Preventing Unethical Sport Hunting in Alaska’s National Preserves
On August 26, 2020, Alaska Wildlife Alliance, along with a dozen other organizations, sued the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service (NPS) for adopting a rule that would allow extreme sport hunting practices like bear baiting and killing wolves and their pups during the denning season in Alaska’s national preserves. These extreme and unethical practices are now allowed by NPS on iconic public lands such as Denali and Wrangel St. Elias.
Protecting wildlife on Alaska’s national preserves has been an issue of great importance to us. We vigorously opposed unethical hunting methods on Alaska’s national preserves in 2015, and won. Now, in 2020, under orders from the Trump administration, the NPS finalized a rule to undo that success and remove certain wildlife protections for bears, wolves, coyotes, and caribou.
AWA vigorously opposed unethical hunting methods on Alaska’s national preserves in 2015, and we won. That victory was just undone. We will continue our fight to protect wildlife from these extreme killing practices on public lands | Black bear cub, Peter Nuij
Sport hunting has previously been allowed on national preserves, but only when it was done in a manner which protected the biodiversity of wildlife on the preserves. What has not been allowed, until now, are extreme sport hunting methods designed to decimate predators (bears, coyotes, wolves) for the purpose of increasing the numbers of moose and caribou coveted by hunters. In other words, NPS previously prevented targeting certain species to manipulate populations of others. Now that NPS has reversed their stance against predator control, it will be legal to shoot brown bears over piles of doughnuts and grease; to shine artificial lights into dens to kill hibernating black bears and their cubs; to shoot wolves and coyotes, and their pups, during the denning season when their pelts are in generally poor condition; and taking swimming caribou using motorboats.
The National Park Service deemed it legal to shoot brown bears over piles of doughnuts and grease; to shine artificial lights into dens to kill hibernating black bears and their cubs; to shoot wolves and coyotes, and their pups, during the denning season when their pelts are in generally poor condition; and taking swimming caribou using motorboats. Our lawsuit aims to prevent this from happening on Alaska’s National Preserves | Wolf, Brianna Reak
Alaska Wildlife Alliance is not against hunting, but we strongly believe hunting methods should be ethical and involve fair chase practices. None of the methods just permitted on Alaska’s national preserves involve fair chase. Click here to learn more about AWA's position on hunting using ethical and fair chase practices, to read the NPS final rule removing wildlife protections in Alaska’s National Preserves, and the filed lawsuit.
Thank you to Trustees for Alaska for representing us and Alaska’s wildlife in this very important case!
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