Conservation groups filed a lawsuit Wednesday to stop the National Park Service from relaxing hunting regulations in Alaska/Jean Bjerke file

Efforts by the Trump administration to weaken hunting and trapping restrictions on national park lands in Alaska were challenged Wednesday by a coalition of conservation and environmental groups that argued the rule change violated the National Park Service Organic Act and was arbitrary and capricious.

Back in May then-National Park Service acting director David Vela said the easing of restrictions "will support the (Interior) Department's interest in advancing wildlife conservation goals and objectives, and in ensuring the state of Alaska’s proper management of hunting and trapping in our national preserves." But the lawsuit filed Wednesday claimed wildlife management in the National Park System was governed by the Park Service, not the states.

“The century-old governing mission of the National Park Service includes protecting America’s ecosystems and wildlife, not turning lands into massive game farms,” said Jim Adams, Alaska regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association. “Unfortunately, under the Trump administration, the Park Service is ignoring that mission in rolling back previous prohibitions and moving to allow baiting grizzly bears and trapping wolves in their dens on Alaska’s national parklands. The National Parks Conservation Association rejects these egregious sport hunting rules and is ready to fight back by taking the administration to court.”

The lawsuit (attached below), filed in federal court in Alaska, asks that the rule changes be tossed out. The groups argued that the changes violated the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. The State of Alaska generally manages sport hunting on federal lands, but that management discretion must stay within the bounds of federal mandates, they added.

“Nothing in ANILCA, the Statehood Act, or any other law says that the Park Service has to go along with what the state wants to do on these federal lands – which in this case is to allow the sport killing of brown bears over greasy donuts and dog food, permit the sport shooting of wolves and coyotes while they’re denning, allow blinding black bears with flashlights and shooting them for sport while they’re hibernating, and more," said Nicole Schmitt, executive director of the Alaska Wildlife Alliance. 

"The Park Service’s sudden about-face to sync itself with the state and allow such gruesome sport hunting practices on National Preserves is in violation of the agency’s founding mandates and widely opposed by the public," she added. "It’s important to note that this rule specifically regulates sport hunting; subsistence users have and will continue to have access to harvest on National Preserves in Alaska.”

Back in 2017, the Interior Department ordered the Park Service to reconsider wildlife regulations that were at odds with hunting and trapping regulations enforced by the state of Alaska. The order, signed by Virginia Johnson, then Interior's acting assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, directed the Park Service to reconsider rules it adopted in October 2015 concerning hunting and trapping on national preserves in Alaska where sport hunting is allowed. Under those regulations, hunters on national preserves could not:

• Use bait (donuts, grease-soaked bread, etc.) to hunt bears;
• Use of artificial light to spotlight dens to kill black bears; and
• Kill bear cubs or sows with cubs.
• Take wolves and coyotes (including pups) during the denning season (between May 1 and August 9)
• Take swimming caribou
• Take caribou from motorboats under power
• Take black bears over bait
• Use dogs to hunt black bears

This past May saw the Park Service remove those 2015 prohibitions on harvest practices. The changes applied to national preserves in the state, such as the preserve sections of Wrangell-St. Elias, Denali, Katmai national parks as well as Yukon-Charley and Gates of the Arctic national preserves.

"Techniques such as killing bear sows with cubs at den sites or harvesting brown bears over bait are clearly inappropriate within units of the National Park System," said Phil Francis, chair of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks. "The National Park Service is mandated to conserve wildlife, not exploit it through these objectionable hunting practices.”

When they prepared an environmental assessment on the rule change, Park Service staff relied on the state of Alaska's position that increased hunting of the predators would not have an overall impact on their populations. But the regulatory changes likely would reduce opportunities for wildlife viewing and degrade wilderness character in the preserves, the Park Service added in its assessment of the rule changes.

The EA also noted that bears drawn to baits could become habituated to human foods and so possibly turn into problem bears.

“The National Park Service is now overtly sanctioning the killing of defenseless bear cubs and wolf pups in their dens; the exact opposite of what most believe is ‘fair chase,’” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and CEO for Defenders of Wildlife. “This controversial practice is extreme and wholly inconsistent with the Park Service’s mission to conserve wildlife and wild places. We are suing to protect Alaska’s irreplaceable wildlife and hold the National Park Service accountable to their conservation mission.”

Trustees for Alaska filed the lawsuit on behalf of 13 clients: Alaska Wildlife Alliance, Alaska Wilderness League, Alaskans FOR Wildlife, Center for Biological Diversity, Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, Copper Country Alliance, Defenders of Wildlife, Denali Citizens Council, the Humane Society of the United States, National Parks Conservation Association, Northern Alaska Environmental Center, Sierra Club and Wilderness Watch.

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