National Park Service officials are moving to better protect wildlife in national preserves in Alaska by adopting certain rules that restrict how and where wildlife can be hunted in the preserves, which encompass about 20 million acres in the state.
Sport hunting in national preserves continues to be primarily regulated by the State of Alaska. The state-authorized practices being prohibited conflict with National Park Service law and policy, Park Service officials said in a release. Units of the National Park System are managed for naturally-functioning ecosystems and processes. While sport hunting is allowed in national preserves in Alaska, NPS policies prohibit manipulating native predator populations, typically bears and wolves, to increase numbers of harvested species, such as caribou and moose, they added.
Under the new federal regulations, which were proposed in 2014, most state-managed hunting practices and seasons are retained in the preserves. These regulations do not restrict or limit subsistence hunting under federal subsistence rules on NPS-managed lands.
The new regulations make permanent several similar temporary restrictions that had been implemented annually for several years. The NPS received about 70,000 comments, and three petitions with a total of approximately 75,000 signatures, and collected input at 26 public meetings held across Alaska.
The new regulations provide six significant changes for sport hunters in national preserves:
· -- The NPS will continue to adopt future and current non-conflicting State hunting practices, including the State's list of prohibited practices.
· -- Prohibit taking wolves and coyotes (including pups) during the denning season.
· -- Prohibit the taking of any black bear with artificial light at den sites including cubs and sows with cubs.
· -- Prohibit taking brown and black bears over bait.
· -- State law also prohibits using dogs to hunt big game. There is an exception for using dogs to hunt black bears. The NPS will not adopt this exception on preserves.
· -- State law prohibits taking big game that is swimming. The exception allows a hunter to shoot a swimming caribou from a boat under power or otherwise, and it also allows the hunter to shoot a caribou that has emerged from the water onto the shoreline while the hunter is still in the boat under power. The NPS will not adopt those exceptions on NPS preserves. The practice primarily takes place on the Noatak National Preserve.
The regulations also update and simplify closure procedures for Alaska Park Service units and make those procedures more consistent with NPS procedures across the country. The primary change is the elimination of the category of “temporary” closures, which expired after 12 months. Closures and restrictions will be compiled annually in writing and made available to the public or, except for emergencies, published as a rulemaking in the Federal Register. The distinction will be done through a criteria-based approach similar to other NPS Lower 48 units (and mirrored by Alaska State Parks). In-person public meetings and public notice will be required prior to adopting hunting or fishing closures.
The closure regulations become effective on November 23, 2015, however these new hunting regulations do not take effect until January 1, 2016. The complete text of the regulations and supporting materials are available at this site.
National Parks Conservation Association officials applauded the Park Service's action.
“Since 2001, NPCA has documented more than 60 instances where the Alaska Board of Game ignored requests by the Park Service to exempt park lands from proposed regulations that conflict with its purposes and policies. In issuing the final wildlife regulations, the Park Service is following through on a long-anticipated action, to to disallow state regulations that target bears, wolves and other predators on national preserves," said Joan Frankevich, Alaska Program Manager for the advocacy group.
“(This) announcement marks a remarkable step towards managing national preserves as Congress intended, to protect our spectacular Alaska wildlife, which attracts millions of visitors each year. NPCA commends the extensive public process that the Park Service led, and supports the full implementation of these new regulations.”
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Comments
Tradition is not a good excuse for environmentally destructive practices like hunting! We are in the 21st century, not prehistoric times. "Subsistence" killing is still killing, and destroys genetic diversity. It's high time that we grew up and respected other species.
Subsistence hunting puts food on the tables and feeds families. I submit that the prior comment was from someone who has never been hungry.
Here in the Smokies, local officials are concerned that the bears don't have enough to eat due to low mast production this year. Hunters are chomping at the bit to expand bear hunting priviledges for those counties adjacent to the National Park. Even though bears are legally protected from hunters and their dogs on National Park Lands, dogs don't read the park boundary signs and in the fog of a hot pursuit of a bear, very often neither do hunters. Last year over 1,500 bears were legally "harvested" in NC and over 350 in TN. Almost 100% of bears "harvested" in NC and TN were killed by gunshot after being chased up a tree by a pack of hunting dogs. Most hunters don't eat bear meat--instead, they collect heads, skins and paws with claws as trophies.
Thank you!
1. Glad to see the National Park Traveler post an action of extreme political difficulty that reflects honor on the NPS leadership. Although Traveler feels park leadership should focus its energy -- beyond dealing with Congress, its budget, the Administration, and numerous unfunded mandates -- on oersight of the SE Region and issues generated by PEER or Coburn or Butowski, some insight should be allotted to the massive difficulty of getting a regulation like this through. Esp. when the dominant congressional player in park funding and park laws and oversight is the senior Senator from Alaska, this takes true courage, persistence, and time to get through.
2. to "Anonymous" you should understand that subsistence hunting, unlike trophy hunting or the manipulative practices of the State of Alaska game board these regs change in park preserves in AK, does not destroy genetic diversity. And the Alaska Lands Act requires the NPS to make sure subsistence hunting does not destroy genetic diversity.
3. To Rick B and TnHiker, these rules do not apply to subsistence hunters who may be hunting for hunger. They apply to sport hunting. What they really do is stop the State from pushing practices to kill off predators. When the State game board pushes for "denning" this is not about killing for hunger. The AK Board of Game wants the dens where new born wolves and bear have been born, to be invaded by killers to eliminate whole groups of wolves or bear. The State's idea is to treat prey species like moose and caribou as agricultural products, to increase the yield of these "products" to make it easier for sport hunters to "harvest" them. Unlike normal predation by a healthy population of wolves and bear that typically targets the weak, deliberately ballooning moose or caribou populations is not good for moose or caribou. And it destroys the "natural" wildlife dynamics that the law requires the NPS to follow, but with the current crazyness over letting states manage wildlife on federal lands and Congress second thinking professional public land management and attacking professionals as "unelected" hacks as this Congress and PEER does, and the professional management and integrity of parks daily threatened by such political tactics, it is a wonder that the NPS could take on the Alaska Board of Game and come up with regs of this scope as it has.
d-2, for an operation with one full-time staffer, I'd argue that the Traveler does a pretty good job of surveying the landscape of the National Park System and National Park Service. We are the only website that generates daily content on the parks, and only the parks.
We've produced in-depth pieces on the threat oil trains pose to the park system; profiled Michael Frome, a stalwart in conversation circles; generated features on parks large and small, and; touched on hot-button issues such as growth of the park system, wilderness management, and wildlife management. And that's just what comes immediately to mind.
If more of our readers would step up, as you have, and donate to the cause, perhaps we could hire a staff to produce more thorough coverage.
We are trying to build community around the national parks, but can't do it on a volunteer basis. If readers want broader coverage, we hope they'll donate on a regular basis. While we ask but $9.95 a year, we would hope they see much more value in a site dedicated to national parks and which produces content every day of the year.
Donations to the National Park Traveler is a terrific thing, and i hope everyone concerned with parks regardless of perspective does donate. Reminds me i need to donate before the end of the year.
Thanks, d-2 for a fine set of comments. While I strongly disagree with 1, you're spot on with 2 and 3.