SAVING THE Alexander Archipelago wolf

The Alexander Archipelago wolf is an island wolf. These distinct wolves roam the islands and coastal mainland in the Alexander Archipelago, a network of more than 1,000 islands, glaciated peaks, and deep river valleys in remote southeast Alaska. This region is also home to the Tongass National Forest, the largest national forest in North America, with some of the largest remaining stands of old-growth, temperate rainforest in the world. But the wolves and their rainforest home are under continued threats from industrial logging, road building, overharvest from hunting, and large-scale habitat loss as the U.S. Forest Service continues to plan big timber sales in key wolf habitats.

The Center has been working to save the Alexander Archipelago wolf since 1996, when we and allies first petitioned to protect the wolf under the Endangered Species Act. Later, we filed suit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to protect the wolf under the Endangered Species Act. Since then, officials have continued to deny the wolf Endangered Species Act safeguards, relying instead on the inadequate general protections bestowed under broader national forest regulations. In December 2009, we filed suit to save roadless areas on the Tongass National Forest, which make up 80 percent of the wolf’s habitat.

The Archipelago Alexander wolf needs all the help it can get. Over half of the old-growth forests that the wolves rely on for hunting, denning, and raising pups are now gone. With the new Tongass forest plan, another 30 percent of the remaining old-growth forests in southeast Alaska could be gone within the next 20 years. More people live on islands with wolves, increasing legal hunting and trapping of wolves to unsustainable levels. Due to a number of severe winters, and a lack of old-growth forests for protection, the wolves’ primary food source, the Sitka black-tailed deer, are also in decline. With current population estimates at as few as 750 individual wolves, and as few as eight wolves on some islands, the time to save to the Alexander Archipelago wolf is now.