Snared Wolves At Denali National Park and Preserve Cast Ugly Shadow on Trappers

Wildlife biologist Gordon Haber photographed the snared wolves earlier this week. You can see more photos at his blog. Photo by Gordon Haber, used with permission.

Wolf trapping that went wrong has left two wolves with snares cinched around their necks roaming Denali National Park and Preserve just as tourist season is about to arrive.

The wolves, their faces swollen, grotesquely so in one, were snared outside the park. Somehow they broke part of the cable and escaped, but the tightened loops around their necks remained. They recently returned to Denali.

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

Gordon Haber, a private wildlife biologist, says one of the wolves is a member of the Toklat pack.

"To see him like this now is just disgusting," Haber said of the black wolf whose face is extremely swollen by the noose. "People come up here expecting to see wolves in the wild and see this. It is a real shocker, or will be."

Park biologists hope to track down the wolves and remove the snares.