Alaska's wildlife conservation officials have done something infuriating: They have used helicopters and airplanes to hunt animals in the name of protecting them, focusing on the past two springs, when grizzly bears have just woken up from hibernation with their cubs.
It's all part of the so-called "Enhanced Wildlife Management" program,
Grizzly bears and wolves became scapegoats
Beginning in 2012, the Alaska state government allowed people to shoot wolves from airplanes with the goal of increasing the reindeer population. However, the reindeer population did not increase much, and officials began to turn their attention again. As a result, these predators, who should not have been provoked in the first place, became scapegoats for "protecting the reindeer".
In fact, the Mulchatna reindeer herd in southwestern Alaska faces much more problems than predators.
Reindeer habitats have become very vulnerable due to climate change, overgrazing and degradation. Add to that brucellosis and poaching, and the reindeer herd is simply not back to its former numbers.
So, no matter how many predators are killed, the number of reindeer will not increase as planned.
There is a lack of scientific basis for management
Wildlife management in Alaska is simply not scientific. The ecosystem is extremely complex, and the Alaska Fish and Game Authority has no research and methods to analyze the results of killing all predators. Even if there is a sudden increase in the number of reindeer, no one knows why. Alaskan officials continue to spend large sums of money on this wildlife management, feeling like a game of whack-a-mole.
Quite a few biologists have also taken it freak and publicly condemned the Alaska Fish and Wildlife Service's plan to expand the Mulchatna reindeer population. "We know that reindeer populations naturally fluctuate and that feed resources may take decades to recover," they said in an article last summer. "This means that the reindeer once peaked at 200,000 heads, but this is not ideal at all because their habitat takes a long time to recover.
The importance of federal protection
This nonsense in Alaska proves why grizzlies need federal protection. Currently, grizzly bears in the 48 contiguous states are federally protected. However, some members of Congress and Western governors want to remove those protections and open up the hunting season for bears in the Northern Rocky Mountains.
If that happens, the less than 2,000 bears that live around Yellowstone and Glacier National Park would be at risk.
Misuse of federal funds
Despite poor wildlife management in Alaska, their conservation efforts have received a lot of federal funding. Under the Federal Wildlife Recovery Assistance Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service provides funding to states to support wildlife restoration, conservation, and hunter education and safety programs.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Wildlife received more than $465,000 in "wildlife restoration" funding from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, according to a document obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. State officials said the money was not used to kill grizzly bears, wolves and black bears.
But another document notes that despite the significant challenges faced by the reindeer, it is speechless that the Alaska Wildlife Commission has instructed that a state agency with such poor governance can still have so much federal support.
The plight of the brown bear
If they are to survive for future generations, they must be protected as a priority.
A lot of Americans love bears and wolves, animals that are ecologically and economically valuable.
In Alaska's Katmai National Park, brown bear watching is so popular that more than 10 million people watch bears fishing for salmon online each year, and people around the world vote during Fat Bear Week.
However, the future of the grizzlies is uncertain. In addition to Alaska-sponsored shooting and trapping of brown bears, trophy hunters have doubled the number of bears hunted by trophy hunters in 76 percent of Alaska over the past 30 years.
In 2018, biologists warned the U.S. Department of the Interior in a letter that officials needed to protect Alaska's bears and wolves from being overhunted.
What to do?
Alaska's Predator killing program, from any point of view, makes no sense. Alaska should not use its vast wilderness as a hunting ground for prey hunters, and must revisit the hasty assumption that killing one animal increases the population of another.
The federal government must ensure that the conservation funds it gives to states are not used to support the extinction of these wildlife.