Similar reductions occurred throughout the world (e.g., for Europe]. ![]() ![]() Historically, gray wolves and brown bears were nearly extirpated in the conterminous United States because of persecution and habitat loss. Alaskan brown bears in Denali National Park. The Alaska Intensive Management efforts are occurring without rigorously collected data on the impacts of these management practices on large carnivores and ecosystems. This law effectively mandates management to reduce large carnivores and increase human harvests of wild ungulates. A management priority favoring wild ungulates over large carnivores acquired the force of law with the passage in 1994 of Alaska’s Intensive Management Law. At an accelerating rate during recent decades in Alaska, however, brown bears ( Fig 1), black bears, and gray wolves have been targeted for significant reductions in abundance in the expectation this will result in more wild ungulates (moose, caribou, and deer ) available for hunter harvest. ![]() In many cases, these services outweigh some of the inconveniences to humans associated with large carnivore populations. Most of the world now recognizes that apex predators have great intrinsic value as well as providing vitally important ecosystem services. When Aldo Leopold saw “a fierce green fire dying” in the eyes of a gray wolf he’d just shot, he recognized that his actions taken in the hope of creating a “hunters’ paradise” of deer was ill conceived.
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