Wolf Country USA raided

PALMER — State law enforcement officials descended on Wolf Country USA Thursday to run tests and confirm that animals there are wolves or wolf hybrids.

Alaska State Trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters said from the scene that the group of officials there numbered 15 to 20 and included troopers, officers from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and state biologists.

Peters said a 2002 law outlawed the ownership of wolf hybrids and that anyone who owned one at that time needed to get a permit.

An affidavit wildlife trooper Sgt. Katrina Malm filed in court to get the search warrant says that neither of the property’s owners — Werner and Gail Schuster — received any such permit. In fact, the state has never issued one.

Alaska Department of Fish and Game spokeswoman Cathie Harms said purebred wolves fall under a different law since they are considered wildlife. No one can own wildlife without a very special and rare permit only issued for people who want the animals for scientific or educational purposes.

Schuster said troopers woke him up at 7 a.m. He said there are 40 animals on the property, including puppies. He’s been in business 25 years and said the complaint against him started with someone who has a beef with him over a land dispute and that he disputes the science behind the laws.

“I’ve got paperwork that they’re going to take with them that shows that all dogs have wolf in them,” he said. “Just like all wolves have dog in them.“

Peters said science has progressed relatively recently to be able to tell the difference between a wolf, a dog and a wolf hybrid.

“Before now we weren’t really able to get conclusive DNA saying this is a wolf or a wolf hybrid,” she said. Without those tests, the cases weren’t prosecutable.

“Just because someone says something is a wolf in some regard doesn’t mean it is,” Peters said.

Harms said in the same vein that this case is one that has broader implications.

“It’s an important case in terms of precedence to see how these kinds of cases are going to be handled in the future,” she said.

She said wolf hybrids are problematic. Some such animals will be as aggressive as wolves, but with a dog’s lack of fear for humans. They’re big, powerful animals. They can also get the same diseases as wolves and dogs, meaning that if they get loose they can infect wild populations.

“They don’t act just like dogs, they don’t train just like dogs, they have attacked adults and children,” she said. “Another concern is that we don’t have any rabies vaccine that’s been tested and approved for wolf hybrids.”

In the search warrant, Malm writes that the case first came to light in December 2010 when troopers talked to Ronald West. West, an Anchorage lawyer, had been cited in 2009 for keeping a wolf hybrid after the animal got out, killed a neighbor’s dog and injured another dog. He ended up paying a fine.

West told troopers his wolf-dog came from Schuster and he couldn’t understand why he was getting cited when Schuster had so many wolves on his property.

The affidavit details two more wolf hybrids who ran afoul of the law, one in Chugiak that bit a person in January of this year and one in the Valley the next month that bit a 6-year-old. Both of those animals appear to have come from Wolf Country USA.

Malm wrote that through Internet research troopers were able to establish that Schuster ran Wolf Country USA just outside of Palmer. His business is a tourist destination billed as a place where visitors get to see wolves up close, Malm wrote. Some of the animals appeared in Hollywood productions. Troopers looked at cached versions of the website that seemed to be offering puppies for sale.

An undercover trooper visited the facility last week looking for a tour but was told tours were only available to groups.

Thursday’s actions brought troopers and state Fish and Game officials there seeking DNA samples. They swabbed animals’ cheeks and took blood samples. They also hauled off computers, documents and digital storage devices.

They were also looking for evidence that Schuster fed the animals moose meat, which is also against the law. Schuster didn’t really hide that fact and had a sizeable carcass pile out back.

Peters emphasized that nobody at Wolf Country has been charged with a crime. Officials were only there to serve a search warrant.

Schuster seemed more or less resigned to the whole thing, saying that he figured troopers would probably show up sooner or later and that if he gets shuts down that’s just how it goes. He said he would, however, miss the animals.

“They’ve been a part of our life for 30, 40 years,” he said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.