http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1413,113~7244~1359629,00.html  Court will not consider appeal by animal rights group By DAN RICE Staff Writer

Wednesday, April 30, 2003 - The Alaska Supreme Court has refused to consider the appeal of a Connecticut-based animal rights activist group that was successfully sued by a Tok trapper over the freeing of an injured wolf from his trapline in 1997.

In an order released Friday, the three justices announced that they would not take up the case of Friends of Animals, the group that was funding the work of wildlife biologist Gordon Haber when he released a wolf trapped by Eugene Johnson.

The Supreme Court had previously issued an order refusing to hear an appeal from Haber, who was also successfully sued in his individual capacity. The decisions mean that both Friends of Animals and Haber have run out of every option for appealing their case except for petitioning to the U.S. Supreme Court, and that's not likely considering there's no federal issues involved with the case, said Zane Wilson, attorney for Johnson, who died last June.

Wilson called the decision the "last hurrah" in a case that highlighted tensions between animal rights activists and trappers.

"All of this litigation that's been going on over the years is finally over," he said.

Johnson, an Alaska Native who lived a subsistence lifestyle, first sued Friends of Animals and Haber in March 1998, a year after Haber released a 2-year-old black wolf that was caught in one of Johnson's traps near the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve.

He released the wolf by cutting the cable snare above the cinch with a Leatherman tool. Wire from the trap remained around the wolf's foot and it died about three weeks later.

Haber's actions came under scrutiny after he distributed a video tape showing the wolf's release. He said the video was meant to draw attention to abusive trapping techniques and also contended that the wolf was illegally captured.

Following a trial held in Tok, the jury awarded Johnson almost $200,000. Haber and Friends of Animals appealed to Fairbanks Superior Court, but Judge Richard Savell upheld the award in a decision last September.

Now that the appeals process is over, Wilson said that Johnson's family can only collect the money that Friends of Animals was ordered to pay, which will be about $120,000 once attorney fees and interest are included.

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