Lost Creek Wolf Pack Eliminated

Date: February 28, 2014
Contact: Greg Dudgeon, [phone]

National Park Service (NPS) wildlife biologists lost the ability to research radio-collared wolves from the Lost Creek pack, which has historically used Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) eliminated all 11 members of the pack outside of the preserve last week as part of ADF&G’s ongoing aerial predator control program in the upper Yukon and Fortymile Rivers region.

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.

Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve was created in 1980 by the Alaska Lands Act to maintain the environmental integrity of the Charley River basin in its undeveloped natural condition for public benefit and scientific study, and to protect populations of fish and wildlife, including wolves. As top predators, wolves have an important role in the natural functioning of ecosystems by regulating prey species.

Additional information about research and wildlife in Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve is available on-line at www.nps.gov/yuch/naturescience/animals.htm.

Contact: Greg Dudgeon, Superintendent, Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve and Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, Tel: [phone], Email: e-mail us