The Alaska Department of Fish and Game killed so many of the radio-collared wolves in a federal study that officials had to cancel the 23-year-old program.
A Department of Interior spokesman confirmed Tuesday that the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve was forced to cancel its annual wolf population survey, which cost the federal government about $100,000 per year, according to the most recent estimates available.
The state of Alaska had shot and killed so many of the radio-collared wolves from helicopters that the study was no longer worth conducting, the spokesman said.
Exact details on how many wolves have been killed and why the preserve made the decision to end the study were not immediately available on Tuesday. Phone calls to the preserve did not connect on multiple tries.
State officials shot and killed wolves outside of the federal preserve as a part of the state’s program to increase the size of a local caribou herd. The Alaska Dispatch News reports that wolves were responsible for 47 percent of caribou calf deaths between 1994 and 2003 and about 80 percent of adult caribou deaths in that same time frame.
According to the National Park Service, the goal of the Alaska program is to increase the population of the caribou herd so hunters may kill more of them.
The wolf study started in 1993 and monitored 12 different wolf packs that traveled in and out of the preserve, which is located in western Alaska.
The state and federal governments have been at loggerheads about the wolves involved in the study previously. In 2014, state officials killed an entire pack of 11 wolves that had been monitored by federal officials for seven years.
