Wolf Control and Aerial Gunning

A 1969 documentary entitled The Wolfmen depicted an aerial hunt in Alaska and outraged the American public. Calls to Congress led to the passage of the federal Airborne Hunting Act (AHA) in 1971.

From 1972 to 1996, hunters were still allowed to “land and shoot” wolves using aircraft. Though they were required to land their plane first, the land and shoot method was not effective unless the animals were first harassed and chased to exhaustion first, in contravention of the AHA. But given the expansive and remote nature of Alaska it was easy for land and shoot hunters to evade prosecution.

After 24 years of numerous violations of the Airborne Hunting Act, the people of Alaska finally banned land and shoot hunting by statewide initiative in 1996. But the Alaska constitution allows laws enacted by ballot measures to be overturned after a two year period and this is what the Alaska legislature did. In order to restore their will, Alaskans approved a ballot referendum in 2000 reinstating the ban on land and shoot hunting. But again the legislature overturned the will of the people and passed new legislation allowing aerial gunning in certain areas of the state. A 2008 ballot measure attempting to restore the ban failed.

Since 2003, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has issued more than 100 aerial gunning permits annually, which means that similar number of people are now hunting wolves as they did prior to the passage of the Airborne Hunting Act. These hunters can hunt wolves from the air in over 56,000 square miles of Alaska. They use their own planes, pay all expenses of the hunt and are entitled to keep or sell the wolf pelts.

Wolves in Alaska are still being harassed and hazed with aircraft. And given the unregulated nature of the program and the remoteness of the state, wounded animals are often impossible to retrieve, resulting in inhumane lingering deaths.

Thus, the very type of wolf hunting that the Airborne Hunting Act was designed to prohibit is still going on, but clothed with different terminology. The state of Alaska calls it “control,” but it is a hunt primarily by local residents for the benefit of urban and non-resident sport hunters.

If this was a program designed to protect wildlife, as contemplated by the exception in the Airborne Hunting Act, it would be much more limited geographically, conducted more efficiently by professional personnel employed by the Department of Fish and Game, and limited to those situations where there is a serious biological problem.