Boy, talk about a controversial issue. This article almost states that the park is more concerned with the “ugly site” tourists will see when they visit then the fact that the wolves are suffering. They do mention that they have been trying to remove the snares and that trapping should be done “right”. I guess I have mixed feelings about the issue. Coming from a family of hunters, I realize that animals can be hunted for food and in some cases, especially in the lower 48 it is healthy for the “herds” to cull out some. The last time they restricted deer hunting in Illinois and Wisconsin, we had deer wandering into factories in cities and starving to death from lack of food due to the high numbers. There’s also been the very controversial issue of culling herds of buffalo and elk in some of the national parks. I also know men that trap for furs. I just never knew that they trapped an animal as big as a wolf. What do you do with wolf fur? It’d be like killing a dog for the fur. Weird. It’d be an easy issue if the animals stayed in the national parks where they are safe, but after all, they are wild animals and therefore can’t be fenced in, can they? I’m not one that “worships” animals, even though I enjoy watching them, but neither do I like to see them suffer. Corie Marks, staff writer

Denali National Park: www.nps.gov/denaResearcher 

Gordon Haber's Web site: www.alaskawolves.org 

GORDON HABER / AP

A wolf from the Toklat pack with a snare embedded in its neck in Denali National Park, Alaska.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Tourists taking in the beauty of Denali National Park and Preserve could be in for a truly ugly sight — two wolves with hunters' tight snares around their necks.

The wolves were legally trapped this winter on state land outside the park. The two, a large gray wolf and a smaller black one, escaped the traps and returned recently to Denali, their faces and necks swollen from the embedded snares.

The large gray has a neck wound where the snare has cut into the muscle, creating a flap of skin that hangs down. The black wolf's face is so swollen he now resembles a bear.

Snares are normally made of metal cable in the shape of a loop that cinch tighter as the animal tries to pull free. It's not known exactly how they escaped, but the cables could have broken or the wolves could have chewed through them.

Denali is expecting at least 458,000 visitors this year, with many of them arriving in droves beginning in mid-May. Visitors normally board buses that travel the park road in an area where the famed Toklat pack tends to stay. The black wolf is a member of that pack.

"Trapping and snaring are certainly legal outside the park but it needs to be done well," park spokeswoman Kris Fister said Thursday. "We feel it shouldn't have happened."

Independent researcher Gordon Haber, who has studied Denali's wolves for decades, said the black one was a beautiful, glossy-coated wolf, until his face and neck swelled up.

"To see him like this now is just disgusting," Haber said. "People come up here expecting to see wolves in the wild and see this. It is a real shocker, or will be."

The 6-million-acre national park has about 100 wolves in 18 packs.

While no trapping is allowed in the park, it is legal on state lands outside the park. Trappers sell the pelts.

Problems for the wolves arise on the park's northeast boundary. The area is the traditional wintering grounds for caribou, moose and sheep. Hungry wolves head there in winter. "They just go right in that area and unbeknownst to them ... the trappers are waiting and they are caught," Haber said.

At least three trap lines were set this winter outside the northeast boundary and outside a no-trapping buffer zone created to afford the wolves greater protection. As many as 19 wolves have been trapped there, including four radio-collared wolves, Haber said.

One of the Toklat group of wolves wears a radio collar that provides positioning information every morning. Seventeen wolves were in the group when it headed for the prey-rich area beyond the park boundary in February for a few days. Only 10 returned, Haber said. The black one rejoined the group in March. (Neither it nor the other snared roof are wearing radio collars.)

Denali park biologists have been wanting to remove the snares but so far they have had no luck. A couple of times biologists have rushed to an area, only to find the wolves gone, said Pat Owen, a park wildlife biologist.

Fister said if visitors see the wolves and ask what's wrong with them, park employees will give them a straight answer, but only if they ask. "We are not going to put a billboard up or anything," Fister said.

The park received a report earlier this week that the gray wolf was about seven miles from the park headquarters building along the park road. Again, by the time biologists arrived, all they found were tracks.

Both wolves, despite the snares, look to be in good shape, Owen said.

Still, Haber is concerned about the gross swelling of the black wolf's head and neck. The snare on the other wolf is deep into its neck, he said. "Just imagine going around with a snare tightly embedded in your neck muscle," he said.