Alexander Archipelago Wolf
Encyclopedia
The Alexander Archipelago Wolf (Canis lupus ligoni), also known as the Archipelago Wolf and the Islands Wolf, is a subspecies
of the gray wolf
, Canis lupus, and primarily resides in the areas in and around the Alexander Archipelago
. This region composes a part of the Tongass National Forest
, where this species makes its home. There have been multiple attempts to have the Alexander Archipelago Wolf listed as threatened on the Endangered Species List, but they have all failed.
, the Alexander Archipelago Wolf averages between 30-50 pounds.They are about 3 1/2ft long and 2ft high at the shoulder. Their coat
is generally a dark gray, with varying patterns of lighter shades. Individuals from different islands in the archipelago have a propensity for different color phases, from pure black to combinations of black and white to a much brighter cinnamon color.
, of which it consumes more than 90% of the time. The next closest consumed species, less than 10%, is the North American Beaver. It is estimated that an average member of the Alexander Archipelago Wolf species eats around 26 deer per year. This habit of feeding almost entirely on a single species is peculiar to the Alexander Archipelago Wolf and is not seen in other North American wolf species. They have also been found to feed on salmon.
During field work in summer 2010, the Alaska Dept. of Fish & Game determined that the Prince of Wales Island wolf population has recently declined sharply. ADF&G was unable to collect enough wolf scats to make a population estimate based on DNA. Reportedly, "only a 'small fraction' of the expected number of scats" were found during this effort, in which a number of known denning sites were checked and transect
s were checked over an extensive part of the island. In a regulatory proposal for the Alaska Board of Game's November 2010 meeting to help protect the species, ADF&G estimated the island's wolf population to be 150, down by half or more from the 300-350 for the island determined by the 1990s radio collar study.
period. The species was likely following the migration
of the Sitka deer as they traveled north because of geographical and climate change
in the area. The first observation of concern for the possible instability
of the Alexander Archipelago Wolf population was by a USDA Forest Service
-sponsored interagency committee. This concern came about because of the extensive logging
being conducted in the region's forest, under the Tongass Land Management Plan.
in December 1993 by the Biodiversity Legal Foundation and an independent biologist
, requesting that the Alexander Archipelago Wolf to be listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act
(ESA). The agency published a positive 90-day finding in the Federal Register on May 20, 1994, but near the of the year issued another finding that a "listing is not warranted at this time", but that if the logging was not reduced or reservation areas created, the "long-term viability of the Alexander Archipelago wolf is seriously imperiled." To better assess the status of the species, the FWS ordered a conservation assessment to be made in terms of specific data of the species and its viability
for the future.
After the assessment was completed, more studies were undertaken to understand exactly how the Alexander Archipelago Wolf fits into the food chain and what effect extensive logging would cause. It was surmised after study that, between 1995 and 2045, the population of the Alexander Archipelago Wolf would "decline as much as 25%", along with Sitka deer population declining by 28% within the same time period.
In 1994 the FWS issued a memo stating that "not protecting the wolf would be the 'least controversial option'". This was in regards to the logging companies and lobbyists that opposed restrictions on logging in the area, which protecting the Alexander Archipelago Wolf would create.
Jack Ward Thomas
wrote in his book, Jack Ward Thomas: the journals of a Forest Service chief, about a meeting that was held in 1995 in regards to a consideration by the Forest Service
to list the Alexander Archipelago Wolf and the Queen Charlotte goshawk
as threatened. The meeting was between Jack Thomas, Undersecretary James Lyons, Deputy Undersecretary Adela Backiel, and Alaska Regional Forester Phil Janik, all on behalf of the Forest service, and Ted Stevens
, Frank Murkowski
, and Don Young
. The main argument was from Stevens, Murkowski, and Young, who believed that the Forest Service was trying to purposefully limit the lumber market in Alaska. They demanded that the two species not be listed or that negative legislation
would follow, likely resulting in budget
and personnel cuts for the Forest Service.
The Tongass Land Management Plan (forest plan) was revised in 1997 after immense pressure from environmental groups to list the Alexander Archipelago wolf as threatened. The plan included a standard and guideline to sustain a habitat carrying capacity of least 18 Sitka deer per square mile to provide adequate prey and to limit the density of roads (i.e. miles of road per square mile). The forest plan also established a system of habitat reserves. On the basis of the new plan, shortly afterward FWS made a final determination that listing the wolf as threatened was unwarranted.
and the Cascadia Wildlands Project later pointed out that the data set
the Forest Service was using was known to be prone to overestimation of the carrying capacity for deer,, the wolfs' primary prey. Furthermore, a conversion factor
, known as the "deer multiplier", that was used in the calculations was incorrectly applied, causing a 30% overestimation of carrying capacity and corresponding underestimation of impacts. The two organizations determined that, in total, the carrying capacity for the Sitka deer in places throughout the Tongass had been generally been overestimated by the Forest Service in its timber planning, by as much as 120% (varying geographically due to the faulty data set).
