Horse Killed and Legally Used To Bait and Kill Wolves

Friends of Animals

BACKGROUND | SOURCE MARC BEKOFF

Following up on the good news about the release of two dolphins into the wild, I learned this morning about a most heinous and perverse situation in Alaska. Healy, Alaska trapper Coke Wallace “apparently walked a horse out to an area off the Stampede Trail near the boundary of Denali National Park – an area made famous by the 1996 book ‘Into the Wild’ – shot the horse, and set snares all around the area hoping to catch wolves attracted to the carcass. Wolves from Denali National Park were drawn to the dead horse, resulting in the killing of a primary reproductive female wolf from the Grant Creek (also called Toklat West) pack from the park, along with at least one other wolf. It is unknown how long the two wolves were alive in the snares before being killed and collected by the trapper. The Grant Creek wolf pack has been one of the three packs most often viewed in Denali National Park.”

All of this happened in a former buffer area where wolves were protected from 2002-2010 when the Alaska Board of Game eliminated the protected area. The loss of these wolves puts the fate of this long-lived and long-studied pack in jeopardy. Observations began on this pack back in the 1930s. Of course, the loss of any wolves due to killing another animal to use as bait is reprehensible, legal or not.

This kind of hearltess slaughter must not be tolerated and it’s important to call attention to it and to protest it loudly and clearly. While “the incident does not violate state law, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC) is looking at potential violations of state water quality regulations, which prohibit discarding carcasses in surface waters of the state.”


WHOM TO CONTACT

According to Friends of Animals, here are some people you can contact (the area code is 907):

Tom Meier, Wildlife Biologist, Denali National Park. Tom_Meier@nps.gov; 683-9572

Susan and Dave Braun, Healy: braun@mtaonline.net; 683-2654

Trooper James Ellison, Cantwell: james.ellison@alaska.gov; 768-2202

Chris Foley, Water Quality, ADEC, Anchorage: chris.foley@alaska.gov; 269-4632

Marybeth Holleman, Anchorage: marybeth@alaskawriters.com, 360-4512

Coke Wallace, Midnight Sun Safaris, Healy: info@midnightsunsafaris.com; 683-4868

EMAIL BLOCK

Tom_Meier@nps.gov , braun@mtaonline.net , james.ellison@alaska.gov , chris.foley@alaska.gov , marybeth@alaskawriters.com , info@midnightsunsafaris.com


SAMPLE MESSAGE

To Whom It Concerns,

I am writing to protest the brutal slaughter of a horse to attract and subsequently viciously kill wolves, one of whom was likely pregnant. Humans have adopted dangerous constructs of speciesism, the prejudicial regard of non-human species, to validate the brutality inflicted upon them. Using this manufactured status of superiority, humans have sanctioned the use of animals as commodities, regarding them only as products to benefit our goals and needs. We embrace inequity to justify our treatment of animals, yet euphemistic descriptions meant to facilitate morality cannot disguise the fundamentally unethical parameters with which we surround ourselves to distinguish our dominance. As dangerous as racism and sexism, speciesism further divides the chasm between species, which desensitizes us to cruelty and inevitably leads to human inequality and injustice.

This disregard of your most vulnerable group of beings is unacceptable, and until this barbarism is appropriately addressed including a mandatory ban of such, I will boycott. I and others will collectively voice condemnation, resulting in the sacrifice of vital tourism and commerce profits. Please act responsibly and with compassion and choose to protect, rather than sanction harm, to animals.

NAME

kill to kill some more
this is the sh*t
we abhor:(

Karen Lyons Kalmenson