Top scientists back federal plan to protect Alaska predators

 New rules would ban ‘non-subsistence’ killing of bears, wolves and coyotes – some of the ‘most iconic yet persecuted species’– in the state’s 16 wildlife refuges

Oliver Milman

Tuesday 29 March 2016 17.44 BSTLast modified on Tuesday 29 March 201618.26 BST

A group of scientists has backed a federal plan to restrict the trapping and gunning down of bears and wolves in Alaska’s wildlife refuges, in the face of bitter opposition from the state government.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has proposed an overhaul of hunting regulations for Alaska’s 16 national wildlife refuges, which span nearly 77m acres of wilderness in the state.

The new rules would effectively ban “non-subsistence” slaughter of predators within the refuges without a sound scientific reason. Practices to be outlawed include the killing of bear cubs or their mothers, the controversial practice of bear baiting and the targeting of wolves and coyotes during the spring and summer denning season.

Anyone hoping to take a plane or helicopter to shoot a bear will also be unable to do so. These changes have been backed by a group of 31 leading scientists who said the current hunting laws hurt some of the “most iconic yet persecuted species in North America: grizzly bears, black bears and wolves”.

In a letter sent for the USFWS’s public comment process, the biologists and ecologists from across the US point out that research shows that killing the predators of moose and caribou does very little to boost their numbers.

“Alaska’s many-decades program of statewide carnivore persecution has failed to yield more ungulates for human hunters,” the letter states. “Furthermore, the methods of predator persecution are seen as problematic by a clear majority of Alaska’s citizens.”

Alaska stepped up the trapping and shooting of predator animals after the Republican governor Frank Murkowski gained power in 2002. His successors, including Sarah Palin, have all supported a policy of “intensive management” that removes wolves and bears with the goal of boosting moose and caribou numbers for hunters.

Read on …