In 2008, Greenpeace and the Cascadia Wildlands Project sued in order to stop the Forest Service from proceeding with four timber sales on the Tongass NF slated to extract around "30 million board-feet of Tongass timber", an amount close to the annual volume then being logged. The sales are on Prince of Wales, Kupreanof, Mitkof and Revillagigedo Islands. The suit challenged the agency's method of calcualting the impact of logging on habitat carrying capacity for deer. In a radio story the plaintiff's spokesman explained that the dataset being used to represent habitat quality is actually uncorrelated to habitat quality, and that the deer multiplier mentioned above was misused according to the science under which it was derived. The story points to the Forest Service's underestimation of impacts not only to wolvles but to subsistence deer hunters.
In May 2010 US District Judge
Ralph Beistline denied the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, saying he "found no wrongdoing on the part of the Forest Service" and that it was a "scientific disagreement". The plaintiffs have appealed the decision to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals
(case 10-35567). A three judge panel (Arthur Alarcon, Susan Graber and Jay Bybee
) heard oral arguments in the appeal on May 3, 2011 The panel ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on August 2, 2011, reversing in part, vacating in part and remanding the district court's decision. The ruling says in part:
In a statement to the press, a spokesman for the plaintiffs said that principles in this lawsuit apply to every significant timber sale between 1996 and 2008 before the Forest Service corrected errors in the deer model when the agency issued its revised Tongass Forest Plan. But, he said, the agency still fails to address cumulative impacts to deer, especially on Prince of Wales Island, as challenged in the Logjam timber sale lawsuit. He also said, "The purpose of the lawsuit is to make the Forest Service go back and do its analysis right on these timber sales. And we believe that when the Forest Service does that, that it can’t justify the volume of the timber that it decided to log in these projects.".
. The court scheduled oral arguments before Judges Betty Fletcher, Andrew Kleinfeld and Consuelo Callahan for July 29, 2011, sitting in Anchorage.
Subspecies
Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...
of the gray wolf
Gray Wolf
The gray wolf , also known as the wolf, is the largest extant wild member of the Canidae family...
, Canis lupus, and primarily resides in the areas in and around the Alexander Archipelago
Alexander Archipelago
The Alexander Archipelago is a long archipelago, or group of islands, of North America off the southeastern coast of Alaska. It contains about 1,100 islands, which are the tops of the submerged coastal mountains that rise steeply from the Pacific Ocean. Deep channels and fjords separate the...
. This region composes a part of the Tongass National Forest
Tongass National Forest
The Tongass National Forest in southeastern Alaska is the largest national forest in the United States at 17 million acres . Most of its area is part of the temperate rain forest WWF ecoregion, itself part of the larger Pacific temperate rain forest WWF ecoregion, and is remote enough to be home...
, where this species makes its home. There have been multiple attempts to have the Alexander Archipelago Wolf listed as threatened on the Endangered Species List, but they have all failed.
Description
Typically smaller than the other Alaskan subspecies of wolfSubspecies of Canis lupus
Canis lupus has 39 subspecies currently described, including two subspecies of domestic dog, Canis lupus dingo and Canis lupus familiaris, and many subspecies of wolf throughout the Northern hemisphere...
, the Alexander Archipelago Wolf averages between 30-50 pounds.They are about 3 1/2ft long and 2ft high at the shoulder. Their coat
Fur
Fur is a synonym for hair, used more in reference to non-human animals, usually mammals; particularly those with extensives body hair coverage. The term is sometimes used to refer to the body hair of an animal as a complete coat, also known as the "pelage". Fur is also used to refer to animal...
is generally a dark gray, with varying patterns of lighter shades. Individuals from different islands in the archipelago have a propensity for different color phases, from pure black to combinations of black and white to a much brighter cinnamon color.
Dietary habits
The primary prey of this species is the Sitka Black-tailed DeerSitka Deer
The Sitka deer or Sitka black-tailed deer , is a subspecies of mule deer , and similar to another subspecies the black-tailed deer . Their name originates from Sitka, Alaska. Weighing in on average between , Sitka deer are characteristically smaller than other types of black-tailed deer...
