https://alaskabeacon.com/2025/...re-unconstitutional/


Anchorage judge rules state’s brown-bear killings are unconstitutional

Alaska has killed more than 200 bears as part of its ‘intensive management’ program intended to help a caribou herd

By: James Brooks - March 15, 2025 5:00 am


The Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s decision to kill almost 200 brown bears in order to boost a struggling caribou herd violated due process and was unconstitutional, an Anchorage Superior Court judge ruled Friday.

Judge Andrew Guidi’s 10-page decision means at least a temporary end to the state’s controversial bear-killing program, which was intended to aid the struggling Mulchatna caribou herd.

“Unless they want to seek a stay of this decision, they’ve got to stop killing bears,” said attorney Joe Geldhof, who represented the Alaska Wildlife Alliance in a lawsuit that prompted Friday’s decision.

The Alliance sued the state in 2023 to challenge the application of Alaska’s “intensive management” project in Southwest Alaska.

Originally designed to kill wolves in order to boost the populations of prey species that hunters pursue, the program was expanded in 2022 to cover bears that have been preying on the Mulchatna caribou herd.

That herd, which contained 200,000 animals at its peak in 1997, has declined to about 13,000 animals and is closed to hunting.

Anchorage attorney Michelle Bittner filed a separate lawsuit, also challenging the state’s bear-killing program.

Both lawsuits argued that the state’s Board of Game failed to follow adequate due process standards before beginning the program.

Before a judge could consider the merits of either case, state attorneys argued that Bittner did not have the standing to bring a lawsuit on the issue. That argument went all the way to the Alaska Supreme Court, which ruled in February that Bittner could bring her case.

That cleared the way for the Alaska Wildlife Alliance’s lawsuit to advance as well, with oral arguments taking place in March.

Ruling Friday on the merits, Guidi concluded that the Board of Game violated due process and did not provide adequate public notice when it began its bear-killing program.

“The notice provided by the BOG contemplating extension of an existing wolf control program to lands managed by the federal government that was altered to include a bear removal program on state lands substantially changed the subject matter of the proposal,” Guidi wrote. “These changes went far beyond varying, clarifying or altering the specific matter of the proposal addressed in the original notice. As a result, the BOG failed to adhere to mandatory due process standards.”

Guidi also found that the Board of Game violated the Alaska Constitution’s principle of sustained yield because it valued the sustainability of caribou herds but didn’t adequately study what would happen to bear populations.

“The issue of the bear population and distribution is an obvious salient issue touching on sustainability,” he wrote. “Addressing the sustainability of a constitutionally protected resource like bears almost certainly requires the BOG to engage in more than a rudimentary discussion about a bear population or engage in conclusionary opinions when considering a proposal to initiate a program calling for the unrestricted killing of bears.”

A spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Law, which represented the Board of Game in the lawsuit, said the state is reviewing the order and considering its options for how to proceed.

I hunted brown bears SW of Iliamna in 2021. I got my bear the first day of my hunt so we were only in camp 2 nights, but we saw 4 bears. I talked to my guide last week, and he said that he didn't take any hunters out last year, but a friend of his spent 30 days last year hunting out of my guide's 3 camps in that unit and didn't see a single bear.

I can verify that because I did the flying . numerous camps that I serviced saw no bears

Unconstitutional due process really.

When do bears have rights.

Anti's will stop at nothing.

The state should have followed the right process but I don't have a problem with knocking down the predator population to support the caribou herd's recovery.

The state has mismanaged the caribou populations for decades and then, under pressure from uninformed residents, they began the ill conceived and biologically inept process of culling bears.

So now, not only are resident and nonresident caribou hunters deprived of good hunting, so are bear hunters

well said

quote:

The state has mismanaged the

I believe I have heard this about most every state's management of wildlife.

Wildlife "management" is more of a art then science.

Has become more of a fund raiser and how much money we can get.

quote:

Originally posted by p dog shooter:
Unconstitutional due process really.

When do bears have rights.

Anti's will stop at nothing.

I'm for bears voting lol

quote:

Originally posted by p dog shooter:

quote:

The state has mismanaged the

I believe I have heard this about most every state's management of wildlife.

Wildlife "management" is more of a art then science.


Has become more of a fund raiser and how much money we can get.

Or how many votes can we get !

I have a degree in Wildlife Management

https://alaskabeacon.com/2025/...espite-court-ruling/

Economy & Environment
Justice
Alaska officials seek emergency rule to continue bear-killing program, despite court ruling

A predator-control program in Western Alaska, ruled unconstitutional last week, is needed to boost the ailing Mulchatna caribou herd, state game managers say

By: Yereth Rosen - March 22, 2025 5:00 am


Alaska officials are seeking emergency authorization to keep killing bears and wolves in a region in the western part of the state even though a judge ruled a week ago that the state predator control program there was unconstitutional.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game on Friday petitioned the state Board of Game for an emergency regulation allowing the “intensive management” program to continue for a third year in the range of the ailing Mulchatna Caribou Herd.

