A subadult brown bear sniffs the air as it walks across the tundra in Katmai National Park and Preserve on Aug. 10, 2023. (Photo by F. Jimenez/National Park Service)
Last week, a state court approved the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s plan to resume killing scores of brown bears, including newborn cubs, across a 40,000 square mile area in southwest Alaska. The goal of the extensive bear kill effort, according to ADFG, is to reduce the number of predators in order to increase the size of the Mulchatna caribou herd.
The court stated:
“The Court is in no position to second guess the Department’s biologists in their technical conclusions. The Court must give deference to the Department on these technical game management decisions… The information considered by the Board (of Game) at the July 2025 meeting could be problematic or incorrect. However, the Court is not in the position, nor does it have the authority, to make that determination at this point in the proceedings. The Court simply does not possess the technical and specialized skills to do so.”
Indeed, this is a perpetual problem, and one that Rep. Andy Josephson’s bill, HB364 — “An Act relating to intensive management of big game prey populations” — seeks to resolve by requiring independent scientific peer review of all predator control proposals from the state. Science requires independent peer review.
Regarding the ruling, the ADFG commissioner stated: “We are happy that science prevails.” They may be happy, but science clearly did not prevail.
What did prevail is the state’s continued reliance on inadequate, anecdotal information to advance its objective of killing predators as political spectacle to mask its mismanagement, including its wildly unrealistic population goal of 30,000 – 80,000 for the Mulchatna caribou herd. Science points to lack of adequate nutrition, rather than predation, as the main driver of Mulchatna caribou numbers — a fact the state conveniently ignores.
Regarding HB364, the administration did not endorse the bill and the Legislature has ignored it entirely. Obviously, predator control advocates do not want independent scientific review of their proposals, as they know such proposals would not survive independent scientific scrutiny.
So “we the people” are left not to trust the state administration, the legislature or the courts on such matters of natural resource policy. And scores of brown bears will be killed in the next few weeks, without solid scientific justification, ostensibly on behalf of all Alaskans.
Hopefully, our next governor will better appreciate science and the need to apply it effectively in resource policy.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX.
Courtesy of Alaska Beacon
