Environmentalists say the rule falls short, some hunting advocates say it goes too far, and the legal fight over hunting practices is poised to continue.
Three brown bear cubs crouch in the grass near their mother in a meadow in Lake Clark National Park and Preserve in 2009. A new rule resurrects a ban on bear baiting by sport hunters in national preserves in Alaska, but the National Park Service opted against expanding the rule to ban other controversial practices.
To the National Park Service, bear baiting creates unacceptable safety risks, both for the animals that live in national preserves and for the people that visit them. The danger is that bears will become habituated to human-provided food and be more likely to interact with people. The new rule stems from a 2020 lawsuit that challenged the Trump administration change. That Trump-era policy never went into effect; U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason ruled that it violated National Park Service laws and policies, and she ordered the agency to reconsider it.
The state’s authority does not extend to subsistence hunting in national preserves. That category of hunting is federally managed.Members of the groups that sued to overturn the Trump-era rule said the new rule fell far short because it allows several controversial hunting practices to continue in the reserves.
“The National Park Service has opposed the State’s unsportsmanlike predator hunting practices for many years,” Jarvis said in the National Parks Conservation Association’s statement. “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.
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