![]() Treating large predators, including wolves, as essential components of healthy, sustainable ecosystems.For this inter-relationship to endure into the future, the following conditions must be met: The inter-relationship between wolves and their mostly wild ungulate prey is an essential part of healthy ecosystems, especially for wildlife that occupy large, intact tracts of wilderness. AWA’s goal is for the provincial government to take responsibility for managing Alberta’s wolves in a science-based, responsible and transparent manner. AWA PositionĪs top predators, wolves play a valuable role in keeping wild ecosystems healthy. Though Alberta Environment and Parks is nominally responsible for managing wildlife in Alberta, they refuse to become involved in these highly questionable bounty schemes. Some municipalities and organizations such as Alberta Foundation for Wild Sheep and local Fish and Game associations are now offering bounties for dead wolves. Now, on this continent, only the northern tier of Canada and parts of the USA, including Alaska, are home to healthy populations of wolves. ![]() Prior to the spread of humans throughout the world, the wolf was the single most widely distributed land mammal. Wolf persecution is as old as humans, and in Alberta it has been part of our culture ever since Europeans began moving into wolf habitat, which once included all of Alberta and in fact all of North America, with the exception of tropical regions. It is a story perhaps best told by wolf specialist Dick Dekker (see: Wild Lands Advocate June 2007 ). Why wolves – and possibly moose, deer, and elk – face extraordinary culling is a complex story that fails to include vitally important measures to preserve their wilderness habitat, which truly could save caribou from further declines. ![]() Since then, SRD and its successive departments such as Alberta Environment and Parks (AEP) have embarked on a program of using poison to again “control” the resilient wolf. ![]() During the winter of 2005/06, 89 wolves were shot from helicopters in caribou habitat, and the killing program continued in 2006/07. Since 2005, when the Alberta Sustainable Resource Development (SRD) released its Woodland Caribou Recovery Plan, Alberta’s wolves have been singled out for official culling in order to improve prospects for one of the wolf’s prey species, the caribou. Wolves are a keystone species within the ecosystems in which they live, yet many Albertans and governing bodies have consistently undervalued them and treated them as pests instead of the amazing creatures they truly are. ![]()
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