, of which it consumes more than 90% of the time. The next closest consumed species, less than 10%, is the North American Beaver. It is estimated that an average member of the Alexander Archipelago Wolf species eats around 26 deer per year. This habit of feeding almost entirely on a single species is peculiar to the Alexander Archipelago Wolf and is not seen in other North American wolf species. They have also been found to feed on salmon.
Range
The range of the Alexander Archipelago Wolf covers all of southeastern Alaska (the Alaskan panhandle) except the Admiralty, Baranof and Chichagof Islands.Population
No population estimates have been made since the mid-1990s. A radio collar study done at the time produced a regionwide population estimate of 750 to 1,100, with the fall 1994 (pre trapping season) population estimated to be 908. That study was conducted on Prince of Wales Island, and the regionwide estimate was made by an extrapolation based on the varying habitat capability for prey. The Prince of Wales population was estimated to be 300-350.During field work in summer 2010, the Alaska Dept. of Fish & Game determined that the Prince of Wales Island wolf population has recently declined sharply. ADF&G was unable to collect enough wolf scats to make a population estimate based on DNA. Reportedly, "only a 'small fraction' of the expected number of scats" were found during this effort, in which a number of known denning sites were checked and transect
Transect
A transect is a path along which one records and counts occurrences of the phenomena of study .It requires an observer to move along a fixed path and to count occurrences along the path and, at the same time, obtain the distance of the object from the path...
s were checked over an extensive part of the island. In a regulatory proposal for the Alaska Board of Game's November 2010 meeting to help protect the species, ADF&G estimated the island's wolf population to be 150, down by half or more from the 300-350 for the island determined by the 1990s radio collar study.
Repopulation
In southeast Alaska, pups are usually born during the last 2 weeks of April. Dens are usually built 4 to 5 weeks prior to the birth, between the roots of trees, in small caves or crevices in rocks, abandoned beaver lodges, or expanded mammal burrows.Taxonomy
Early taxonomists were able to determine that the Alexander Archipelago wolf was its own unique subspecies due to "common cranial characteristics". It has been suggested more recently by taxonomists that the species may have originated from another subspecies known as Canis lupus nubilis.History – managerial & political
The Alexander Archipelago Wolf first arrived in Alaska somewhere between 7,000 and 8,000 years ago, after the end of the Wisconsin glaciationWisconsin glaciation
The last glacial period was the most recent glacial period within the current ice age occurring during the last years of the Pleistocene, from approximately 110,000 to 10,000 years ago....
period. The species was likely following the migration
Animal migration
Animal migration is the relatively long-distance movement of individuals, usually on a seasonal basis. It is a ubiquitous phenomenon, found in all major animal groups, including birds, mammals, fish, reptiles, amphibians, insects, and crustaceans. The trigger for the migration may be local...
of the Sitka deer as they traveled north because of geographical and climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
in the area. The first observation of concern for the possible instability
Ecological stability
Ecological stability can refer to types of stability in a continuum ranging from resilience to constancy to persistence. The precise definition depends on the ecosystem in question, the variable or variables of interest, and the overall context...
of the Alexander Archipelago Wolf population was by a USDA Forest Service
United States Forest Service
The United States Forest Service is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass...
-sponsored interagency committee. This concern came about because of the extensive logging
Logging
Logging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...
being conducted in the region's forest, under the Tongass Land Management Plan.
Endangered Species Act petition – 1993 to 1997
A petition was presented to the United States Fish and Wildlife ServiceUnited States Fish and Wildlife Service
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is a federal government agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats...
in December 1993 by the Biodiversity Legal Foundation and an independent biologist
Biologist
A biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life. Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...
, requesting that the Alexander Archipelago Wolf to be listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act
Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of the dozens of United States environmental laws passed in the 1970s. Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973, it was designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and...
(ESA). The agency published a positive 90-day finding in the Federal Register on May 20, 1994, but near the of the year issued another finding that a "listing is not warranted at this time", but that if the logging was not reduced or reservation areas created, the "long-term viability of the Alexander Archipelago wolf is seriously imperiled." To better assess the status of the species, the FWS ordered a conservation assessment to be made in terms of specific data of the species and its viability
Minimum Viable Population
Minimum viable population is a lower bound on the population of a species, such that it can survive in the wild. This term is used in the fields of biology, ecology, and conservation biology...
for the future.
