Hunters will have more options for hunting bears in Alaska National Preserves under a proposal released Tuesday/NPS
Bowing to pressure from the Interior Department, the National Park Service plans to reverse a 3-year-old ban on hunting and trapping practices in Alaska national preserves that conservation groups deem “barbaric” and “cruel.”
The proposed regulation, which would align Alaska national preserves with state rules that were implemented to suppress carnivore numbers in order to increase game populations, was published in the Federal Register on Tuesday and will be open for public comment for 60 days.
“The Trump administration has somehow reached a new low in protecting wildlife,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and CEO at Defenders of Wildlife. “Allowing the killing of bear cubs and wolf pups in their dens is barbaric and inhumane. The proposed regulations cast aside the very purpose of national parks to protect wildlife and wild places. The National Park Service should not accept Alaska’s extreme predator control program as a suitable method of managing wildlife and their habitat.”
The practices that the Park Service banned in 2015, and which are now set to be legalized again, are:
- Taking any black bear, including cubs and sows with cubs, with artificial light at den sites
- Harvesting brown bears over bait
- Taking wolves and coyotes (including pups) during the denning season (between May 1 and August 9)
- Taking swimming caribou
- Taking caribou from motorboats under power
- Taking black bears over bait
- Using dogs to hunt black bears
Since the Trump administration has taken office, the Department of the Interior has issued two Secretarial Orders regarding how the department should manage recreational hunting and trapping in the lands and waters it administers, and directing greater collaboration with state, tribe, and territorial partners in doing so.
“The conservation of wildlife and habitat for future generations is a goal we share with Alaska,” said NPS Regional Director Bert Frost. “This proposed rule will reconsider NPS efforts in Alaska for improved alignment of hunting regulations on national preserves with State of Alaska regulations, and to enhance consistency with harvest regulations on surrounding non-federal lands and waters.”
To view the proposed rule and for information on how to submit comments, visit www.regulations.gov and search for “RIN 1024-AE38”. The deadline for submitting comments is July 23. Once the public comment period ends for the proposed rule, the National Park Service will review the comments, and that input will inform the final rule, which will be published in the Federal Register. The final rule would be effective 30 days after publication in the Federal Register.
“I’m outraged that Trump and his trophy-hunting cronies are promoting the senseless slaughter of Alaska’s most iconic wildlife,” said Collette Adkins, a Center for Biological Diversity attorney and biologist. “Cruel and harmful hunting methods like killing bear cubs and their mothers near dens have no place on our national preserves.”
The National Parks Conservation Association says the approaches are at odds with bedrock wildlife management regulations for lands managed by the National Park Service. The group notes that the plan was released with a 60-day comment period but without plans for public meetings or other community engagement.
“This new proposal ignores the years of careful consideration, taxpayer dollars, and thousands of people who already spoke up in support of bears and wolves on national park land in Alaska,” said Theresa Pierno, the president and CEO of NPCA. “More than 70,000 Americans previously said ‘no’ to baiting bears with grease-soaked donuts in Denali. They said ‘no’ to sport hunters crawling into bears’ dens and using flashlights to wake and kill mother bears and their cubs on lands managed by the National Park Service. And, after 26 public meetings and an extensive public process, the Park Service too said “no” on their behalf.
“Secretary Zinke recently made headlines by his vow to make a ‘grand pivot’ to conservation,” Pierno continued. “Forcing the hand of the Park Service to return to a war on wildlife on lands it manages in Alaska is about as far from a positive pivot point as one can get. As a nearly 100-year old organization with ‘conservation’ in our name, we would be happy to work with the department to ensure our national parks are safe havens for the bears, wolves, and wildlife that call places like Katmai and Denali home.”
The proposed regulations would only apply to hunting on Alaska national preserves. National parks in Alaska would not be affected by the proposed changes.
Comments
I am DONE WITH TRUMP - his constant 'closed door" barrage of reversal policies that are indecent, immoral and have no consideration for "the next seven generations" are NOT AMERICAN and are not making America great. I am ashamed to be associated with our country during this administration because the policies, rhetoric and actions are so abhorrent. I expect long range, mindfully guiding leadership that considers the next seven generations from ANY President. I support responsible and sustainable hunting absent of cruel tactics. I, like so many people work a full time job and have children to raise and parents to care for and do not have time to constantly monitor "the swamp" and then wade through endless websites to try to find ways to have my voice heard. A REAL President would encourage open communication, debate, and would seek public opinion to the highest extent to ensure that he is serving the People.
