In August 2016, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) published final regulations governing the killing of bears, wolves, coyotes and wolverines on National Wildlife Refuges in Alaska – including nearly 20 million acres of Wilderness on the Refuges.

These regulations preempt several State of Alaska hunting and trapping regulations meant to reduce populations of bears, wolves, coyotes and wolverines with the intent to increase moose and caribou numbers. These state regulations conflict with FWS’s responsibility to protect the natural diversity of wildlife of national wildlife refuges in Alaska.

Many thanks to the thousands of you who earlier wrote in support of protecting wildlife in our National Wildlife Refuges in Alaska. It really made a difference!

The new federal rules will prohibit the following practices on refuges in Alaska:

• Same day airborne hunting of bears, wolves, and wolverines;
• Use of traps, snares, and nets for killing bears;
• Killing of wolves and coyotes from May 1 to August 9;
• Killing of bear cubs or mothers with cubs (except for subsistence hunts where this is traditional); and
• Use of bait to kill brown bears.

While these prohibitions will certainly help protect wildlife on Refuges in Alaska, the final regulations have several shortcomings including:

• Allowing the use of bait to kill black bears, even though black and brown bears live in many of the same areas. This negates much of the benefit of prohibiting brown bear baiting and leads to both species becoming habituated to humans. Baiting of any wildlife for the purpose of killing is unacceptable, especially in our national wildlife refuges.
• The prohibition on killing wolves and coyotes during the denning season is too short and should extend from April 1 to November 1 to better protect mothers, pups, and family groups during denning and at rendezvous sites.
• Allowing the practice of killing of black bears and cubs in their winter dens (during October 15 to April 30 in certain areas) for traditional subsistence practices. This is inappropriate anywhere, but especially in our national wildlife refuges.
• Final regulations have omitted some of the stronger requirements that were to be met before predator control is allowed on refuges.

Now the battle is shifting to Congress, where Alaska’s senators and congressman are pushing legislation that will overturn the Fish and Wildlife Service’s new rule and a similar rule adopted by the National Park Service for national parks and preserves in Alaska. 

Wilderness Watch will continue to advocate for stronger regulations to both protect bears, wolves, coyotes and wolverines and to ensure that natural processes are allowed to shape our National Wildlife Refuges and designated Wildernesses of Alaska. But first we must continue our work to fend off legislative attempts to undo the progress that has been made. Please join us in this fight!