A state judge has issued a temporary restraining order halting Alaska Department of Fish and Game's controversial predator control program in the Mulchatna region. The judge found the state acted in “bad faith” by moving forward with the bear kills despite earlier court rulings.
Superior Court Judge Christina Rankin’s order, issued Monday afternoon, bars the Alaska Department of Fish and Game from carrying out its predator control program this spring. The decision comes after the Alaska Wildlife Alliance, a state conservation nonprofit, filed a petition arguing that the state had not corrected the legal and procedural deficiencies identified in earlier court rulings.
The intensive management predator control program is an initiative to support the rebound of the Mulchatna Caribou Herd. The herd, which once numbered roughly 200,000 animals in the 1990s, has crashed to about 15,000 today, and subsistence hunting has been closed since 2021.
Bears were added to the longstanding predator control program in 2022 and since then the department has killed 186 brown bears and five black bears. Twenty wolves were also killed in that time.
The program was first halted in March, when a now-retired judge found the state had not provided proper public notice for the 2022 addition of bears. That judge also found the state failed to show the removals were sustainable for the bear population, as required by law.
13 days after that ruling, the Board of Game recreated the program through an emergency regulation, which bypasses the usual public comment process, but is only in effect for 120 days.
State officials say predator control is needed to boost calf survival and restore subsistence and hunting opportunities for dozens of rural communities.
Critics, including the AWA, argue there is little evidence that predators are the primary cause of the caribou’s decline, and not enough research has been done on how the program will impact the bear population.
AWA petitioned the court for a temporary restraining order to halt the killings under the emergency regulation this spring. Judge Rankin heard from the parties in court last week.
Rankin ruled on May 7 that the state's emergency regulation sidestepped the court’s March Order and that the department had not corrected the program's public process deficiencies.
The state argued that the order did not specifically require 30 days of public notice, and that the emergency regulation rectified a procedural failure identified in the March order. But Judge Rankin found this approach “disingenuous” and ruled that the March order had not been satisfied and is still binding.
Rankin denied AWA’s original restraining order, saying it was not an appropriate means for the judiciary to manage wildlife. But she said the restraining order was unnecessary because the original order was still in place.
Despite the court order, Fish and Game resumed bear removals last weekend [5/10, 5/11], killing 11 bears and one wolf, according to the department.
Then, AWA requested the court halt the program again.
In a written response on May 12, Judge Rankin said the state moving forward “demonstrates that compliance was not the goal of the Emergency Regulation – continuing predator control by any means was the goal.”
Rankin went on to say that the emergency regulation was passed and implemented “in bad faith.” and declared it invalid.
She said the issue was no longer related to wildlife management, but about enforcing prior court orders.
In a statement Tuesday, the Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang said the department is “extremely disappointed” by the ruling.
“We were in the third year of our efforts, and this order halted our work and jeopardized our recovery efforts,” said Vincent-Lang.
He said the department will continue pursuing its legal options, and plans to get the program reauthorized through the Board of Game in accordance with the original court order.
With the temporary restraining order in place, the department says they are ceasing all predator control efforts immediately.
