This guy was no wolf biologist. He was a wolf preservationist who cared little for conservation science. The Alaskans will remember him as the guy who was charged with interfering with a Wolf trappers snare line .



http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/aviation/story/974810.html


Human remains found in wreckage of plane

MISSING: Wreck may be Cessna carrying biologist Gordon Haber.

By MARY PEMBERTON
The Associated Press

Published: October 15th, 2009 12:22 PM
Last Modified: October 16th, 2009 01:43 AM

The burned wreckage of a small plane that went missing in Denali National Park with a pilot and a wolf biologist aboard was found Thursday with human remains inside.
Click to enlarge


An Alaska State Trooper confirmed that there were human remains in the plane. However, impending darkness prevented the trooper from investigating further, said park spokeswoman Kris Fister.

Fister said the white and blue Cessna 185 that had carried biologist Gordon Haber, 67, and pilot Daniel McGregor, 35, was found Thursday afternoon in some trees on a steep slope near the east fork of the Toklat River, about seven miles north of the park road.

"The airplane is in pieces," Fister said. "We can't confirm there were remains of two people. There were just human remains."

The wreckage was spotted by an aerial search team at about 3 p.m. A search plane then landed on a gravel river bar about one-half mile below the crash site, and the trooper hiked up to the crash site, Fister said.

The crashed plane was substantially damaged and had burned.

The Cessna took off at about noon Wednesday and was supposed to return by nightfall. The Park Service was notified around midnight that the plane was overdue.

Fister said a flight plan indicated the two men from Denali Park were looking for wolf packs. Thursday's search was focused on the north side of the park because that is where wolves tend to be, she said.

Haber, an independent biologist who for decades has studied Denali's wolves, was a frequent visitor to the 6 million acre park in Southcentral Alaska and well known among Alaska's conservation community.


Denali National Park has about 100 wolves and more than a dozen wolf packs, including the Toklat pack, that are some of the most viewed and researched wolves in the world. Visitors to the park traveling in buses occasionally see wolves from the park road, usually members of the Toklat pack.

For years, Haber pushed for greater protections for the wolves when they venture outside park boundaries and onto state lands where they can be hunted and trapped. Two years ago he was angered when as many as 19 wolves, including four collared wolves, were killed outside the northeast boundary of the park and outside a no-trapping buffer zone.

An entry on his Web site in March said the Toklat pack remained at 11 wolves, including five to six pups, down from 14 to 17 wolves in late January.

Haber said the information was garnered from his research flights.

"He has been here and doing research in this area for many years," Fister said.

Fister said a C-130 aircraft was used Wednesday night in an attempt to pick up the plane's emergency locator if it had been activated, but no signal was detected.

The weather in the park on Wednesday was clear with some low-lying fog banks. Winds were calm. On Thursday, the weather was mostly overcast with a trace of snow.

Daily News reporter James Halpin contributed to this story.

An Alaskan trapper recent won a $150,000 judgment against Friends of Animals researcher Gordon Haber for freeing an injured wolf out of a snare.

http://www.animalrights.net/articles/200...nds-of-animals/

In 1997, biologist Haber discovered the wolf caught in a trap set by Alaskan Eugene Johnson. Haber called Alaska state wildlife officials to free the wolf arguing it had been trapped illegally since there were dead caribou carcasses in the vicinity which violates an anti-baiting statute. Officials said they’d free the animal but when they didn’t show up, Haber released the animal himself all the while creating a videotape of his actions which he later released to highlight what he believes is an “abusive type of snaring.”

Under Alaskan law, however, the wolf was the property of Johnson the moment it came into the trap. Since prosecutor’s decided there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Johnson with illegally baiting a trap, Johnson turned around and sued Haber for compensation for the lost wolf. Haber claimed he had the permission of state wildlife officials to free the wolf, but they testified that they told him as soon as he called that the wolf was the property of the trapper under Alaskan law.

In addition to economic damage, Johnson argued that Haber was acting along with Friends of Animals to create a sensationalized videotape and damage his reputation for fund-raising purposes.

Although both Haber and Friends of Animals maintain that Haber is an independent research biologist who happens to receive funding from the animal rights group, the jury decided that Haber was in fact acting as an employee of Friends of Animals when he released the wolf from the trap.

After the verdict, Haber was defiant saying, “If they think I’m going to go away licking my wounds, they’re wrong. It just makes me more determined to get out there.”

Friends of Animals, who paid all of the legal fees for their non-employee Haber has not yet decided whether it will appeal the jury verdict.

Sources:

Trapper awarded damages. Tim Mowry, Fairbanks Daily News, July 24, 2000.

Biologist undeterred by verdict in trapping case. The Associated Press, July 26, 2000.

No related posts.






Look at the comments and you will find how Harber's supporters think and the kind of hatred he instilled in people against humans that hunt..



Response

Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.

1.
Pengiathan says

stupid Jhonson he can fall in a ditch
…
I myself had better be more carefull
(I have pulled a Gordon Haber at least 10 times!!)
stupid alaskan law
…
wolf hunters MUST DIE