WOLVES

 

CENTER for BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY

Alexander Archipelago wolves are smaller than a typical gray wolf, with coats ranging from dark gray to pure black and even cinnamon. These wolves of the coastal rainforests of southeast Alaska are being trapped and hunted out of existence, their populations plummeting. So we just launched a legal action to save them. You can help with a gift to the Wolf Defense Fund. Clearcut logging on the Tongass National Forest and adjacent lands destroys the forest habitat these wolves rely on to raise their pups. And road construction for logging operations makes it easier for trappers and hunters to find and kill them. The effects are devastating: The largest population of these wolves, on Prince of Wales Island, has decreased by 60% — legal trapping recently killed more than half of the island's wolves. While the U.S. Forest Service has proposed restoring roadless protections to the Tongass and ending large-scale sales of old-growth timber, no timeline exists for either. More wolf habitat will be destroyed while we wait. These wolves don't have time to lose. The best way to keep them from going extinct is to give them protection under the Endangered Species Act. This protection would require state and federal agencies to better protect these wolves' habitat — and limit hunting and trapping. The Center has been working to protect Alexander Archipelago wolves since 1996. They were denied federal protection in 2016, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service claimed their numbers were stable. In July 2020 we again petitioned for their federal protection — but the Service missed its deadline to make a final decision. So if we have to, we'll soon be in court again — doing whatever it takes to save these magnificent wolves. Please help with a gift to the Wolf Defense Fund. For the wild,

Kierán Suckling Executive Director Center for Biological Diversity