Grizzly cubs, like this one in Denali National Park, have more protections under new regulations put in place in 2015/NPS

More than 10 organizations have banded together to support the National Park Service in a legal battle over wildlife protections in national parks in Alaska.

At issue is a lawsuit brought by the state of Alaska against the U.S. Department of the Interior in an attempt to weaken protections against egregious hunting practices. The state’s lawsuit aims to dismantle recently finalized hunting regulations on lands managed by the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Parks Conservation Association said in a release.

While NPCA "supports common sense opportunities for hunting in national preserves, Alaska’s state approach to wildlife management aims to encourage killing more bears and wolves to bolster the populations of moose and caribou, which can then be harvested by sport hunters."

This “predator control” approach presents a clear conflict with the Park Service’s mission to protect natural diversity inside park boundaries, the release went on to say, "yet between 2001 and 2014, NPCA documented more than 60 instances where the Alaska Board of Game ignored Park Service requests to keep these practices out of our national preserves."

In 2015, after more than a decade of trying to work with the state, the Park Service moved forward with regulations to protect bears, wolves, and other predators in national preserves from state predator control regulations. The final Park Service regulations for national preserves, where sport hunting is allowed, include:

• No use of bait (donuts, grease-soaked bread, etc.) to hunt bears;
• No use of artificial light to spotlight dens to kill black bears; and
• No killing of bear cubs or sows with cubs.

Last week, NPCA and other groups filed to intervene in a legal battle over the Park Service regulations.

“It is disheartening to once again find ourselves on the front lines, fighting to protect wildlife in Alaska’s national parks and preserves from the threat of egregious, unbearable hunting practices," said NPCA President and CEO Theresa Pierno. "We’ve been at this work for more than a decade, and National Parks Conservation Association will continue to stand strong on behalf of our park wildlife in Alaska.

“The State of Alaska’s lawsuit against the Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service seeks to overturn commonsense regulations, which underwent a thorough and transparent public process. More than 70,000 Americans said ‘no’ to baiting bears with grease-soaked donuts in Denali National Park and Preserve," she added. "The public was right to want to stop sport hunters from crawling into bears’ dens and using flashlights to wake and kill mother bears and their cubs. The state’s attempt to dismantle the results of this public process jeopardizes the stewardship of federal public lands, which belong to all Americans.

“National Parks Conservation Association’s intervention in this lawsuit signals our willingness to do what it takes to make sure wildlife is respected and protected on our national parklands. We fully expect the Federal District Court of Alaska to agree with us — that the Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service actions to set regulations on their own lands were legal.”

Safari Club International last month filed a lawsuit challenging the Park Service hunting regulations, saying that left unchecked by hunters, predators would deprive "Alaska’s hunters of healthy wildlife populations to enjoy.”

“The (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Servide) and NPS have issued rules that will enable predator populations to decimate game populations, simply because the Obama administration decided that it knew better than Alaska how Alaska’s wildlife populations should be managed and how Alaska’s hunters should be allowed to hunt," said SCI President Larry Higgins. "SCI cannot allow this type of mismanagement and disregard for state authority to stand.”