Today, the Department of Interior announced two monumental rule changes against Alaska’s wildlife.
An attack on Alaska’s National Parks and Preserves
We vigorously opposed liberalized hunting methods on Alaska’s national parklands in 2015, and won. Now, under orders from the Trump administration, the Department of Interior has reversed that success and removed wildlife protections for bears, wolves, coyotes, and caribou on Alaska’s national parks and preserves.
Brown bear investigate bait - generally comprised of grease soaked donuts and dog food.
In 2015, based on input from more than two dozen public hearings and over 70,000 public comments, support for banning extreme hunting methods in Alaska’s national parklands was overwhelming. A National Parks Service Final Rule codified prohibitions on certain types of harvest practices that are otherwise permitted by the State of Alaska’s hunting regulations found at 5 AAC Part 85.
The 2015 Final Rule banned the following practices on National Preserves in Alaska:
Taking any black bear, including cubs and sows with cubs, with artificial light at den sites;
Harvesting brown bears over bait;
Taking wolves and coyotes (including pups) during the denning season (between May 1 and August 9);
Taking swimming caribou;
Taking caribou from motorboats under power;
Taking black bears over bait;
Using dogs to hunt black bears.
The 2015 Final Rule prohibited these hunting practices because the NPS found those practices:
(1) To have intent or potential to alter or manipulate natural predator-prey dynamics, and associated natural ecological processes for the purpose of increasing harvest of ungulates by man;
(2) to adversely impact public safety; or
(3) to be inconsistent with federal law authorizing sport hunting in national preserves in Alaska.
Read Alaska Wildlife Alliance’s comment below.
Today, the ban on those hunting methods was overturned.
Now, it is permitted to hunt black bear sows and cubs while they hibernate, kill wolves and coyotes while they’re denning, kill caribou while they’re swimming in boats under motorized power, kill black and brown bears over bait (dog food and grease soaked donuts), and use dogs to hunt black bears.
Opening Kenai National Wildlife Refuge to extreme hunting
Today, the Department of Interior announced a second rollback, which opens Kenai National Wildlife Refuge to previously banned hunting practices.
In 1994, the State of Alaska passed the “intensive management” law designed to institutionalize the killing of wolves, bears, and other native carnivores to artificially increase game populations, such as moose and caribou. For the past twenty years, the Alaska Board of Game has increasingly authorized extreme predator management policies, which include liberalized sport hunting methods, means, bag limits, and seasons.
Kenai brown bears are a geographically isolated population with fewer females than other Alaska brown bear populations. In 1998, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game identified the Kenai Peninsula population of brown bears as a “Species of Special Concern,” recognizing that the population “is vulnerable to a significant decline due to low numbers, restricted distribution, dependence on limited habitat resources, or sensitivity to environmental disturbance.” By the early 2000s, the state rescinded the designation.
In 2012, the state Board of Game authorized killing Kenai brown bears over bait on state land adjacent to Kenai Refuge. This led to an immediate six-fold increase in brown bear mortality, prompting the FWS to close the brown bear hunting season on refuge lands due to “unsustainable harvest levels.”
In 2015, the Kenai Refuge, published public use regulations that banned predator control activities on the Refuge unless such controls were based on sound science and in response to a conservation concern or met refuge need. On the Kenai, additional public use restrictions went into place, such as some plane and motorboat access limitations, camping restrictions, permit requirements for baiting black bears, and prohibitions against using a dog to hunt big game except black bears.
In 2017, Congress rescinded the FWS regulation protecting iconic carnivores on all national wildlife refuges in Alaska from extreme hunting methods, including baiting, snaring, and shooting bears in dens, and shooting wolves and pups in dens. The Department of the Interior subsequently directed the Kenai Refuge to reconsider its 2016 public use regulations.
Alaska Wildlife Alliance and our Board member Ed Schmitt were referenced during the debate. Quoting Ed in her testimony, Representative Jackson Lee of Texas says:
So let me tell you about the lesson from Dr. Ed Schmitt, a retired surgeon, a hunter, who moved to Alaska from Colorado to fish in the river that flowed by his house, to be able to hunt. He enjoyed fishing for salmon, casting for salmon, and seeing the brown bears, also known as grizzly bears. Here is what he said:
‘‘It’s not true that all Alaskans are OK with the state running rampant on public lands,’ he says. ‘Only a minority of Alaskans are hunters, and even fewer kill animals just for a trophy.’’’
This is Dr. Schmitt, a hunter. This is not a tree hugger. He is a hunter who moved to this beautiful land that we can call America. So many Americans on the mainland, in essence, go to this beautiful, connected Alaska, and so Dr. Schmitt goes on to say, like most hunters in Alaska, he is appalled at practices that have been raised up to not save the beauty of these wild animals.
‘‘’The notion that people don’t want any rules is a myth. We want good rules, just like everybody else.’’’
Well, I want to stand alongside of Dr. Ed Schmitt, a healer, a former doctor, a hunter who moved to Alaska, who understands that what we are seeking to disapprove is wrong because it was a reasoned response to all who were engaged in this area.
- Representative Jackson Lee, Congressional Record 2017
The Fish and Wildlife Service, however, created those rules to “enhance natural resource protection, public use activities, and public safety on the Refuge; are necessary to ensure the compatibility of public use activities with the Refuge’s purposes and the Refuge System’s purposes; and ensure consistency with management policies and approved Refuge management plans.”
Today, the Kenai Rule was overturned.
The text of the proposal is not yet available, but it also suggests a removal of trapping permit requirements in the refuge. Read the agency press release here.
Alaska Wildlife Alliance will continue our efforts to secure reasonable hunting and trapping regulations in Alaska and reverse today’s egregious decision. Check back with more information on our litigation efforts against these rules, and become a member today to help us win this fight.
