Wolves Bears And Their Prey In Alaska

This book assesses Alaskan wolf and bear management programs from scientific and economic perspectives. Relevant factors that should be taken into account when evaluating the utility of such programs are identified. The assessment includes a review of current scientific knowledge about the dynamics and management of large mammalian predator-prey relationships and human harvest of wildlife in northern ecosystems, and an evaluation of the extent to which existing research and management data allow prediction of the outcome of wolf management or control programs and grizzly bear management programs. Included is an evaluation of available economic studies and methodologies for estimating the costs and benefits of predator control programs in Alaska.

This book assesses Alaskan wolf and bear management programs from scientific and economic perspectives. Relevant factors that should be taken into account when evaluating the utility of such programs are identified. The assessment includes a review of current scientific knowledge about the dynamics and management of large mammalian predator-prey relationships and human harvest of wildlife in northern ecosystems, and an evaluation of the extent to which existing research and management data allow prediction of the outcome of wolf management or control programs and grizzly bear management programs. Included is an evaluation of available economic studies and methodologies for estimating the costs and benefits of predator control programs in Alaska.

For more than nine years the wolves in Alaska's Denali National Park were the subject of intense research by a group of renowned scientists led by L. David Mech. The result of their work is the most comprehensive study of a population of wolves and their prey ever available. This accessible, fascinating, and extensively illustrated book will appeal to researchers, general readers, and wolf enthusiasts across the world.

In the time of Lewis and Clark, wolves were abundant throughout North America from the Arctic regions to Mexico. But man declared war on this cunning and powerful animal when cattle replaced the buffalo on the western plains, reducing the wolf’s range to those few areas in the Far North where economic necessity did not call for its extinction. Between 1939 and 1941, Adolph Murie, one of North America’s greatest naturalists, made a field study of the relationship between wolves and Dall sheep in Mount McKinley National Park (since renamed Denali National Park) which has come to be respected as a classic work of natural history. In this study Murie not only described the life cycle of Alaskan wolves in greater detail than has ever been done, but he discovered a great deal about the entire ecological network of predator and prey. The issues surrounding the survival of the wolf and its prey are more important today than ever, and Murie helps us understand the careful balance that must be maintained to ensure that these magnificent animals prosper. Originally available only in government publications which are long out-of-print, this account of a much maligned animal is now available in its first popular edition.

Selected reprints from Alaska magazine and Outdoor Life. Well illustrated with colour and black and white photographs.

The interactions between apex predators and their prey are some of the most awesome and meaningful in nature—displays of strength, endurance, and a deep coevolutionary history. And there is perhaps no apex predator more impressive and important in its hunting—or more infamous, more misjudged—than the wolf. Because of wolves’ habitat, speed, and general success at evading humans, researchers have faced great obstacles in studying their natural hunting behaviors. The first book to focus explicitly on wolf hunting of wild prey, Wolves on the Hunt seeks to fill these gaps in our knowledge and understanding. Combining behavioral data, thousands of hours of original field observations, research in the literature, a wealth of illustrations, and—in the e-book edition and online—video segments from cinematographer Robert K. Landis, the authors create a compelling and complex picture of these hunters. The wolf is indeed an adept killer, able to take down prey much larger than itself. While adapted to hunt primarily hoofed animals, a wolf—or especially a pack of wolves—can kill individuals of just about any species. But even as wolves help drive the underlying rhythms of the ecosystems they inhabit, their evolutionary prowess comes at a cost: wolves spend one-third of their time hunting—the most time consuming of all wolf activities—and success at the hunt only comes through traveling long distances, persisting in the face of regular failure, detecting and taking advantage of deficiencies in the physical condition of individual prey, and through ceaseless trial and error, all while risking injury or death. By describing and analyzing the behaviors wolves use to hunt and kill various wild prey—including deer, moose, caribou, elk, Dall sheep, mountain goats, bison, musk oxen, arctic hares, beavers, and others—Wolves on the Hunt provides a revelatory portrait of one of nature’s greatest hunters.

Alaska’s wolves lost their fiercest advocate, Gordon Haber, when his research plane crashed in Denali National Park in 2009. Passionate, tenacious, and occasionally brash, Haber, a former hockey player and park ranger, devoted his life to Denali’s wolves. He weathered brutal temperatures in the wild to document the wolves and provided exceptional insights into wolf behavior. Haber’s writings and photographs reveal an astonishing degree of cooperation between wolf family members as they hunt, raise pups, and play, social behaviors and traditions previously unknown. With the wolves at risk of being destroyed by hunting and trapping, his studies advocated for a balanced approach to wolf management. His fieldwork registered as one of the longest studies in wildlife science and had a lasting impact on wolf policies. Haber’s field notes, his extensive journals, and stories from friends all come together in Among Wolves to reveal much about both the wolves he studied and the researcher himself. Wolves continue to fascinate and polarize people, and Haber’s work continues to resonate.