After the assessment was completed, more studies were undertaken to understand exactly how the Alexander Archipelago Wolf fits into the food chain and what effect extensive logging would cause. It was surmised after study that, between 1995 and 2045, the population of the Alexander Archipelago Wolf would "decline as much as 25%", along with Sitka deer population declining by 28% within the same time period.
In 1994 the FWS issued a memo stating that "not protecting the wolf would be the 'least controversial option'". This was in regards to the logging companies and lobbyists that opposed restrictions on logging in the area, which protecting the Alexander Archipelago Wolf would create.
Jack Ward Thomas
Jack Ward Thomas
Jack Ward Thomas was the thirteenth chief of the U.S. Forest Service, serving during the Clinton administration years of 1993-1996.He was born September 7, 1934, in Fort Worth, Texas. His undergraduate education and degree was from Texas A&M University. He worked for the Texas Parks and Wildlife...
wrote in his book, Jack Ward Thomas: the journals of a Forest Service chief, about a meeting that was held in 1995 in regards to a consideration by the Forest Service
United States Forest Service
The United States Forest Service is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass...
to list the Alexander Archipelago Wolf and the Queen Charlotte goshawk
Red-tailed Hawk
The Red-tailed Hawk is a bird of prey, one of three species colloquially known in the United States as the "chickenhawk," though it rarely preys on standard sized chickens. It breeds throughout most of North America, from western Alaska and northern Canada to as far south as Panama and the West...
as threatened. The meeting was between Jack Thomas, Undersecretary James Lyons, Deputy Undersecretary Adela Backiel, and Alaska Regional Forester Phil Janik, all on behalf of the Forest service, and Ted Stevens
Ted Stevens
Theodore Fulton "Ted" Stevens, Sr. was a United States Senator from Alaska, serving from December 24, 1968, until January 3, 2009, and thus the longest-serving Republican senator in history...
, Frank Murkowski
Frank Murkowski
Francis Hughes Murkowski is an American politician and a member of the Republican Party. He was a United States Senator from Alaska from 1981 until 2002 and the eighth Governor of Alaska from 2002 until 2006.- Early life and career :...
, and Don Young
Don Young
Donald Edwin "Don" Young is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1973. He is a member of the Republican Party.Young is the 6th most senior U.S. Representative and the 2nd most senior Republican Representative, as well as the 2nd most senior Republican in Congress as a whole...
. The main argument was from Stevens, Murkowski, and Young, who believed that the Forest Service was trying to purposefully limit the lumber market in Alaska. They demanded that the two species not be listed or that negative legislation
Legislation
Legislation is law which has been promulgated by a legislature or other governing body, or the process of making it...
would follow, likely resulting in budget
Budget
A budget is a financial plan and a list of all planned expenses and revenues. It is a plan for saving, borrowing and spending. A budget is an important concept in microeconomics, which uses a budget line to illustrate the trade-offs between two or more goods...
and personnel cuts for the Forest Service.
The Tongass Land Management Plan (forest plan) was revised in 1997 after immense pressure from environmental groups to list the Alexander Archipelago wolf as threatened. The plan included a standard and guideline to sustain a habitat carrying capacity of least 18 Sitka deer per square mile to provide adequate prey and to limit the density of roads (i.e. miles of road per square mile). The forest plan also established a system of habitat reserves. On the basis of the new plan, shortly afterward FWS made a final determination that listing the wolf as threatened was unwarranted.
New Endangered Species Act petition – 2011
A new, 103-page petition to list the Alexander Archipelago wolf as a threatened or endangered species under the Edangered Species Act was filed with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service by the Center for Biological Diversity and Greenpeace on August 10, 2011. The petition requests consideration for a separate listing of the Prince of Wales Island population because it is believed to be a distinct population segment, as well as a listing for the subspecies as a whole.Litigation over wolf issues in four timber sales – filed in 2008, decided in 2011
However, GreenpeaceGreenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
and the Cascadia Wildlands Project later pointed out that the data set
Data set
A data set is a collection of data, usually presented in tabular form. Each column represents a particular variable. Each row corresponds to a given member of the data set in question. Its values for each of the variables, such as height and weight of an object or values of random numbers. Each...
the Forest Service was using was known to be prone to overestimation of the carrying capacity for deer,, the wolfs' primary prey. Furthermore, a conversion factor
Conversion factor
A conversion factor changes something to a different version or form. A factor is something that brings results or a cause, while conversion is an action of changing the "version" of a thing....
