A black male wolf from Alaska's Denali National Park and Preserve has been killed by a Pennsylvania hunter outside park boundaries near Cantwell, Alaska.

Wolf biologist Gordon Haber said the 7-year-old alpha male, from the Toklat or East Fork pack, had been behaving erratically and wandering alone since his mate was killed by a trapper just outside park boundaries in February.

"It's wildlife, it's fair game and it's conservation," Ray Atkins, a guide from Cantwell who escorted the unidentified hunter, told the Anchorage Daily News."A mama wolf can produce a dozen wolves in six weeks, and in six months she can have them hunting.In the whole scheme of things, this is about as significant as one grain of sand in the Pacific Ocean."

However, Karen Deatherage, Alaska representative for Defenders of Wildlife, disagreed.


"That one person can truly destroy one animal that means so much to thousands of others is wrong -- it certainly has devastated me," she said."He just was a pretty incredible animal that led a very challenging life, and it's just very sad that it had to end this way, particularly when there was just 13 days left in the hunting season.