The National Park Service's new bear-baiting regulation for national preserves in Alaska drew plenty of criticism/NPS file

A decision by the National Park Service to ban bear baiting by sport hunters in national preserves in Alaska but not address how moose, caribou, black bears, and wolves are hunted drew mixed response from wildlife and national park advocates.

“We are deeply disappointed that this final rule will allow so-called sport hunting methods that include killing bears and cubs in their dens and killing wolf pups during the denning season,” Phil Francis, chair of the Executive Council for the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, said Monday. “Under the NPS Organic Act, the agency has a legal obligation to prioritize conservation of wildlife over use. And while NPS acknowledges that the above hunting practices are not appropriate under NPS management policies, they have decided to allow them to continue anyway, except for bear baiting.”

The new rule announced Friday evening bans the use of donuts, dog food, and grease-soaked bread loaves to lure bears within range for sport hunters but allows it for subsistence hunters focused on putting food on the table. It does not prohibit taking any black bear, including cubs and sows with cubs, with artificial light at den sites; taking wolves and coyotes (including pups) during the denning season (between May 1 and August 9); taking swimming caribou or taking caribou from motorboats under power; and using dogs to hunt black bears.

The new regulation, scheduled to take effect in late July, replaces a 2020 regulation pushed through by the Trump administration that allowed any hunter to bait bears into range, to kill bear cubs and wolf pups in their dens, and to hunt caribou from motorboats. The Obama administration in 2015 had banned those practices.

“Stopping bear baiting in preserves is important for visitor safety and ecological health. The rest of this rule is disappointing,” said National Parks Conservation Association Senior Regional Director Jim Adams. “In its rule, the Park Service recognizes that numerous sport hunting practices conflict with the agency’s mission - yet allows them to continue. The agency has flat out decided not to do its job of protecting parks and park wildlife. NPCA, with our members and supporters, has been at this fight for more than a decade and will continue to speak up for our parklands and the wildlife that inhabit them.”

According to national park advocates, of the 54 million acres of national parklands in Alaska, approximately 22 million are managed as national preserves, which allow for activities including fishing and hunting. However, such activities must follow bedrock National Park Service guidelines that prevent hunting methods intended to reduce predator populations, they maintain. 

“The National Park Service has opposed [Alaska's] unsportsmanlike predator hunting practices for many years,” said Jon Jarvis, former superintendent of Wrangell – St. Elias National Park and Preserve and the 18th director of the NPS. “These methods are in clear conflict with longstanding NPS wildlife conservation policies and mandates and are not appropriate in areas managed for future generations by the NPS. This rule is a major setback for the protection of wildlife diversity in our national preserves of Alaska.”

Defenders of Wildlife, however, while stating that the new rule "reconfirms that managing predators to scarcity in the name of boosting ungulate populations is inconsistent with the Park Service’s mission to conserve natural wildlife fluctuations, abundances and behaviors," declined to address the other wildlife left unaffected. "Defenders is highlighting the ban on bear baiting and the NPS’s reaffirmation that it must manage predator-prey abundance in a natural balance — which we think is most important take away from this rule," the organization said in an email to the Traveler.

Kitty Block, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, said the Park Service could have done better.

“Using piles of donuts, rotting meat scraps and dog food to bait bears to their deaths is cruel and dangerous. We're pleased to see the Park Service ban this practice on Alaska’s national preserves," she said Monday. "But far more could have been done to protect animals with this rule. Shooting hibernating mother bears and their cubs or wolves with their pups in their dens is horrifically immoral. We have long fought these appalling, unsporting practices, which many hunters themselves are also against. The National Park Service missed the mark and by failing to ban all of these practices, thousands of animals will continue to suffer.”  

Agreeing with Block was Sara Amundson, president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund.

“In 2020, we were devastated to see our government put trophy hunters’ interests over the wellbeing of our beloved wildlife – and sadly we remain devastated," she said. "Most Americans strongly oppose these horrific practices and the disruption of national preserves’ ecosystems, and it is high time the government listened to the voice of the voters, rather than special interest groups. And yet today, the Biden administration only reinstated the ban on bear baiting on Alaska’s National Preserves, leaving in place many other extremely cruel hunting and trapping practices. While this rule is a step in the right direction, it’s simply not enough — the government failed to do what it needed to do: protect these iconic species from cruelty.”