Cold after eleven other bears

Anchorage, Alaska (Ktuu) – A state judge blocked the department for fish and game in Alaska from the implementation of a controversial predator control program and decided that, according to Yereth Rosen, the department initiated “with evil” on Saturday.

The judge of the Supreme Court, Christina Rankin, provided a temporary injunction in a judgment issued late Monday, which was requested by a nature conservation group that opposed the state of the state to roll bears in the territory of the West Alaska from the battered Mulcarbou herd.

Last week, Rankin decided that an injunction was unnecessary because the program was legally correct due to an earlier court decision that was still in force. This prior order took place in a judgment of the Supreme Court of Andrew Guidi on March 14, who found that the program, as was originally approved by the Game Board, violated constitutional mandates.

But two days after Rankin published her previous decision, the department announced on Friday that she wanted to carry out the Bären Removal program this season anyway. The department said in a press release published late Friday that Rankin's decision approved by the Board of Game on March 27th was not influenced.

The judge said on Monday in her command that the interpretation was wrong.

The emergency regulation of March 27 is “invalid and without legal effect,” she said. The state ignored the guidelines in the order both in the arrangement of Guidi as well as in its follow-up order and demonstrated evil intention, she said.

The state's advance according to the emergency ordinance and its decision to advance the program last weekend, although it did not resolve the legally identified problems, shows that “the goal of predator control was definitely the goal”.

The Department of Predator Control program killed 175 brown bears, five black bears and 19 wolves in 2023 and 2024. The animals were killed by air from airplanes.

The activities of the past weekend added the tribute. Eleven brown bears and a wolf were “removed,” said Ryan Scott, director of the department for wildlife conservation, by e -mail.

Decisions of Rankin and Guidi resulted from a complaint submitted by the Alaska Wildlife Alliance in 2023. Allianz argued that the state's program had violated the constitutional requirements for public announcements and contributions as well as for the administration of public resources in a sustainable manner. It was argued in the lawsuit that the state, among other things, did not analyze the effects of the Mulchatna predator control on the bear population of the area, which include animals that roam and preserve in the Katmai National Park.

Nicole Schmitt, Executive Director of Alaska Wildlife Alliance, said on Tuesday that it was a “big thing” that the state was negotiated as in evident.

“The state has gotten into planes in the past two years and has shot almost 200 bears,” she said by e -mail. “When the court found that the program was unconstitutional, we expected that they would come to the table to remedy their mistakes, and what was being classified as illegal, this means that the state only poached hundreds of bears on Alaskan Dime of Alaskan. And the recent arrangement of the court. public Process that requires at least a certain level of biological sustainability. “

The state has argued that the Bear predation of calves prevented the restoration of the mulchatna caribu herd. The air bear program was therefore carried out in spring and early summer when the Caribu calves are born.

In a statement, the department for fish and game commissioner of Alaska, Doug Vincent-Lang said that the state official was “extremely disappointed” by the decision. “This will greatly reduce our ability to rebuild this herd in order to offer sustainable opportunities for subsistence hunting, as is necessary under state law,” he said.

The department has hired the program for this year and hopes to revive it in the future, he said. “While we continue to pursue all the legal options available to us, we will plan a board of directors of the meeting in accordance with the court order to have the program authorized again,” he said.

The population of the mulchatna herd has decreased dramatically in recent decades, from around 200,000 in the nineties to around 15,000 from 2024, according to the Department of Fish and Game. The hunting has been closed since 2021 and the department claims that predators prevent Bears the herd from expanding to a size that supports hunting.

The aim of the department is that the herd grows to 30,000 and 80,000 animals.

The state's Mulchatna Predator Control program has the support of many subsistence hunters in the region, and the Alaska Federation of Natives in 2023 passed a resolution that supported it.

However, critics argue that the focus on bears is out of place. They say that there are other and more likely reasons for the decline in the Karibu population, including a rapidly changing habitat. Due to the climate change, more wood plants grow on the tundra territory, a transformation, the moose, but non-lichen-eating Caribu. Other factors, which are cited as possible causes of the decline in the herd, are diseases and earlier sets.

In addition to the lawsuit of the Alaska Wildlife Alliance, a separate lawsuit that questions the program is pending before the state court. This lawsuit was submitted by Anchorage lawyer Michelle Bittner.

This story was released with the permission of Alaska Beacon.

Do you see a spelling or grammatical error? Register it web@ktuu.com

Copyright 2025 Ktuu. All rights reserved.