Judge Allows State to Kill Southwest Alaska Bears in Bid to Protect Caribou This Spring
The ruling lets state crews keep removing bears from helicopter patrols as officials seek to boost calf survival in a herd that has been closed to hunting since 2021.
- On Wednesday, Anchorage Superior Court Judge Adolf Zeman ruled that Alaska wildlife agents can resume shooting bears from helicopters to help recover the Mulchatna caribou herd in Southwest Alaska.
- State officials initiated the program because the Mulchatna caribou herd, which once provided about 4,770 caribou annually for Alaska Native subsistence hunters, dropped to around 16,280 animals last year from a peak of around 190,000.
- Fish and Game has killed 191 bears in three seasons, almost all brown bears, while the Alaska Wildlife Alliance and Center for Biological Diversity continue challenging the program's legality through ongoing litigation.
- Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang said "we're happy that science prevails," and crews will begin operations soon as the Mulchatna herd is expected to start calving.
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Wildlife managers in Alaska are once again allowed to shoot black and brown bears, including from helicopters, to protect a severely diminished caribou herd. A judge in the American state ruled this. Alaska wants to help restore the so-called Mulchatna caribou herd in the southwest of the state. For years, that herd was an important food source for dozens of indigenous communities in the area, but the population of the North American reindeer de…
Associated Press News
Alaska wildlife agents can kill bears from helicopters in an effort to protect caribou, judge says
A judge says Alaska wildlife agents can resume shooting and killing bears as part of a plan to help recover a herd of caribou that was once an important source of food for Alaska Native hunters.
Court Ruling Lets State Kill Bears in Southwest Alaska Despite Ongoing Lawsuit
Center for Biological Diversity: ANCHORAGE, Alaska— An Alaska Superior Court ruling today allows the state to continue its Mulchatna bear control program and kill an unlimited number of black and brown bears across roughly 40,000 square miles of southwest Alaska this summer.
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