Wolf in worrisome Anchorage-area pack shot on base

A female wolf in a pack thought to be involved in several troubling encounters with humans in the Eagle River-Chugiak area was shot last week by an Alaska Department of Fish and Game employee on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, reports the Alaska Star. It appears to have been the first killed in what Fish and Game says will be an effort to shoot or trap the entire pack of up to a dozen.

A state employee glimpsed a group of five wolves in the woods on the northwest part of what used to be Elmendorf Air Force Base after 4 p.m. on Jan. 12, according to Mark Burch, Fish and Game's regional wildlife conservation supervisor in Anchorage. The man was on base for unrelated reasons and wasn't there to pursue wolves, Burch said.

The wolf, a younger female, was about 40 yards away when she was shot, Burch said. That female was closest to him - that's why he targeted her - but the employee also saw four others a short distance behind her.

Wolves are usually pretty skittish around people. But these didn't run off, Burch said.

"He had quite a bit of time to get out and get set up to take the shot," he said. "These wolves did not show the normal behavior that you'd expect from wolves, it was more consistent with what we've been describing as wolves that don't have the normal fear of humans."

Read more in the Alaska Star.

Wolves thought to be from the same pack are believed to have killed a sheep and a beagle as well as chasing a pair of joggers and threatening dogs being walked.


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