Alaska offers wolf-kill cash

The state is offering cash for people to kill wolves in an effort to boost a predator control program that has not met expected numbers, officials said.

The incentives include offering 180 volunteer pilots and aerial gunners $150 for turning in legs of freshly killed wolves, Gov. Sarah Palin's office announced Tuesday.

The state will use the left forelegs of wolves as biological specimens, said Denby Lloyd, commissioner for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, in a statement. The legs can help biologists determine wolf age and will assist the program in the future, he said.

The program, now in its fourth year and operating in five areas of the state, is designed to increase moose and caribou numbers by reducing the number of predators. Previously, the only reward was a wolf pelt that could sell for $200 to $300, a wildlife official told the Anchorage Daily News.

State biologists want 382 to 664 wolves killed by the time snow melts. As of Tuesday morning, 98 wolves had been killed.

The state estimates there are between 7,000 and 11,000 wolves in Alaska.

Karla Dutton, director of the Alaska office of the advocacy group Defenders of Wildlife, said in a statement: "Bounties have no place in modern wildlife management and undoubtedly would lead to the illegal killing of wolves."

The predator-control season ends April 30.