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Trump administration moves to reopen Alaska national preserves to bear baiting by sport hunters
The controversial sport-hunting practice, which is allowed in certain areas by the state, had been banned in national park units by the Obama and Biden administrations
By Yereth Rosen
Alaska Beacon
Sport hunters will be able to bait bears in Alaska national preserves, under a final rule the Trump administration announced on Friday.
The rule, proposed in March, overturns bans by the Biden and Obama administrations of the practice within National Park Service units.
Bear baiting, which involves use of food stockpiles to attract bears that are then killed and harvested, is a controversial practice.
Supporters say that it is a standard hunting method that, as regulated by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, is conducted in a controlled and careful way, affecting only a few animals. But critics say it is unethical and dangerous to wildlife and people.
In Alaska, national preserves, which are part of the National Park Service system, are open to hunting, under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, or ANILCA. For most of the years since the passage of that 1980 law, the federal government deferred to state management of sport hunting, which includes allowances for bear baiting at times in certain areas.
The new rule’s bear-baiting allowance in national preserves applies only to sport hunting. Subsistence hunting in federal land units is managed by the federal government, and bear baiting has been allowed for subsistence hunters.
In a statement, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said the new rule restores that deference to Alaska management and Alaska-specific conditions.
“For more than three decades, Alaska’s national parks and preserves were managed under a framework that recognized Alaska’s unique circumstances, respected the State’s role in managing fish and wildlife, protected subsistence uses and conserved these remarkable lands and resources,” Burgum said in the statement. “This final rule restores that commonsense framework and gives Alaskans a stronger voice in decisions affecting the lands, wildlife and traditions they know best, while ensuring the National Park Service continues to protect park resources for future generations.”
Doug Vincent-Lang, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said the new rule is appropriate.
“We thank the Department of Interior and the National Park Service for making these and other changes in the rule. The change represents a necessary return to the fish and wildlife management framework established by the Alaska Constitution and reaffirmed in ANILCA, which had served Alaska for three decades,” Vincent-Lang said in a statement.
But environmentalists blasted the decision.
Jim Adams, Alaska regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association called the new rule “outrageous” and “disheartening.”
“Approving inappropriate and dangerous sport hunting methods in Denali and other treasured landscapes is another huge blow to the integrity and forever nature of our national parks, which continue to be desecrated by this administration’s policies,” he said in a statement.
“National preserve lands at Denali, Katmai, Gates of the Arctic and others are the very places where people travel from around the world, in hopes of seeing iconic bears and wolves alive in their natural habitat,” he said. “Allowing sport hunters to lure bears with greased donut bait piles to kill them on those lands is baffling and counter to the mission of the Park Service.”
Cooper Freeman, Alaska director at the Center for Biological Diversity, called the new rule “disgraceful.”
“This rule puts sport hunters’ desires over wise and sometimes urgently needed decisions to ensure the long-term health of wildlife in national parklands in Alaska. People come from all over the world to see wildlife thriving on our treasured national parklands in Alaska, and we shouldn’t allow unsporting and unscientific practices that deplete these populations,” he said in a statement.
Aside from the bear-baiting allowance, the new rule includes some other provisions.
It restores an allowance for licensed trappers working in national preserves to harvest animals with firearms. It has an allowance for permitholders to capture live raptors. It has some other provisions concerning issues like public notice and administrative changes at the Federal Subsistence Management board.
Unlike the Obama-era and Biden-era hunting rules, the new Trump administration rule makes references to subsistence. It includes a provision removing a permit requirement for subsistence users to collect animal parts. But for the most part, the new rule maintains the status quo for subsistence activities in national park units, affirming that existing federal law granting a rural priority remains in effect.
The final rule is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Monday and to go into effect 30 days after that.
• 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. This article originally appeared in the Alaska Beacon.
