News of the North

This week, the Alaska Superior Court declared that the state's controversial wolf-control program is illegal. Permits to shoot wolves from the air had been issued to pilots and gunners as an effort to increase the population of moose and other game for hunting.

Judge Sharon Gleason stated that "the state failed to provide required justification for the program, including previous measures that failed to work" and "the game board also failed to explain why alternative means for reducing the number of wolves would not work". This is not the end of the story, as Governor Frank Murkowski expects to find a way to allow aerial hunting to resume after a legal response has been considered.

In the meantime, federal management of over 500 gray wolves in the state of Idaho has been turned over to the state's Department of Fish and Game. This has caused great concern for animal activists as a 2002 state motion called for the eradication of wolves in Idaho "by any means necessary". Defenders of Wildlife has a petition online that you can sign to request that wolves not be abandoned just as their populations are once again beginning to stabilize after years of persecution.