Wolves Taking Only Sick And Weakly Not Historical Fact

It is repeated like an incessant drum beat. Wolves and other large predators keep our ecosystems healthy because they cull out the old, sick and weakly of the prey species they kill. And nearly as often as the myth is perpetrated one asks, how that is substantiated? Certainly not by facts.

Clinging to the false indoctrination that wolves have an “eye” for which prey to destroy, is another allegorical fabrication that before man arrived our wilderness and all the species that dwelt within it was “balanced”, to represent or simulate some fanciful garden of Eden. Historical documents show a completely different picture.

Most who perpetuate these myths, point all blame for anything bad that happens to our environment, whether real or fabricated, on man. The truth is, much of the wildlife that Americans love to see and claim as theirs, was very scarce until man arrived and brought with him agriculture and soon followed by an understanding of the need to control predators, particularly those that where destroying the game herds man needed for survival.

We can look through many historical documents to learn that what is being indoctrinated into our children as fact concerning wildlife and the impact predators have on it, just does not agree with history. If we take, for example, many accounts published in Alaska Wildlife Digest in 1975, there’s no denying that wolves kill for food, for sport and from lust and more times than not the methods they employ in bringing down their prey are brutally cruel.

Many believe Alaska has always been a mecca for wildlife. In 1885, a Lt. Allen led the first exploration into the interior of Alaska right after the state was purchased. His journal describes the route and what was seen.

His party traveled the Copper River from salt water to the head, floated the Tanana River from near the head to the confluence with the Yukon, traveled overland from that point 100 miles to about the location of Hughes on the Koyukuk, floated down the Koyukuk and back into the Yukon, floated the Yukon to its mouth without seeing a single big game animal alive.

The expedition learned that the natives lived off rabbits and salmon as finding moose was rare. Over time, as man began moving into the Alaska wilderness, their mere presence began to create a better habitat. Combine that with efforts to control large predators and soon large game animals like moose began to flourish. It soon became a constant battle between three entities – the men who wanted to control predators to allow game animals to prosper to feed the natives and themselves; wildlife management and the environmentalist who wanted to promote Alaska as their “Disneyland” of wilderness, at the expense of human starvation and the destruction of game herds.

What was taking place on the ground in places of Alaska and what was being told in cities in the lower 48 were very conflicting stories.

Below are documented accounts in Alaska that show clearly that wolves are not discriminate hunters, culling the sick and weak animals all for the purpose of making our ecosystems healthier. It is much to the contrary.

When a blowing storm came he [wolf] did not take the sick and the lame but cut out 40 to 100 from a herd and would slaughter nearly all he took and did not even touch any for feed. If he did take time, all he cut out was the tongue…………………….
One day one of my reindeer herders and myself watched a large caribou herd stalked by 14 wolves. The herd was uneasy. When the time was ready, four wolves appeared from behind the herd and a stampede started which would head this herd straight toward a bluff which would be impossible for any game to descend. As the momentum grew more wolves appeared and as the herd approached the bluff the attack started from both sides. There were dead caribou, also many that could hardly move due to the leg sinews having been cut.

This account came from Sam O. White, known as Alaska’s first flying game warden.

One time over on the Nation River in the upper Yukon-I was up there with a mounted policeman-Clarence Rhodes was with us too-we were watching caribou in the winter. There was a bunch of nine wolves, they weren’t all pups either. There were some big ones and they were chasing a caribou. They caught up with him and we watched what happened. Well, they hit that caribou and knocked it down and they all started eating on it right then. They got their mouths full and you could see them bolting it down, right from the air.
It was a big bull. He got up and ran-took off. They let him go. They didn’t pay any attention to him till they got their meat swallowed and then they took after him again. They had the caribou down five times before he stayed down and each time they got a meal, got a feed off him. Boy, was the blood flying all over the snow, squirting out on both sides! Caribou are awful tough to kill you know-tougher than moose.

Glen Gregory – Alaska Air-Taxi operator:

I have seen nature at it’s cruelest. During the deep snow winters three and four years ago I had occasion to witness sights that made me sick. The route from Tanana to Ruby is over the Yukon River all the way. At that time there was a good moose population that congregated on the willow covered islands of the river in the winter. On several occasions I spotted moose standing in the deep snow with chunks eaten out of them, bleeding to death. The snow would be red all around them. There was no pattern to where the wolves bit first, although the rump seemed to be the favorite location. Probably because it is less protected.

This observation came from someone who used to be a gunner on aircraft that shot wolves to reduce the population.

A couple years ago, my gunner and I saw a moose kill, the moose was, at most, 1/4 eaten. The next weekend we flew by and there were three more dead moose laying within a square block of the first. These three were less eaten than the first.
We watched these kills the remainder of the year, and all that fed there were crows and fox. To me, this is a tremendous waste of good meat, just to satisfy the killing lust of the wolf.

And then there’s the accounts of Mike Stultz, who served for a few years as a Protection Officer for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. His is an incredible story that perhaps best epitomizes much of what’s wrong with wildlife management as it becomes more and more deeply influenced by politics and wildlife biologists being indoctrinated about the myths of predators through our education system.