The proposal came on the first day of an eight-day Board of Game meeting in Anchorage. The board sets hunting rules that are carried out by the department.

The Mulchatna herd, in Western Alaska, peaked at 200,000 animals in 1997, but it is now down to about 13,000 animals. Hunting has been closed for several years. Department officials argue that removal of bears and wolves is needed to help the herd population grow back. Residents of dozens of rural communities in the region have traditionally depended on the herd for food, and increased caribou numbers would allow their hunts to start again, department officials argue.

So far, the state program that started in 2023 has killed nearly 200 bears and 19 wolves through the program, according to the department.


That has already benefited the herd, as seen in the increase in the number of calves born, the department’s proposal said. Continuing the program is “critical” to the goal of getting the herd large enough to allow resumed hunting, it said.
“Not being able to conduct control efforts in the third year is detrimental to the program and will result in a loss of the improvements in calf recruitment and survival that have been realized since the department treatment began in 2023,” the department’s proposal said.

The Alaska Wildlife Alliance, the plaintiff in the case that resulted in last week’s ruling, said the Department of Fish and Game is attempting to circumvent the law.

“We’re just kind of stunned right now,” Nicole Schmitt, the alliance’s executive director, said during a break in the Board of Game’s meeting on Friday.

The late proposal, released just that morning, was also rushed without proper public notice or opportunity for public comment, just as the earlier predator-control authorization had been, Schmitt said.

“The state is trying to push through an emergency regulation, in the hopes that it is not stopped before they are done killing bears, lawfully or otherwise,” she said.


Superior Court Judge Andrew Guidi, in his March 14 ruling, found that the Board of Game’s action in 2022 that authorized the predator control program violated constitutional standards for public notice and public comment. The Alaska Wildlife Alliance and Michelle Bittner, an Anchorage attorney who filed a separate lawsuit challenging the predator-culling program, argued that the board rushed its approval through improper and secretive means.
Guidi also found that the board’s approval of bear kills in the Mulchatna caribou range failed to properly consider impacts to the bear population, in violation of constitutional mandates for sustainable management.

Supporters and opponents of the Mulchatna predator control program disagree about the causes of the caribou herd’s decline.

While department officials point to bears and wolves as limiting recovery, opponents of the bear- and wolf-killing program say other factors caused the caribou decline. Those include some sweeping habitat changes, with a warming climate allowing woody bushes and trees to spread into tundra territory. Caribou from herds like the Mulchatna depend on tundra plants for food, but the proliferation of woody plants has made the area more favorable for moose.

Disease is another factor cited as a reason for the caribou population decline.

The Board of Game has identified a goal of getting the population back up to between 30,000 and 80,000 animals, enough to support hunts of 2,400 to 8,000 caribou a year, according to the Department of Fish and Game.

quote:

The Alaska Wildlife Alliance

Just another of anti's

Looks like the plan is back on the table:
https://alaskapublic.org/news/...ncy-predator-control

Mo bears mo betta

It may come as a surprise to many, but there are plenty of Alaskan who actually like and admire bears.

quote:

Originally posted by 458Win:
It may come as a surprise to many, but there are plenty of Alaskan who actually like and admire bears.

I am sure that is true in most areas where bears live.

But that doesn't mean a get free rain.

It also doesn’t mean that it’s a wise idea.

Caribou herds are not like managing white tailed deer or elk.

The herd on the southern portion of the Alaska peninsula crashed almost 30 years ago and a majority of that population migrated and joined the herd on the northern portion of the peninsula. Within a few years that herd had outgrown its food resources ( in spite of heavy hunting pressure ! ) and many of that herd migrated north and joined the Illiamna herd. In spite of all the hunting pressure that herd also crashed and many survivors moved again to the area now being “intensely managed” That herd had also over grazed its food source and survivors moved in up to join the herd around the Bethel area.

This same situation, of caribou migrations due to over population and lack of resources, is also going on in the far northern portion of the state.

Although it may buy a few votes, The state stepping in to kill predators will have minimal impact on regeneration of the food caribou need to return .

mulchatna caribou started their migration around bonanza hills migrated down the mulchatna through sparevonn to the nupper nushagak continued to around koliganek newest and ended up at lower Iliamna talaria creek. all those hills and where ever they travelled turned to mud no more lichen. they ate it up.

What happened to the caribou herd in area 13?