Critics of Alaska bear-culling program seek court order to block its resumption

Two brown bear cubs cuddle on a riverbank in Katmai National Park and Preserve while their mother fishes for salmon in August 2023. Critics of a state predator-control program aimed at boosting the Mulchatna Caribou Herd say the Department of Fish and Game and Board of Game have failed to show sufficient scientific grounds for what could be more years of bear kills in the region. (F. Jimenez/National Park Service)

By Yereth Rosen

Alaska Beacon

With just a few weeks before a renewed state-managed bear killing program is set to start in Western Alaska, conservation groups are seeking a court order to halt it.

The Alaska Wildlife Alliance and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a motion in state Superior Court on Monday requesting an injunction to bar the Alaska Department of Fish and Game from carrying out its planned Mulchatna predator control program this spring.

The motion stems from a lawsuit filed by the groups in November after the Alaska Board of Game reauthorized a Mulchatna predator control program that had previously been overturned by state court rulings.

The plaintiff groups argue the new Board of Game-authorized program, which is set to run through at least 2028, is no better than the previous program that killed 186 brown bears, five black bears and 20 wolves from 2023 to 2025. State officials have not corrected the flaws that led to court rulings that found the program to violate the state constitution, the plaintiffs argue in their new motion.

“Bears are constitutionally protected. The Alaska Constitution requires the Board to ensure that bear populations targeted by a predator control program are managed sustainably. It has been over a year since this Court held that the Board needed credible scientific evidence documenting brown and black bear populations to comply with the constitutional sustained yield requirement,” the motion said. “The Board still does not have that information, and yet it has once again authorized the Department to kill an unlimited number of brown and black bears within the approximately 40,000 square-mile Mulchatna Control Area in Game Management Units 9B, 17A, 17B, 17C, 18, 19A, and 19B.” 

Alaska’s game management units are specific geographic areas designated by the Department of Fish and Game. There are 26 broad units, and some of those are divided into subunits. The areas listed in the plaintiffs’ motion are in Western Alaska.

In an emailed statement, Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang said the department has received the latest filling and officials “are reviewing it in consultation with our lawyers.”

The Department of Fish and Game argues that bear culling is necessary to help the ailing Mulchatna caribou herd, which has diminished from a peak of about 200,000 in 1997 to about 12,000 in 2019, according to the department. Hunting of Mulchatna caribou has been closed since 2021.

The department’s goal is to return the herd to a size of 30,000 to 80,000 animals. Its contested predator control program was conducted in the late spring and early summer because that is the season when calves are born and, according to department officials, vulnerable to bear predation; this year’s program is likewise set to start in that season.

Department officials have said the predator removals have already helped the caribou herd, which was estimated at about 16,000 animals last year.

But critics of the program say that scientific justification for the predator control program is lacking. They cite factors other than bear predation, including a change in habitat that has made the terrain less favorable to caribou but more favorable to moose, as likely causes of the herd’s decline. They also say the program puts important bear populations at risk, notably the brown bears of Katmai National Park and Preserve.

“I really want to see the Mulchatna caribou herd grow and thrive, but this unscientific and cruel approach of killing every bear in sight across southwest Alaska can’t be the way forward,” Cooper Freeman, Alaska director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “Alaska needs to stop wasting public resources and make wildlife management decisions firmly rooted in science and sustainability.”

• Yereth Rosen came to Alaska in 1987 to work for the Anchorage Times. She has been reporting on Alaska news ever since, covering stories ranging from oil spills to sled-dog races. She has reported for Reuters, for the Alaska Dispatch News, for Arctic Today and for other organizations. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.