Stultz bore witness to the complete destruction of a very large moose herd. Regardless of the countless number of times he contacted the Fish and Game Department, they refused, for whatever the reasons, to heed his words or even visit the area that was being systematically wiped out by wolves. He describes it this way:

Little did I realize that I would personally witness the destruction of one of the great moose populations in Alaska through the forces of nature and the blind stupidity of the Department of Fish and Game, and this experience would leave me with a feeling of frustration so great I can never work for the Department again.

Stultz also tells us he arrived at his job as a believer that wolves could not and would not kill moose.

That winter, flying with Dick Nicholes and Terry Holliday of Gulf Air Taxi based in Yakutat, I begin to see things I found very difficult to believe. Everywhere we went south of Yakutat Bay I observed large numbers of moose kills by wolves. Like most people I was of the belief wolves did not or could not kill healthy moose. I was worried and upset that the moose in the area were suffering from a serious food shortage or ailment that made them so weak they fell prey to wolves.

Even after witnessing first hand the destruction being caused by these wolves, Stultz continued hard to convince himself there had to be something else that was making it too easy for the wolves to kill so many moose and moose that from what he could tell were perfectly healthy. His cries for help from the office of fish and game fell on deaf ears and insistence that he was imagining things.

He continued his observations along with gathering facts and witnessing right before his eyes what was happening; events that would change his life forever.

The wolves just took so many fist size bites of meat out of the rump, side, and shoulders of the cow that within fifteen minutes the snow was red in a thirty foot radius around her, and in twenty minutes she was dead……………………………………..
I landed and examined the dead cow. I took a tooth, looked at the heart, lungs, and liver, cracked the leg bone to look at the bone marrow, but I couldn’t see anything wrong with her except she was dead from wolf bites. She appeared a fine, fat, healthy moose that was in the wrong place at the right time.

Still believing he was going to find some other explanation for what he was witnessing, Stultz traveled around to the hunting camps in his region to hear what they were saying.

I flew hundreds of hours during that moose season visiting all the hunters and their camps. Almost everywhere I went the questions and statements were the same: “I have been hunting this area for five years and never failed to get my moose within a half mile of camp the first or second day out. I haven’t even seen a moose this trip, and I have been here a week,” “What are all those big dog tracks doing on all the river bars?” “If things get much worse I will have to have to go to the Interior to hunt next year.” “If there aren’t many more moose around here anymore, why do you guys have a three month either sex hunting season on them?” “I don’t see how hunting can get much worse.”

But it did get worse and yet fish and game still refused to investigate or heed what Stultz was trying to tell them. He was told repeatedly that if moose numbers where being depleted wolves would have nothing at all to do with it. But Stultz continued his work and recording his observations.

Flying my personal airplane that winter, moose because [sic] almost as hard to spot as wolves. I would fly hours and maybe see a dozen moose. Wolf trails and dead moose invariably intersected. The moose herds on the Italio and East Rivers-two of the largest winter herds around-were all but wiped out in a three month span by wolves that were no longer bothered by aerial hunting. As winter progressed moose became so scarce that even the wolves couldn’t find them. They then started to look for other food sources. For the first time in memory wolves were spotted in town eating out of garbage cans. stray dogs running loose disappeared. People with dogs chained outside woke up to find nothing left but blood and tufts of hair. The era of the moose in Yakutat was short lived. They were for all practical purposes gone.

This observation is very important as it falls in line with the seven steps of when wolves become a danger to man as spelled out clearly by Dr. Valerius Geist.

Out of disgust, Stultz left his job and became a teacher. It wasn’t until long after his warnings and cries for help that the fish and game department realized there was a problem, a realization that came too late. From a time when a man, freshly educated with a college degree, enters the Alaska outdoors, it took a short period of time for reality to set in about what wolves are capable of. Stultz clearly became a tainted man as he makes this comment.

The winter of 1973 saw the Department finally put away their comic book entitled “Never Cry Wolf” and admit that wolves were indeed as responsible as hunters for eliminating the Yakutat herds a
peculiar statement since wolves hunt twelve months of the year without regard to season, limit or sex-but it was a definite improvement over their past utterances. Realizing at this late date that predator control was necessary they organized a Department wolf hunt in Yakutat.

So can we now assume that in 1973 biologists learned a very valuable lesson? Can we assume that biologists learned that wolves are a vicious predator, that does NOT subsist mostly on mice and small rodents? Can we now conclude that biologists have finally come to realize that wolves are not selective in their savagery, to weed out the sick and dying? Not at all!

Twenty-three years later in Alaska, biologists talked of an unexplained “die off” of moose on the North Slope. Fish and Game tossed out many theories as to what caused the “die off”; copper deficiencies, brucellosis, insects, range and habitat deterioration, and oh, yes, predation. This is what fish and game said about predators possibly having a role in the moose “die off”.

Both the bear and wolf populations appear quite high and both species are efficient predators, particularly on moose calves. The deaths of half to three-quarters of the calves born on the North Slope each year could be due to predators that thrive on the old, the weak and, most of all, the young (emphasis added).

I believe the cause was blamed on Brucellosis although I can’t find that it was ever proven.

This might shed some light on how deeply ingrained into our wildlife education system certain beliefs have become. While facts and accounts far outnumber any “studies” to show otherwise, the idea that large predators have a measurable impact on our game herds remains the perpetuated theory.

Tom Remington

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