More than 100 scientists are united in their opposition to a push by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to liberalize hunting regulations on National Park Service lands in Alaska/NPS

More than 100 scientists have written to oppose Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's push to liberalize hunting regulations on National Park Service lands in Alaska so as to reduce wolves and bears while boosting moose and caribou populations for hunting.

The proposed regulation would align Alaska national preserves with state rules that were implemented to suppress carnivore numbers in order to increase game populations. The practices that the Park Service banned in 2015, and which are now set to be legalized again, are:

* 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 decision to rescind the 2015 NPS wildlife regulations for 20 million acres in Alaska will be another step by Secretary Zinke to abandon the principal of stewardship of America’s wildlife and habitat which is the guiding principal of our National Parks,” said Tony Knowles, former Alaska Governor and chair of NPS National Advisory Board.

“Since I left Alaska, I’ve been involved in extremely expensive recovery efforts for ESA-listed populations of grizzly bears and wolves in the lower 48 states,” added Sterling Miller, a former Alaska grizzly bear and predator:prey biologist. “Alaska still has the potential to manage predators in a way that avoids the large carnivore management mistakes of the past but, instead, seems intent on repeating them.”

Since the Trump administration has taken office, the Department of the Interior has issued two Secretarial Orders regarding how the department should manage recreational hunting and trapping in the lands and waters it administers, and directing greater collaboration with state, tribe, and territorial partners in doing so.

“The conservation of wildlife and habitat for future generations is a goal we share with Alaska,” Bert Frost, the Park Service's Alaska regional director, said earlier this year. “This proposed rule will reconsider NPS efforts in Alaska for improved alignment of hunting regulations on national preserves with State of Alaska regulations, and to enhance consistency with harvest regulations on surrounding non-federal lands and waters.”

But the 110 individuals who signed the letter released Tuesday (attached below) disagree with the intent of the rule change.

“This is simply about killing bears and wolves to increase moose and caribou numbers for hunters in National Park Service preserves,” said Sandy Rabinowitch, a former NPS staff advisor to the Alaska Federal Subsistence Board.

The letter was signed by some scientists who were part of the National Research Council’s 1997 examination of “Wolves, bears, and their prey in Alaska.” Scientists signing the letter included many former Alaska Department of Fish and Game, National Park Service, and other former state and federal government employees and prominent academics nearly half of whom worked in Alaska.
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The letter urges retention of the 2015 rule that allowed the Park Service to reject extreme hunting regulations on national preserves, including extremely long seasons into periods when hides and meat of wolves and bears are of little value, excessively high bag limits, baiting of brown bears, and the commercial sale of brown bear hides and skulls.

Park Service law and regulations prohibit intensive management and “predator control” to manipulate predator:prey ratios on NPS-managed lands, whether national parks or national preserves.

In the decade leading up to the rule finalized in 2015, the Park Service made more than 50 requests to the Alaska Board of Game to limit native carnivore-hunting efforts on national park lands, according to the National Parks Conservation Association. The vast majority of requests were ignored and resulted in adoption of the 2015 rule now threatened by the proposed new rule that would apply to the more than 20 million acres of national preserves in Alaska, NPCA added.

The public comment period on the proposed new NPS rule is open through September 6. To view the proposed rule and for information on how to submit comments, visit www.regulations.gov and search for “RIN 1024-AE38.”