Saturday Alaska Progressive Blog Roundup - October 17, 2009

I. Gordon Haber

Longtime opponent of aerial wolf hunting and many aspects of State of Alaska and Federal policies regarding wolves in Alaska, Gordon Haber, was killed in a bush plane accident north of Denali, near the east fork of the Toklat River. The pilot survived, but Haber was either killed in the crash or in the burning plane as a result of the impact.

Shannyn Moore, who interviewed him on the radio more than once, wrote a touching tribute to Haber and what he stood for, at Just a Girl from Homer:

He wasn’t a snuggly guy. He was serious, and locked horns on occasion. Most people who care so passionately do. His website was dedicated to his life’s work. His tweets were about the Toklat wolf “family” and his determination to see their recovery after a hunter killed the pack’s alpha male and alpha female.

I wonder when the wolves howl tonight…

do they know what an advocate, friend, lover of nature and defender of justice they have lost in the death of a man who knew them better than most?

We have lost one of the pack leaders in the war to defend the wolf…on the same land where he mapped their lives.

Rest In Peace Gordon Haber.

The Alaska Dispatch carried Craig Medred's tribute:

Biologist Gordon Haber loved wolves. Most of all, he loved the wolves of the Toklat pack in Denali National Park, and it now it appears that love has cost him his life.

Haber, 67, and Denali Park pilot Dan McGregor were flying to observe the wolves this week when their single-engine airplane disappeared. A search found it Thursday afternoon on a steep slope west of the East Fork of the Toklat River, Denali Park spokeswoman Kris Fister reported.

The 35-year-old McGregor walked away from the crash and confirmed that Haber was killed. According to the Associated Press, he was taken to a Seattle burn center.

Haber had been studying wolves in Denali Park since his days as a temporary park service employee there in the 1960s and kept a blog where he documented his work. Friends said that over the years he came to think of the wolves, particularly those in the Toklat pack, as family. He attributed to them a "culture,'' and repeatedly crossed swords with biologists in the park service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Alaska Department of Fish and Game who disagreed, and thought wolves should be "managed'' just like any other big game animals.

Haber was sued by a trapper after he let a legally trapped wolf out of the man's snare. A state court held for the trapper and ordered Haber and Friends of Animals, his sponsor, to pay $150,000. Haber was undeterred.

Other articles and tributes appeared in Alaska mainstream media. The best of them, so far, may have been that produced by Alaska Public Radio's Dan Bross.

I approached Gordon Haber for assistance in early 1993, when sculptor Peter Bevis and I were preparing for the Knik Philharmonic's Fourth Winter Tour. Peter and I intended to cast molds of wolf carcasses that had been flayed of their furs. Peter would then bring the molds back to his foundry in Seattle and cast them in bronze. We hoped to bring attention to how grizzly the practice of aerial wolf hunting was.

Haber told us where to look for carcasses in Fairbanks. Along the way, we made telephonic contact with the head of a group that was just then beginning to help Gordon, the Friends of Animals. Priscilla Feral, who was than and still is President of Friends of Animals didn't understand what Peter and I were doing.

At the time, Friends of Animals had initiated an ad campaign in travel magazines, asking people to boycott Alaska until our policies on wolf hunting and control changed. Later in the spring of 1993, after Peter and I had finished the project, and Peter had met a couple of times with Haber, I was called by Nancy Lethcoe, on behalf of a low-impact Alaska travel industry group. Friends of Animals was running their boycott ads heavily in magazines that specialized in low-impact tourism - hiking, backpacking, kayaking and so on.

Many companies were getting cancellations because of the ads. Yet the Friends of Animals weren't running ads in magazines like Sunset, which attracted customers to the rapidly growing cruise ship industry.


When I called Feral on behalf of the low-impact group, she launched a tirade at me that took me completely by surprise. She refused to even consider stopping running the ads in magazines that catered to a clientele who sympathized with both Haber and the Friends of Animals 100%. After a long, four-letter word laced rant, she hung up on me.

I was so stung, I sent letters of complaint to every member of the board of directors to the Friends of Animals. When, later in 1993, I told Haber about the incident, he laughed and laughed.


II. Erin and Hig's Book Tour

Historic Alaska figures Erin McKittrick and Bretwood Higman have begun their book tour this week. They are the only people that we know of to walk, ski, bicycle and pack raft from Seattle to Unimak Island. They also kept a marvelous blog along the way, taking thousands of photographs and hours of video. Now, A Long Trek Home, their book, is out. Here's their local and regional schedule:

1. October 13-14: Seldovia (details to be determined)
2. October 15 at noon: Soldotna Rotary club
3. October 15-16: Homer (details to be determined)
4. October 17, 1-3 pm: Cover To Cover Books in Seward
5. October 21 at 6 pm: Title Wave books in Anchorage
6. October 22 at 6 pm: REI in Anchorage
7. October 29 at 8 am: Interview with King 5 news in Seattle
8. October 29 at 7 pm: REI in Seattle
9. October 30 at 9 am: KUOW Seattle public radio interview (Weekday)
10. October 30 at 7 pm: Bellingham Village Books
11. November 5 at 6:30 pm: Ballard (Seattle) Public Library
12. November 9 at 7:30 pm: Powell’s Books in Portland
13. November 11 at 7 pm: REI in Portland
14. November 13-18: Eugene (details to be determined)
15. November 20-22: Midwest Mountaineering expo in Minneapolis (two presentations, times to be determined)
16. December 1: Juneau (details to be determined)

III. More rural and fisheries blogs?

A new fisheries blog has emerged that appears to be so good that I'm going to list it sooner than usual. Tholepin is from Kodiak. Hopefully it will stay as vital as it appears to be, right out of the gate.

Alaska Public Radio Network covered the fact that the Federal Government is stil months, if not years, from making a decision on whether or not to accept Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell's request to declare theYukon River a disaster area because of the collapse of the runs there. If this were happening to white people, I think the government would react more quickly.

Tholepin observes, regarding the recent publication of damning by-catch photographs (yes, like Abu Graibh, there are more pictures):

The fact that it has been happening for years...remember we had shrimp, king crab, tanner crab...doesn't make it any more righteous. Now it appears that there may be pictures of a huge king salmon tow out Uyak way this summer. If these can be found, verified, and published...the ship will hit the fan.


We will be working out a reward method for those brave souls who will turn in the dirty draggers. Brave crew will keep their cell phones handy. Pictures could be worth a thousand bucks.

Update - Sunday 5:00 p.m: I had a long, fairly productive phone conversation a few minutes ago with Priscilla Feral, the president of Friends of Animals. I apologized for characterizing her solely based upon an unpleasant series of contacts sixteen years ago. She apologized for treating me the way she did back then. She eventually remembered that I had contacted her in 1993 on behalf of the then-president of The Alaska Wilderness Recreation and Tourism Association, whose members were then losing a lot of business to the Friends of Animals' anti-Alaska ad campaign.

However, Priscilla reminded me that "the campaign worked." It was the last full year of the Hickel administration, and Priscilla Feral believes that the results hamstrung Hickel's wolf control efforts until the succeeding Knowles administration was able to implement some sane policies regarding game management.

She will be up in Alaska for Gordon Haber's memorial on November 7th, and we hope to meet.