Wildlife

How many wolves are on Prince of Wales Island? It’s an important question because wolves are an important predator – part of the chain of life in the forest. A POW tribal group has been awarded a federal grant to help gather data used to determine that number.

The State of Alaska conducts population studies on Prince of Wales, but on a relatively small portion of that very large island. State biologists then use data from that study to estimate how many wolves are in the entire game unit, which also includes some outlying islands.

It’s a standard, accepted practice for population studies, but there are obvious limits. To enhance the state’s study, Hydaburg Cooperative Association applied for – and received – a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Tribal Wildlife Grant to pay for additional population studies in the area around Hydaburg, in the southwest part of POW.

Tony Christensen runs the natural resources program for the tribe. He said the wolf population study was a priority.

“The wolf brings a balance to the resource and has its place in Southeast and in the state. More importantly is the deer for us,” he said. “If that population of wolves isn’t maintained in a healthy population, then we can have an issue with the deer population in our area.”

Christensen said the Hydaburg study will be modeled on the state’s study so that results from both can be combined to provide a complete picture.

He believes the state’s chosen study area limits the accuracy of the data.

“It’s road accessible in areas of high harvest for other resources. With that comes human traffic, and everyone knows wolves, they tend to shy away from where humans are,” he said. “The Hydaburg area is less populated with a less roaded area.”

Alaska Fish and Game last year released the findings from its most recent POW wolf population study, and its results were sobering. The study indicated a significant drop in the number of wolves – 89 in the entire game management unit compared to 221 the prior year.

State and federal officials use population estimates to set hunting and trapping limits. So, last season’s wolf hunt on POW was limited to nine animals.

But, Christensen said he thinks there are more wolves than the state study shows.

“We have observations and have a sense that the population is considerably higher than 90 animals but rather than a voice that, we wanted to try to involve ourselves in finding out what the answer is,” he said.

The tribe will work with Fish and Game and local hunters to plan the study. Those plans will take shape over the summer, with most field work happening in the fall.

That primarily involves hair boards: pieces of wood with some barbs on them, scented to attract wolves. The wolves roll on the boards, leaving behind hair samples, and biologists then use the hair to conduct DNA tests. That way, they identify how many individual animals have rolled on the boards, and use that for a population analysis.

Once the samples have been collected, they’ll be sent to the state, and it’ll take…. a while … for the results.

“So, you take the hair and send it off to a lab and they process it and analyze it, and I guess there’s more than just wolves that roll over your scent board, so they have to decipher wolf and other game animals and come back to you with a conclusion,” he said. “I assume it would be next year sometime.

“We’re still waiting on the data from the DNA work from the laboratory work from last fall’s work,” said Ryan Scott, the Southeast Regional Supervisor for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, confirming that analysis will take a while.

Scott said he’s pleased that Hydaburg is going to provide additional data for the Prince of Wales wolf population study. He said the department hasn’t had the resources to expand the work, although officials have wanted to for a while.

“And cooperatively working with the Hydaburg corporation is a great way to do that,” he said.

Scott said the state’s previous studies are based on best-practices, and it’s accepted among biologists with the understanding that there are limitations. And, in fact, the estimate last fall of 89 wolves was just the midpoint of a range. The state study shows the population could have been as low as 50, or as high as 159.

Increasing the study area will be great, Scott said….

“But again, I would say that the way the department has approached it previous to what we do in the coming year is OK, too,” he said. “It’s the right way to go, given time, money and resources. This certainly will make a much more robust estimate and it’s very appreciated.”

Christensen said he just wants to make sure the wolf hunt is set at a level that ensures the continued viability of deer on Prince of Wales.

“Deer is a huge part of our community’s culture and a huge part of our dietary needs,” he said. “It fills the freezers. It’s basically entwined in the culture. It’s what we eat: deer meat. Deer meat and fish.”

The federal grant paying for the Hydaburg portion of the study is just shy of $140,000. It was one of several grants recently awarded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to tribes in Alaska.

