The department expanded the boundaries for aerial hunters in Game Management Unit 19D East near McGrath from about 1,750 square miles to 3,600 square miles.
"When we came up with the first control zone, it was an educated guess that it would be large enough and it turns out it wasn't," said David James, regional management coordinator with the Department of Fish and Game in Fairbanks, who is overseeing the program.
State wildlife biologists said the five wolf packs that are being targeted by aerial hunters have bigger ranges than originally thought. Hunters have consistently been tracking wolves outside the boundary area where they can't shoot them.
The original 1,750-square-mile boundary was put in place to protect moose in a 528-square-mile area known as the "experimental micro-management area," where the state is trying to eliminate predation on moose to produce more moose for villagers in and around McGrath. The state moved more than 80 bears from the same area last spring to reduce bear predation of moose calves.
The state began the McGrath hunt in November, after the game board directed the Department of Fish and Game to do so with the goal of killing 40 wolves. The board instituted a similar but bigger plan in a 8,230-square-mile area in the Nelchina Basin south of Fairbanks two months ago to kill 140 wolves.
The game board on Tuesday held off pulling the trigger on a third aerial control program in Game Management Unit 16B west of Anchorage, choosing to revisit the issue later in the meeting.
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
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