Heads up Wilderness Watchers! 

Bears, wolves, wolverines and coyotes living within America’s National Wildlife Refuges in Alaska need your help…again.

You may recall that in August 2016, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) published final regulations to rein in some unethical and barbaric “hunting” practices related to the killing of bears, wolves, wolverines and coyotes on 76 million acres of National Wildlife Refuges in Alaska – including nearly 20 million acres of Wilderness.

Specifically, the rule:

• Further constrained the hunting of bear cubs or sows with cubs;

• Prohibited the baiting of brown bears and trapping and snaring bears;

• Constrained hunting of wolves and coyotes during the denning season;

• Prohibited airborne or same day airborne hunting of bears.

These federal regulations preempted several hunting and trapping methods authorized by the State of Alaska meant to reduce populations of bears, wolves, coyotes and wolverines and increase moose and caribou numbers. These state regulations conflicted with FWS’s responsibility to conserve the natural diversity of wildlife of national wildlife refuges in Alaska.

Unfortunately, in 2018 the Republican-controlled Congress passed – and President Trump signed into law – a bill that stripped these important protections for native predators living within America’s National Wildlife Refuges in Alaska. 

Incredibly, this bill could mean a return to grossly unethical practices within America's National Wildlife Refuges in Alaska, including practices like shooting denning wolves, killing hibernating bears and cubs, catching and killing bears with traps and even using airplanes to chase down and kill grizzly bears.

The bill had nothing to do with science-based wildlife management. Rather, it was meant to appease extremely unethical hunters and narrow state interests. While this recent action is limited to Alaska, it may embolden other States to attempt to assert jurisdiction on National Wildlife Refuges outside of Alaska, which could have drastic implications for federal management of public trust resources across the country.

As our friends at the National Wildlife Refuge Association point out, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is bound by statute to conserve a diverse array of wildlife for the benefit of the American people. By law, it cannot arbitrarily choose to implement increasing game species over predator species unless by doing so it fulfills a specific refuge purpose or law. 

The FWS has an obligation to the American people to manage our National Wildlife Refuges for all wildlife and to promote biological diversity.

Please take a minute to remind the leadership in the U.S .Fish and Wildlife Service that you expect them to enforce the laws governing these refuges, and to protect bears, wolves, coyotes, wolverines, and other predators from the state of Alaska’s aggressive, barbaric, and unethical hunting policies.