Somehow these two classic panels have escaped being uploaded to the editorial archives. Reposted here on account of even more recent shenanigans from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, who enacts the will of the Board of Game, who in turn are puppets of the Governor, and subsequently greased up by the Legislature.
FAIRBANKS — National Park Service officials are fuming about the elimination of an Eastern Interior wolf pack by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game last week, including a pair that were wearing radio collars. On Feb. 21, the state agency shot all 11 members of the Lost Creek pack near Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. That included the pack’s alpha pair […] state predator control efforts last spring killed 36 wolves in the area, reducing the population in the preserve by more than half. - Jeff Richardson/Daily News-Miner
"The pack had been monitored by NPS researchers over the past seven years as part of a decades-long ecological study, and provided detailed information about the condition of Interior Alaska’s wolves, how they disperse, and the numbers of wolves utilizing the preserve to den and raise pups. Removal of the Lost Creek pack follows similar losses from ADF&G predator control efforts last spring which killed 36 wolves in the area, reducing the population using the preserve by more than half." - NPSWhat's sad is how applicable and relevant these two panels still remain, even after eight and four years (respectively) after publication - the first ran in the now-defunct Ester Republic, and the second appearing in the pages of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.
"We Don't Care How They Do It In The Lower 48" isn't just the unofficial state motto, it also means scrupulous ignorance on how not to repeat the very same historical mistakes the rest of America committed - not incidentally the exact same aspects of Alaska that make it different and special from everywhere else, and why most of us non-Natives chose to move here, live here, and stay here. And probably the single-most attractive factor to someone from Outside, the promise and hope of Alaska, is that there's still one place left that isn't completely fucked up. Yet. At this rate (ex: 89 bears in one unit alone last season) when tourists arrive in Alaska they'll just have to be shown picture books of wildlife, since we're hellbent on wiping out whatever's left. Prediction: just wait until they get their hands on drones (activists, not so much).
Information on commenting to the Bored of Game agency personnel can be found here.
I don't know how it is in Alaska, but here in New Hampshire the natives don't care why an outsider moved here and are just as happy if you get fed up and leave. They'll sell your house to another sucker and continue business as usual. The newcomers either assimilate or go away and create a vacancy for another and another... As for the tourists, as long as they show up and drop a bunch of cash, who cares whether they came with an illusion and left with an excuse, as long as they come, spend, and go in an orderly fashion.
ReplyDeleteFrom my perspective that observation could easily extend throughout New England – still, NH et al isn’t renowned a place as AK for booking guided safaris to kill trophies. There however is equal territorial pissings in your neck of the woods when it comes to fishing!
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