Mass Bear Killing Program In Alaska Sparks Lawsuit Over Constitutional Violations

The Alaska Wildlife Alliance and the Middle for Organic Variety sued the Alaska Board of Recreation at the moment for violating the Alaska Structure when adopting a predator management program authorizing the killing of a vast variety of brown and black bears throughout 40,000 sq. miles in southwestern Alaska.

“The Board of Recreation gave the Alaska Division of Fish and Recreation the authority to aerially shoot any bears of any age throughout 40,000 sq. miles till 2028, with no inhabitants information or cap on the variety of bears killed,” mentioned Nicole Schmitt, government director with the Alaska Wildlife Alliance. “The southeast border of the gunning program is barely three miles from Lake Clark Nationwide Protect, 30 miles from Katmai Nationwide Park, 50 miles from McNeil and Brooks Falls, and goes all the way in which west to the borders of Togiak Nationwide Wildlife Refuge and the Yukon Delta Nationwide Wildlife Refuge, which suggests this program threatens bears who transfer throughout huge stretches of public lands.”

This week’s lawsuit, introduced by the legislation agency Trustees for Alaska in Alaska’s Superior Courtroom, challenges the reinstatement of the Mulchatna bear management program beneath the sustained yield clause in Article VIII, Part 4 of the Alaska Structure. The Alaska Supreme Courtroom has decided that this sustained yield clause applies to all animals together with bears.

“This predator management program is unconstitutional,” mentioned Michelle Sinnot, workers lawyer with Trustees for Alaska. “This program palms Fish and Recreation a clean test to destroy bears throughout a complete area with impunity. The Board of Recreation has as soon as once more shirked its constitutional obligations and ignored prior courtroom selections in its unscientific and relentless conflict on predator animals.”

Working beneath the 2022 Mulchatna bear management program, Fish and Recreation killed 175 brown bears and 5 black bears in 2023-2024. The Alaska Wildlife Alliance challenged this authentic program. In March 2025, the Alaska Superior Courtroom struck down the unique program as unconstitutional, partially as a result of the Board of Recreation didn’t have credible scientific proof of bear populations. The courtroom discovered the Mulchatna bear management program was “unlawfully adopted and due to this fact void and with out authorized impact.”

Every week after that call, the Board of Recreation voted to undertake an emergency regulation to reinstate this system. In mid-Might, the courtroom struck down the emergency regulation as a foul religion try to avoid the March order, however not earlier than Fish and Recreation killed 11 extra brown bears.

“There’s no excuse for the state of Alaska to be gunning down bears from helicopters,” mentioned Cooper Freeman, Alaska director on the Middle for Organic Variety. “It is a disgraceful misuse of public assets and a betrayal of the belief Alaskans place of their wildlife managers. State officers ought to defend all of our wildlife for future generations, not flaunt their energy by orchestrating the mass killing of iconic bears with no scientific foundation. The Mulchatna bear-killing plan is a humiliation, and it wants to finish now.”

In July, the Board of Recreation reinstated the Mulchatna bear management program with out gathering the related bear inhabitants research that the courtroom decided had been required. The board approved this system by way of 2028, and the present litigation challenges it as unconstitutional.