Wolf Country USA getting rid of its wolves

PALMER — A tourist attraction featuring wolves is getting rid of its animals today, the owner said by phone.

“They’re packing all the wolves up and shipping them to California,” Werner Schuster said by phone from his business, Wolf Country USA shortly before noon.

Schuster was last in the news in mid-June when Alaska State Troopers and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game descended on his property with a warrant, saying that Schuster and his wife didn’t have the proper permit to own wolves. The permit has been required ever since a 2002 law outlawed the possession of wolves or wolf hybrids. The state has never actually issued one.

At the time, Schuster said he had 40 animals on the property and had been in business 25 years. He disputed any science that purports to tell the difference between wolves and dogs, saying all dogs are part wolf and vice versa.

Friday, he added a new wrinkle to his feelings about the law.

“How many people in this state have been bitten by a wolf in the past 20 years?” he asked. “A thousand more have been bitten by black labs.”

He said that by the time all the wolves have been crated up and shipped to Lockwood California, he won’t have any left.

“I’ve just got two shih-tzus that’s all. And a whole bunch of cats,” he said.

He said he’s been looking to get out of the business for a while and was planning to make this move before the state stepped in.

“We’ve been looking for these people for a couple of years really and they really, really take care of the animals super, super good,” Schuster said. “They’ve got 20 acres to run on.”

He said he’s not quite going out of business, more like slowing things down.

“We’ve still got the gift shop,” Schuster said. But he’s getting older and, “I’d like to go to Vegas two or three times a year.”

Alaska State Trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters said that troopers have nothing to do with today’s activities but haven’t dropped their investigation.

“I don’t expect that we will have anything for the media for a week or two, maybe longer,” she said. No charges have been filed but, “as far as we’re concerned it’s still an active investigation and we will be working on it.”