- ANCHORAGE - An Alaska judge
has rejected an attempt by an animal rights group to stop a state-sponsored
program allowing hunters to shoot wolves from airplanes in Alaska.
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- The move Friday opens the door to a threatened nationwide
tourism boycott targeting Alaska's $2 billion tourism business, the same
tactic that halted a similar wolf eradication effort a decade ago.
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- Connecticut-based Friends of Animals and seven Alaska
plaintiffs asked Superior Court Judge Sharon L. Gleason to grant a preliminary
injunction to stop the shooting, part of a wolf control program intended
to boost the moose population in some areas.
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- Gleason refused to grant the injunction and lifted a
temporary restraining order that had kept three pilot-and-hunter teams
grounded since Nov. 26.
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- Friends of Animals president Priscilla Feral said she
is considering the possibility of further legal action but declined to
elaborate.
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- "We're hoping what the state won't do is rush out
and annihilate the wolves,'' she said.
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- In an interview with the Associated Press earlier this
week, Feral pledged to organize a tourism boycott if the state insists
on killing wolves.
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- Friends of Animals, which touts 200,000 members, was
behind a successful tourism boycott that resulted in then-Gov. Walter J.
Hickel imposing a moratorium on wolf control in 1992. During that boycott,
Friends of Animals launched 53 demonstrations called ``howl-ins'' in 51
cities around the country.
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- The state wants to kill the wolves in approximately a
1,700-square-mile area near the village of McGrath. The program began this
spring with the relocation of 75 black bears and eight grizzlies. State
wildlife biologists say moving the bears increased the summer survival
rate of moose calves by about 20 percent.
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- Such methods of controlling the wolf population have
been an emotionally charged issue in Alaska for decades. Before statehood
in 1959, shooting wolves from airplanes was common practice. But aerial
sport hunting was banned in 1972. The law, however, did allow for aerial
shooting for predator control. Alaska voters in 1996 and 2000 banned a
similar practice known as land-and-shoot hunting.
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- http://startribune.com/stories/1551/4252663.html
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