THAT is his job - he is holding the highest PUBLIC office and he is on MY payroll,. . . Unfortunately. We must protect our public and preserved wild spaces at all cost.
"We must protect our public and preserved wild spaces at all cost."
VOTE!
Here's a recent editorial from the Washington Post:
Hunters should hate this proposed pro-hunting rule
"The Interior Department, our former employer, is on the hunt — camouflaged in the guise of “conservation.” Its target? Regulations that prohibit hunters from using cruel, unscientific and unethical methods to hunt Alaska’s bears and wolves.
A taste of what the agency wants to allow under the Trump administration: shooting mother bears hibernating with cubs, luring bears with bait and killing wolves rearing young in their dens. And it wants to give the green light for such activities at National Park Service areas such as Denali and Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve.
We are deeply disappointed in our former employer but realize that this does not reflect the judgment of career scientists or land and wildlife managers. This is politics, pure and simple — placing the bull’s eye on animals when they are most vulnerable.
To our friends and colleagues in the “sportsmen” community, we ask: Is this really sportsmanship? Are we not better than this? Is this really what we want the more than 95 percent of Americans who don’t hunt to see and think about hunters?
We each put in place regulations prohibiting these practices while serving as directors of the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, after spending years trying to convince the state of Alaska that its rules were unsportsmanlike. From 2005 to 2015, the federal government made more than 50 requests to the Alaska Board of Game, which regulates sport hunting in the state, to limit predator sport hunting on national preserves and national wildlife refuges. The state ignored those requests, forcing us to step in to protect bears and wolves.
Congress rolled back the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regulations covering 77 million acres, and now the Trump administration wants to extend that to 20 million acres of national preserves, essentially requiring National Park Service managers to violate their stewardship responsibilities.
These proposals are not conservation. They are a throwback to 19th-century predator persecution, which is explicitly prohibited on our national park and wildlife refuges. These lands were not protected to become glorified game farms for unethical shooting expeditions; they were protected to provide havens for our nation’s wildlife, including brown bears, caribou, wolf and moose. Extreme methods disguised as hunting are not conservation and are not in line with America’s long tradition of ethical, fair-chase hunting.
Yet, that is exactly the snake oil that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is attempting to sell. He’s a politician, so perhaps this is to be expected from him. But where is the outrage from sportsmen and sportswomen?
For goodness’ sake, we know better. We know that preserving biodiversity is key to healthier lands, water and wildlife. Thriving bear and wolf populations benefit their natural ecosystems. Only science-based management can ensure that our hunting traditions are sustained by wildlife habitat and populations. That’s why our federal lands are such a rich bounty for hunters and anglers.
For more than a decade, the Alaska Board of Game has escalated its efforts to reduce bear and wolf populations across much of the state, supposedly to increase moose and caribou populations. This has been scientifically disproved, time and again. We know how the story ends when we let so-called hunters take out their frustrations on bears and wolves in the name of “protecting” game populations. It doesn’t end well. Especially for us hunters. We lose habitat, access and public support.
As lifelong anglers and hunters, we are immensely proud of the unselfish role hunters and anglers have played in protecting and sustaining our nation’s natural heritage and in supporting ethical practices that preserve and honor nature in all its diversity. Sportsmen and sportswomen have hunted and fished across the American landscape for far longer than our national parks and revered public lands have been protected. This has been a bipartisan relationship, honored and supported by Republican and Democratic presidents throughout the decades, beginning with our iconic public-lands champion, Theodore Roosevelt.
The legacy of the ethical hunter is on the line. A nation of mostly non-hunters is watching. Will they see our community stand proudly and loudly for humane, scientific and ethical policy? Or will they see the opposite? Hunters should stand with the non-hunting community and demand that this policy be withdrawn."
by Dan Ashe and Jon Jarvis July 22, 2018
Dan Ashe served as director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from 2011 to 2017. Jon Jarvis served as director of the National Park Service from 2009 to 2017.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/hunters-should-hate-this-proposed-pro-hunting-rule/2018/07/22/beff66e4-8bb7-11e8-8b20-60521f27434e_story.html
Now they are saying Zinke asked to rescind Director's Order 100, which would havave gone against the hunting ban on cubs, using bait, denning season, etc...:
https://www.revealnews.org/blog/top-interior-officials-ordered-parks-to-...