PCR Exhibits - Alaska State of Corruption

But the state’s controversial predator control program is not out of the woods. Connecticut-based
Friends of Animals still hopes to stop it in court. And a group of Alaskans who don’t like how
the state is running the program are scrambling to collect enough signatures to get an initiative
on the 2006 ballot.
The program began around the Interior village of McGrath after local residents complained that
moose were scarce and said it was because wolves and bears were eating too many calves. The
state expanded the effort last winter to five areas of Alaska. Wolves can be shot from the air in
some areas; in others, the airborne hunters must land before shooting.
Initiative sponsor Jans is a hunter and author of “Grizzly Maze,” a book about Timothy
Treadwell, the bear videographer who was killed, along with his companion, Amie Huguenard,
by a grizzly on the Katmai coast in 2003.
He said having private hunters do the state’s killing leads to abuses. Soldotna hunting guide
David Haeg, who was working with the state’s predator control program, was recently convicted
of killing nine wolves by shooting them from his aircraft while outside of an allowed area.
Jans said he believes such abuse is widespread but it’s just too hard to catch the culprits. State
officials called Haeg a “bad apple,” and pointed to his harsh sentence, which included spending
35 days in jail, losing his airplane and giving up his guiding license for five years. Wayne
Regelin, Fish and Game deputy commissioner, argued that in today’s Alaska there’s not many
places people can hunt from a plane completely unnoticed.
Wolf Hunters Must Stay in Bounds: No Cowboys
Anchorage Daily News
November 12, 2004
The two men, David Haeg and Tony Zellers, have pleaded not guilty. They are due their day in
court.
But the story already is discouraging. Aerial wolf hunting is controversial enough without even
the suspicion of teams far exceeding their state permits. Game biologists disagree on the
effectiveness and need for the program, but this much they and all Alaskan’s can agree on:
Alaska’s wolf-control program is not a declaration of open season wherever airborne shooters
care to open fire.
What’s encouraging is the state’s apparent determination to press charges and not turn a blind
eye to suspected violations of permit terms and Alaska law.
And what’s particularly satisfying in this case is the skookum work of wildlife enforcement
trooper Brett Gibbens, a trapper who knows both the area’s wolves and the work of aerial
hunting. That kind of expertise and dedication is what the state needs to keep the wolf-control
program under control.
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