Last week, I watched in awe as a river of crows made their way across the evening sky toward their roosts south of my house.

Listening to the cacophony of their cries, I found myself with a simple question — is what I’m seeing just instinct or do these crows have their own culture? In fact, do any animals have culture in the same sense we do?

Being an astrophysicist, I didn’t have the slightest clue about the answer. Lucky for us all, however, I do know somebody who has spent a lot of time studying the problem — 13.7’s own Barbara King, chancellor professor of anthropology at the College of William and Mary. Like me, she’s a former resident of the great state of New Jersey. So, I emailed Barbara and the following conversation ensued:

Adam: So, let’s begin with a VERY important question since we are both from New Jersey. What is your favorite Bruce Springsteen album? After that we can get to the less critical issue of whether animals have culture.

Barbara: “Born To Run” came out when I was in college, and that’s when I fell hard for Bruce and the band, so that album will always have a special place in my heart. From student days to retirement now from university teaching, Springsteen’s music has lit up my life always.

Adam: I agree that “Born to Run” is a life altering experience — but I didn’t discover Springsteen ’til high school when “Darkness on the Edge of Town” came out. It totally spoke to my overblown teenage anger and hope about the world. Still, I think my favorite album may be the first “Greetings from Asbury Park.” The storytelling on songs like “Spirit in the Night” has been a constant source of joy even in dark times.

So, as for whether animals have culture — it’s a big topic. Let me narrow it down to ask to if animals create more than “instinct” allows?

Barbara: It’s widely known by now that chimpanzees in West Africa crack open hard-shelled nuts with rock and stone hammers to extract the delicious protein inside, and that chimpanzees in East Africa don’t. These East African chimpanzees COULD do it — they’re smart enough, they have the materials at hand. It’s just not their way.

Similarly, chimpanzees in some places groom each other by clasping hands high above their heads. Others don’t. Why? It’s not in their genes and it’s not determined by their environments. It’s just what these apes learn to do from watching their elders. That’s culture — at least that’s one, arguable definition of culture.

Adam: So about animal culture, you’re saying that the West African chimps do this thing (rock hammering) that the East African chimps don’t. Since they both are pretty much genetically the same, it’s not different genes which establish these different behaviors but different chimp cultures.

Is this kind of like the fact that you can get a “pork roll” at the Jersey Shore (yum!) but nobody anywhere else in the country seems to offer it? So how deep does it go? Is there animal art and dance? Also is it only our close cousins that have this kind of culture?

Barbara: Well, it may not be CULTURE per se, but surely it’s a CULTURAL RESPONSE for you as a New Jerseyan to say “yum” for a pork roll and for me as a New Jerseyan to say “er, no thanks!” — our two divergent desires here to consume or not consume pigs is not dictated either by our genes or features of our habitats. They emerge instead from a whole tangle of factors ranging from our family traditions to our individual comfort with eating other mammals and much more.

I think you’re on to something by asking about art and dance: I know of very cool examples of quite beautiful painting, knot-tying, and rhythmic behavior by captive apes that clearly reflects an ability to express themselves creatively.

But is that culture? Wouldn’t we need to find out whether a group of apes shares, and passes down, a tradition of art or dance, rather than only citing isolated examples? That’s not a rhetorical question, by the way, I’d like to know what you think, because it seems to me culture is bound up with population-level (not only individual-level) behavior: Culture is co-created and linked to shared identity. And not just in apes! Humpback whales, for instance, not only learn how to sing from other individuals in their communities, whole populations also shift songs at once in precise, structured and patterned ways that tell us it’s a cultural process.

Adam: Well, for a host of reasons these days I live between semi-vegetarianism and eating fish. But I gotta tell ya, if someone offered me a Jersey shore pork roll I don’t think I could refuse. Lots ‘o memories there since, back in the day, pork roll, pizza and beer was our breakfast of champions at Seaside. That was certainly one form of culture.

