231 



Dr. Anderson. Yes, I can; 19,781, to be precise, as a result of that 

 survey. 



Senator Murkowski. Is that up from 1986? 



Dr. Anderson. Yes, it is. It is up by several thousand. 



Senator Murkowski. Can you give me the estimate of deer killed 

 by wolves for 1986 or 1987? 



Dr. Anderson. No, I cannot. I can tell you that the best informa- 

 tion we have indicates that wolves eat something like 10 pounds of 

 venison per day. 



Senator Murkowski. How many? 



Dr. Anderson. Something like 10 pounds per day, so you would 

 probably be looking at about one deer per 13 wolf days. 



Senator Murkowski. 10 pounds? All the wolves in southeastern 

 Alaska eat 10 pounds of venison per day each; is that right? 



Dr. Anderson. That is correct. 



Senator Murkowski. Each wolf? 



Dr. Anderson. That would probably be an average figure. For 

 wolves that trained virtually exclusively on deer, that is correct. 



Senator Murkowski. 10 pounds per day per wolf, and that is how 

 many pounds of deer roughly? 



Dr. Anderson. As I mentioned, that would be about one deer per 

 13 wolf days. 



Senator Murkowski. Tell me how many wolves there are, then. 



Dr. Anderson. The only information I can give you on that, once 

 again, wolves are not easy to count. I am sure you can appreciate 

 that. 



Senator Murkowski. But you say one wolf will eat how many 

 deer? 



Dr. Anderson. I said that one wolf eats about 10 pounds of veni- 

 son per day. If you consider in total a deer weighing about 130 

 pounds, then over a 13-day period a wolf would consume about one 

 deer. 



Senator Murkowski. One deer each 13 days per wolf. Are we 

 working on this high math? That will not work. 



You do not know how many deer are killed roughly by wolves? 



Dr. Anderson. That is an extremely difficult question to answer 

 even in areas like the northwest Arctic, where we can actually 



Senator Murkowski. I just do not want to go outside southeast- 

 ern Alaska. You folks in the Department of Fish and Game must 

 play with some figures about how many wolves kill deer. How 

 many wolves do we have? 



Dr. Anderson. The studies that we have conducted on Revilla 

 Island indicated about one wolf per 100 square miles. That is prob- 

 ably not a bad average figure for the entire region. 



Senator Murkowski. I have estimates from the Forest Service, 

 and their estimates which they quote very rough are 10,000 to 

 15,000 deer that are killed by wolves for the year of 1987. 



Would you agree that it might be in that area, or is that high or 

 low or in between? 



Dr. Anderson. I would say that it is probably in the ballpark. It 

 may be somewhat higher than what I would guess would be cor- 

 rect. 



