM: Thank you, Ailsa. It’s great to be here.
CHANG: Nice to have you. So let’s pick up the story where we left off. What was the plan adopted by state officials to save the caribou?
GRAHAM: Yeah. So the plan was simply to fly over caribou calving grounds in western Alaska, looking for predators – wolves and bears – to shoot. The idea being that wolves and bears eat the caribou calves and to help the population rebound, you know, removing these predators from the calving grounds would give the calves an opportunity to become adult caribou, and fewer predators would result in more caribou in the future. And so far, authorities have killed nearly 200 bears and 20 wolves in the past three years.
CHANG: Wow. Does this strategy of hunting caribou predators really address the root causes of the decline in the caribou population?
GRAHAM: Yeah, that’s a great question. I mean, that’s kind of the crux of the debate, and there’s a lively debate about it. I mean, caribou populations naturally boom and bust, and this particular herd reached this very high level in the ’90s. And some scientists just think that that led to overgrazing, and sort of, you know, there wasn’t enough food for all of these animals, and so quite naturally the herd declined. What was concerning was that the decline continued for, you know, two decades. The herd was not bouncing.
And there are many different theories. Like, is it the nutrition? Is it a disease? Is it… you know, is it climate change? Is this predation? And killing predators or removing predators is, for example, one of the few things that wildlife managers can actually do in a practical way. And so that was, I think, one thing that made it an attractive solution.
CHANG: But is there a sense that this strategy, this predator elimination strategy, is working?
GRAHAM: Yes, so this has been in place for a few years, and the Department of Fish and Game points to a recent increase in herd numbers, and this rebound correlates with this management effort. Critics of the program say it’s still too early to tell. They want, you know, better research and evidence. This question is therefore still debated.
CHANG: I know you spoke to a number of Alaska Natives when you did this report. These are people who hunted this herd before the population declined. What is their opinion on the current state strategy?
GRAHAM: Yeah. There’s tremendous support from Alaska Native hunters in the area, you know, from some of the people who, you know, live closest to and depend on the herd. One of the largest tribal governments in the region passed a resolution in support of the project. That said, as, more broadly, some Alaska Native wildlife experts also disagree with this and believe that killing bears is not a solution that reflects traditional values and that it somehow goes against Alaska Native traditions.
CHANG: Max Graham – his article for High Country News is called “As A Caribou Herd Crashed, Wildlife Managers Turned To Killing Predators.” Thank you very much for joining us.
GRAHAM: Thank you, Ailsa.
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