, known as the "deer multiplier", that was used in the calculations was incorrectly applied, causing a 30% overestimation of carrying capacity and corresponding underestimation of impacts. The two organizations determined that, in total, the carrying capacity for the Sitka deer in places throughout the Tongass had been generally been overestimated by the Forest Service in its timber planning, by as much as 120% (varying geographically due to the faulty data set).
In 2008, Greenpeace and the Cascadia Wildlands Project sued in order to stop the Forest Service from proceeding with four timber sales on the Tongass NF slated to extract around "30 million board-feet of Tongass timber", an amount close to the annual volume then being logged. The sales are on Prince of Wales, Kupreanof, Mitkof and Revillagigedo Islands. The suit challenged the agency's method of calcualting the impact of logging on habitat carrying capacity for deer. In a radio story the plaintiff's spokesman explained that the dataset being used to represent habitat quality is actually uncorrelated to habitat quality, and that the deer multiplier mentioned above was misused according to the science under which it was derived. The story points to the Forest Service's underestimation of impacts not only to wolvles but to subsistence deer hunters.
In May 2010 US District Judge
United States district court
The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...
Ralph Beistline denied the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, saying he "found no wrongdoing on the part of the Forest Service" and that it was a "scientific disagreement". The plaintiffs have appealed the decision to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is a U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* District of Alaska* District of Arizona...
(case 10-35567). A three judge panel (Arthur Alarcon, Susan Graber and Jay Bybee
Jay Bybee
Jay Scott Bybee is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He has published numerous articles in law journals and taught law school; his primary interests are in constitutional and administrative law....
) heard oral arguments in the appeal on May 3, 2011 The panel ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on August 2, 2011, reversing in part, vacating in part and remanding the district court's decision. The ruling says in part:
- "We do not think that USFS has adequately explained its decision to approve the four logging projects in the Tongass. ... USFS has failed to explain how it ended up with a table that identifies 100 deer per square mile as a maximum carrying capacity, but allows 130 deer per square mile as a potential carrying capacity. 'The agency is obligated to articulate a rational connection between the facts found and the choices made,' which the agency has not done here. Pac. Coast Fed’n of Fisherman’s Ass’ns v. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, 426 F.3d 1082, 1091 (9th Cir. 2005)..."
- "We have similar questions about USFS’s use of VolStrata data, which identifies total timber volume and not forest structure, to approve the projects, where forest structure—and not total timber volume—is relevant to the habitability of a piece of land. USFS itself has recognized the limitations in the VolStrata data. ... Because we must remand to the agency to re-examine its Deer Model, we need not decide whether the use of the VolStrata data was arbitrary and capricious. We anticipate that, in reviewing the proposed projects, USFS will use the best available data ..."
In a statement to the press, a spokesman for the plaintiffs said that principles in this lawsuit apply to every significant timber sale between 1996 and 2008 before the Forest Service corrected errors in the deer model when the agency issued its revised Tongass Forest Plan. But, he said, the agency still fails to address cumulative impacts to deer, especially on Prince of Wales Island, as challenged in the Logjam timber sale lawsuit. He also said, "The purpose of the lawsuit is to make the Forest Service go back and do its analysis right on these timber sales. And we believe that when the Forest Service does that, that it can’t justify the volume of the timber that it decided to log in these projects.".
Litigation over wolf issues in the Logjam timber sale – filed in 2010
In January 2010 the Forest Service was sued over its 73 million board foot Logjam Timber Sale on Prince of Wales Island, by Tongass Conservation Society, Cascadia Wildlands, and Greenpeace. At issue is the impact of excessive road density on wolf mortality and further loss of habitat for the primary prey (deer), among other issues. The plaintiff's motion for summary judgement was denied by the U.S. District Court, Alaska in September, and the case has been appealled to the 9th US Circuit Court of AppealsUnited States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is a U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* District of Alaska* District of Arizona...
. The court scheduled oral arguments before Judges Betty Fletcher, Andrew Kleinfeld and Consuelo Callahan for July 29, 2011, sitting in Anchorage.
External links
- "Tongass loggers wary of wolf study protection could hurt timber cutting" - Anchorage Daily News
- "Environmentalists fail to get wolf on threatened list" - Orlando Sentinel
- "Group wants wolves protected in Alaska" - The Associated Press
- "'G' In The New 3g iPhone Will Not Also Stand For Green" - Common Dreams
- "Over Objections, U.S. Approves New Logging in Forest in Alaska" - New York Times
- "Ex-Fish and Game Officials Warn of Sealaska Bill" - ABC News