US EditionA lawsuit challenges an Alaska program that allows killing bears as a way to rebuild a caribou herd
The lawsuit argues the Alaska program authorizes unlimited bear kills without population monitoring, threatening sustainability while aiming to boost a declining caribou herd.
- On Monday, Alaska Wildlife Alliance and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit against a predator-control program in southwest Alaska targeting brown and black bears to restore the Mulchatna caribou herd.
- The Mulchatna herd declined from a late-1990s peak of around 190,000 to about 13,000 by 2019, and the Alaska Board of Game and Alaska Department of Fish and Game say predation limits caribou survival.
- Altogether, Fish and Game removed 180 bears in 2023–2024, and in May 2023 the agency killed `every single brown and black bear it found within the 1,200-square-mile focus area`, while the program sets no kill limits across a region roughly the size of Indiana.
- An Alaska court previously struck down the program as unconstitutional, and Monday's lawsuit in Alaska Superior Court challenges its reinstatement under Article VIII, Section 4, alleging no scientific basis.
- The Board's July action authorized the program through 2028 and gave Alaska Department of Fish and Game aerial-shooting authority across 40,000 square miles near national parks and refuges.
34 Articles
34 Articles
Lawsuit challenges state program that allows killing of Southwest Alaska bears in effort to rebuild a caribou herd
Monday’s lawsuit is the latest in an ongoing legal fight over what Fish and Game has cast as an effort to restore the Mulchatna caribou herd in Southwestern Alaska.
Associated Press News
A lawsuit challenges an Alaska program that allows killing bears as a way to rebuild a caribou herd
Conservation groups are suing over a program that authorizes killing brown and black bears as a way to help grow the size of a southwest Alaska caribou herd.
Lawsuit Challenges Alaska Board of Game Plan to Gun Down Bears
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— The Alaska Wildlife Alliance and the Center for Biological Diversity sued the Alaska Board of Game today for violating the Alaska Constitution when adopting a predator control program authorizing the killing of an unlimited number of brown and black bears across 40,000 square miles in southwestern Alaska.
Lawsuit challenges Alaska program that allows killing bears as way to rebuild a caribou herd
Conservation groups sued Monday over a state program in Alaska that authorizes killing brown bears and black bears as a way to increase the size of a once-significant caribou herd in the southwest part of the state. The groups allege the program lacks a scientific basis and is unconstitutional. The lawsuit filed in state court
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