__State to kill up to 500 wolves by aerial shooting__
For Immediate Release: 4 November 2004
Contact: Daniel Hammer 1-203-656-1522
Darien, Connecticut , US — In the first year of Alaska’s current state-sponsored aerial wolf-killing scheme, over 200,000 people pledged to boycott the state’s $2 billion-a-year tourism industry.
The tourism boycott, an intervention led by international animal advocacy organization Friends of Animals, is now resuming — this time to impact Alaska’s summer 2005 tourism season — with over two dozen protests from Sitka, Alaska to New York City already scheduled in the first weeks of the campaign.
On Saturday the 6th of November, activists in 16 states will present Howl-Ins: Volunteers will collect signatures on postcards for Alaska’s Gov. Frank Murkowski pledging to boycott travel to Alaska until the wolf-killing ends. Supporters of wolves will display posters announcing that “Alaska is planning a heart-stopping wildlife spectacle” and showing a wolf in a rifle’s crosshairs.
Howl-Ins will continue through April 2005 unless Governor Murkowski calls off the state-sanctioned killers before that date. En route to San Francisco’s annual Green Festival, Friends of Animals president Priscilla Feral said, “We cannot wait to howl with the people of San Francisco on Saturday and Sunday. We’ll make sure that Frank Murkowski can hear us.”
Since November of 2003, pilots have obtained permits issued by the Alaska Board of Game and the Department of Fish and Game. One by one, with the assistance of low, slow-flying aircraft, airborne hunters who traced, tracked, chased, and killed 147 wolves. This method of killing wolves has not been used since the late 1980s and is normally illegal in Alaska. But in spite of votes in which Alaskans opted to end same-day use of aircraft for public wolf hunting and trapping, the killing permits have Governor Murkowski’s approval.
The state intends to permit the killing of up to 500 wolves this coming winter, beginning when autumn snowfalls allow for the tracking of wolves. The heightened killing plans come in the wake of a March 2004 approval for the opening of two new hunting areas.
Friends of Animals placed advertisements for the Alaska tourism boycott in the New York Times Sunday Magazine and Mother Jones Magazine; more to come soon. Friends of Animals also provides a 60-second video, available electronically at www.friendsofanimals.org.
In conjunction with the boycott, Friends of Animals will continue to have a presence in the Superior Court in Anchorage, as the organization’s legal challenge to this killing continues.
Friends of Animals Howl-In listings will be updated each day as locations are confirmed. A complete and up-to-date listing of Howl-Ins and campaign supporters can be found at:
https://friendsofanimals.org/programs/howl-in/upcoming-howl-ins.html