So your question about the co-creation of culture with other members of one’s group is the killer app in this discussion. It seems like, for human beings, culture has almost entirely hijacked evolution from natural selection (in the usual definition of the word). Perhaps that can only happen because we’ve co-created such broad and rich cultural structures like religions, systems of law and systems of myth.

So, in some ways it seems like culture represents information about possible behaviors in the world that are not stored genetically. Over time, humans have been creating ever more information-rich cultures and, in the process, creating ever-richer structures to store that information (everything from writing to art to flash drives). So we are really good at co-creating and passing those creations down in ways that shape our evolution (i.e. who mates with whom).

OK, here is my final question for now: Is it a continuum from other animals to Homo sapiens in terms of culture — or do we represent a big discontinuous jump?

Barbara: Right, I agree culture is a huge factor of course, yet on the other hand all we have to do is look at emerging diseases (from Ebola to Zika) and the really concerning situation of global antibiotic resistance to see that, along with our cultural choices, natural selection and other evolutionary forces still affect us very strongly.

And in answer to your final question, I often say that as an anthropologist I walk a tightrope between recognizing our profound continuity with other animals and our profound uniqueness as a species whose meaning making is different, in just the ways you lay out. (Species uniqueness is perfectly compatible with evolutionary theory after all, and isn’t a code phrase for “species superiority” in our case: Each species is unique by definition.)

In the end, I always come down on the side of the continuum. The wielding of “the A word” — anthropomorphism or the projection of human qualities onto other animals — still happens sometimes in response to my work on animal emotion and, certainly, it shows up the comments section here at 13.7! But just as I respond, well, love and grief aren’t HUMAN emotions, we don’t own them, I also say that culture isn’t a HUMAN way of meaning making, we don’t own it. We “do culture” differently to be sure, but the continuum is there.

Thanks for this exchange Adam, it’s been fun. And here’s an answer to a question you didn’t ask: My favorite-ever Springsteen song is “Land of Hope and Dreams,” live, played at top volume!

Adam: Thank you, Barbara! Rather than pick a favorite song, I’ll just close by saying “BRUUUUUCE!”

Adam Frank is a co-founder of the 13.7 blog, an astrophysics professor at the University of Rochester, a book author and a self-described “evangelist of science.” You learn more of what Adam is thinking on Facebook and Twitter: @adamfrank4

Barbara J. King is an anthropology professor at the College of William and Mary. She often writes about human evolution, primate behavior and the cognition and emotion of animals. Barbara’s most recent book on animals is titled How Animals Grieve. You can keep up with her on Twitter: @bjkingape.

Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Natural factors are credited with growing the moose population in the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. Preserve wildlife biologist Mat Sorum said the latest data from moose population surveys conducted every three years, show more moose in a 3,000 square mile corridor along the Yukon and Charley Rivers.

“There was a 13 percent increase since the last survey and on average 38 percent more moose over the long term average throughout the park,” said Sorum.

Sorum said the survey area is far from areas where the state conducts predator control and he attributes the moose population increase to major wildfire and flood activity last decade.

“Good quality moose habitat often occurs 10 to 30 after a fire because of the regrowth and regeneration of the willows or birch,” Sorum said. “Secondly, there was a large flood about five years ago and there was a lot on the river bed and so that’s probably promulgated new growth of willows.”

Sorum says there’s been a similar increase in the adjacent Yukon Flats Refuge, cautioning that although conditions are conducive to more moose, the Yukon-Charley Rivers Preserve population is still considered low density, well less than one moose per square mile.

Bear activity around Sitka has picked up recently, and wildlife managers want to remind people to be safe around their homes and on their hikes.

Tom Schumacher is a regional management coordinator for the Department of Fish and Game, based in Juneau. He says bears usually begin to come out of hibernation in the spring but the temperate winter means they’ll probably be more active than normal.

“Vegetation is ahead of what it normally is this time of year and that’s what they’re seeking when they come out of their dens,” he said.

