Wolves relocated

PALMER — A tourist attraction featuring wolves got rid of its animals Friday.

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

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 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 Animal Rescue Center in 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.

Schuster 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.”

Lorin Lindner, a clinical psychologist who works with the rescue center, said that logistically this has been the biggest case the center has worked on.

“We did one of 86 dogs last October, like 14 months ago,” she said. But those dogs were closer to California.

“They were wolf dogs, but they weren’t as high-content as these. We were able to adopt those out to homes,” she said.

She said the group has funding to build enclosures for Schuster’s wolves and will be putting them in pairs.

“They’ve already been in pairs,” she said. “We don’t want to disrupt their social structures. They’re very family oriented and they mate for life.”

She said the dogs were all being spayed and neutered before they made the trip to California. Funding for the enclosures came from the International Fund for Animal Welfare and for the operation from Bob Barker, noted animal activist and former host of “The Price is Right.”

She said the vets doing the spaying and neutering have remarked on how healthy the dogs are.

“These guys are pretty damn healthy,” Lindner said. “They’re in pretty good shape.”

The rescue center first heard about the dogs at Wolf Country while rescuing some wolf-dogs in Texas. Someone there mentioned Schuster’s operation and the rescue center set to work contacting the Schusters, drumming up funding and figuring out logistics. She said that all along the Schusters have been supportive and cooperative.

“They knew that they didn’t want these animals destroyed,” she said. “Whether or not we agree with keeping animals on chains, I didn’t come to Alaska to tell you how to take care of your wildlife.”

Schuster 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 Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters said troopers had nothing to do with Friday’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.”

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