Denali Park, Alaska's popular tourist attraction, is experiencing a continuous decrease in wolf sighting year after year. Animal life advocates are pushing for better policies for wildlife protection.
Denali records over 400,000 tourist visits every year. Half of them usually take the tourist bus which goes through the single street, the Denali Park Road.
Researchers conducted a survey to tourists in 80 buses this summer. Their data based on random sample showed that tourists who rode the bus only sighted wolves three times. This accounts for only four percent of the total trips.
In a report by the Anchorage Daily News, there were 44 percent wolf sighting in tourist bus trips in 2010, 21 percent by 2011, and 12 percent by 2012. Looking at this data, the numbers were down by eight percent from last year.
The same decline was also seen in the data gathered by the park researchers. They also do not see as much of the wolves as they did before. In spring of 2012 there were 66 wolves seen while this year there were only 55.
The U.S National Park Service said the wolf population is continuously declining. The decrease in the wolves' numbers did not correspond to more of their prey. The other animals that serve as food were declining as well.
According to The Seattle Times, some blame the lifting of the no-trapping and no-hunting state policy in the area, which was removed to control the predators. Since then, any person may capture wolves in the eastern side of the Denali Park, where wolves were often seen.
Based on earlier statements of the state's wildlife authorities, there were only a small number of these predators killed in the previously wolf-safe zone. However, Park Service people say that single wolf kills may have huge impacts on their total populations.
Wildlife advocates are proposing to expand the protection by sending petition letters for the tentative shut down of wolf hunting in the previously safe zone and sale of land to have the buffer reinstated.