Police reports have noted bears sightings at Halibut Point Road Recreation Area, and on the Herring Cove and Mosquito Cove Trails. The Sitka Bear Report Facebook page also mentions a bear was seen on Edgecumbe Drive over the weekend and one was spotted at the Benchlands–between Kramer and Harbor Mountain Road–Tuesday (4-12-16).

Schumacher says increased bear activity means people should secure attractants, such as garbage and bird feed, as well as clean grills after use. Without human-caused attractants, bears will move to other areas and seek natural foods.

Runners and joggers should keep their eyes open for signs of bears in the morning and evenings. Schumacher says going out in groups or making noise are both good ideas to stay safe.

Sitka is currently without an area wildlife biologist, as Phil Mooney retired last month and the new scientist is set to arrive mid-May. If there is an incident that requires darting or trapping before then, Schumacher says, fish and game’s response time will be slow.

“At this point it’s best if people are extra vigilant and take measures to make sure they don’t have problems,” he said.

Steve Bethune is the new wildlife biologist for Sitka. He’s moving from Craig, where he had been the assistant management biologist in the Prince of Wales/Ketchikan area.

A Fairbanks man was airlifted to an Anchorage hospital from Haines on Monday afternoon after being mauled by a bear nine miles west of town. Alaska State Troopers said Forest Wagner, 35, was with a group of about a dozen students from the University of Alaska Southeast on Mount Emmerich taking part in a mountaineering course.

Troopers got the call just before noon Monday from the local police department.

Wagner’s condition was unknown late Monday afternoon.

Troopers didn’t know what kind of bear attacked Wagner, but spokesperson Megan Peters said it was a sow with cubs. According to the report, another student hiked down the mountain to get cell service and call for help.

The university arranged for the rest of the students to be lifted off the mountain.

“While they were up there, the bear was sighted again, or what they believed to be the bear, so the university arranged to get the rest of the people up there, off the mountain,” said Peters.

University of Alaska spokesperson Katie Bausler said all the other students are safe.

Wagner’s next of kin have been notified.

Ken Marsh is a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. He said the bears are out a little earlier than usual.

“My understanding is that yeah, it’s a little bit early this year and I think it’s probably the results of the mild winter and early spring that we’ve had. Bears are out and also at the same time, with some nice weather happening, there’s a lot of people out as well.”

Marsh said area biologist Stephanie Sell will meet with the group of students this week to get the details on the incident.

This is the second reported bear attack in Alaska in the last three days. A man was attacked near the Denali Highway in the Interior over the weekend.

Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott joined residents of King Cove in Washington, D.C. Thursday morning to make another plea for a road between King Cove and the all-weather airport in Cold Bay.

Mallott likened the struggle to other public land-use controversies, in which, he said the federal government puts another concern ahead of local Alaskan needs.

“Our lives are minimized, marginalized and in many ways consciously, consciously, determined to be unimportant, to the point where we become faceless,” he said.

Mallott spoke at a hearing called by Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Alaska’s congressional delegation has tried for decades to get the government to agree to a road. They say residents need a way out in a medical emergency.

But 11 miles of the road would have to be built in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell ruled out a road in 2013, citing in part the area’s importance to waterfowl and other species. Jewell said she’s trying to find an alternative.

Aleutians East Borough Mayor Stanley Mack says other alternatives make no sense, given King Cove’s often harsh weather and the realities of boat travel.

“Strapping an injured patient in a gurney and hoisting them up to the dock on a boat, which can be as much as 25 feet, is always a scary situation,” Mack said. “This is basically what we have to do. Or putting elders in a crab pot and using a crane to hoist them to the top of the dock is frightening.”

Sen. Murkowski said she’s not giving up. She didn’t say what her next move will be, but she noted that Jewell won’t be Interior secretary much longer.

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Alaska Congressman Don Young said the secretary is valuing geese over people. Young threatened to bring in the heavy equipment and build the road himself.