Unalaska, AK – The caribou population on Unimak Island has dropped to dangerously low levels, and the Alaska Department of Fish & Game is developing a plan to help restore it. Recent surveys found only 300 caribou on the island, and only 15 of them were bulls. In 2009, only seven calves survived into recruitment, mostly because of predation by wolves. ADF&G Assistant Commissioner Corey Rossi said the decline might be part of the caribou's natural population cycle. However, the numbers are so low that the department is worried that the population may not be able to rebound.

"So what we've got is a situation where we have almost no calf recruitment because what few calves are being produced are being eaten up by wolves," he said. "But equally important is the fact that for whatever reason, the way the demographic ended up in this particular situation is that we have so few bulls, we don't think we're getting all of the cows bred anyway."

Having more cows than bulls is normal in caribou populations, Rossi said, but this ratio is dangerously off. ADF&G is considering a two-part solution: introducing more bulls to the population and culling a select number of wolves that hunt on the calving grounds.

"It wouldn't be an effort to go out and just randomly find a wolf and remove it just for the sake of saying we got one. It would be a very strategic, very surgical-type operation."

The department already used this procedure to help the caribou population on the Southern Alaska Peninsula. Rossi said that by shooting a few wolves near the calving grounds for two years in a row that population grew from 600 to 800 caribou.

The wolves on Unimak Island feed on marine mammal and bear carcasses, caribou, and occasionally fish, but caribou are the only consistently available source. If the caribou population declines too far, it could cause a problem for the wolves.

"The caribou population being larger and sustainable would not only be good for subsistence uses, but it would be good for the wolves and for the other critters that might feed on the caribou as well. Right now, if we lose the caribou, we're losing a pretty good piece out of the whole system there."

The plan also includes bringing 15 bulls to the island from the Southern Alaska Peninsula herd, though Rossi is not 100 percent sure if it would work out.

"Sometimes caribou and other wildlife as well, when you move them, they try to get home. So we don't really know whether or those bulls won't just turn around and swim back home. That's something that remains to be seen."

Ideally, however, they will mingle with the island cows and breed rather than try to leave.

The population rebuilding plan is still in the planning stages and will be discussed at the March Board of Game meeting in Fairbanks. Rossi said they want to put a plan into place and act by this summer. "We're concerned enough about it that even waiting another year might be the end of that herd."

Currently no subsistence hunting of caribou is allowed on the island. The caribou, wolves, and other large mammals originally arrived on Unimak by swimming through the short pass between the island and the mainland.