June, Alaska — Alaska wildlife agents can resume shooting and killing black and brown bears — including from helicopters — as part of a plan to help restore a caribou herd that was once an important food source for Alaska Native hunters, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Two conservation groups, the Alaska Wildlife Alliance and the Center for Biological Diversity, sought to stop the program during their lawsuit. Challenging its legitimacy He plays with it. But Supreme Court Justice Adolf Zeman said the groups failed to prove that the state acted without a reasonable basis to approve the plan.
The timing of the ruling is important: The Mulchatna caribou herd in southwest Alaska is expected to begin calving soon. Children are especially vulnerable to being eaten by bears or wolves.
State officials see the bear-killing program as important to helping the caribou herd recover. The herd, which previously provided up to 4,770 caribou a year to subsistence hunters from dozens of communities, has now grown to about 190,000 animals.
But caribou numbers began to decline in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and by 2019 they numbered about 13,000 animals. Last year, the population was estimated at 16,280, according to the state Department of Fish and Game. Hunting has not been allowed since 2021.
The state killed 180 bears from 2023 to 2024, most of them brown bears, plus 11 others last year, according to the lawsuit filed by conservation groups. The groups argue that the Alaska Game Board last year allowed the program to be reinstated without basic data on bear numbers and sustainability.
The groups want to see the caribou herd thrive, “but the state simply has not shown that unrestricted killing of bears will help us achieve that,” Cooper Freeman, director of the Alaska Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement.
“We need to stop this shameful waste of the state’s limited resources and act based on science to protect all of our wildlife,” Freeman said.
Officials took a “hard look” at factors related to bear numbers when adopting the plan, state attorneys said.
“The herd has persisted at low numbers but has begun to show a positive response since 2023, when the process of removing bears during calving seasons began,” they wrote in a lawsuit.
The Alaska Department of Law welcomed Zeman’s decision “to allow this management program to continue through the upcoming caribou calving season, a critical time for the herd’s recovery,” spokesman Sam Curtis said via email. The department is represented by the Board of Directors and the Department of Fish and Game.
“Continuing this program makes sense given the scientific record,” Curtis said.
Attorneys for the Alaska Trustees, who represent conservation groups, are reviewing the ruling and “will consider all available options,” Alaska Trustees spokesman Madison Grosvenor said via email.
The program has been the subject of ongoing litigation. Last year, a judge in a case previously brought by the Alaska Wildlife Coalition found fault with the process by which it was certified, concluding that the state lacked data on the bears’ sustainability.
The emergency regulations implemented by the state were later cancelled. A subsequent public process regarding plans to reauthorize the program was announced, which the Board did last July.