Overview
- Trustees for Alaska filed the state-court suit on behalf of the Alaska Wildlife Alliance and the Center for Biological Diversity in Anchorage, naming the Board of Game, the Department of Fish and Game, and Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang.
- The Board of Game in July reauthorized the program through 2028, allowing department shooters to kill brown and black bears from helicopters with no explicit cap on the number taken.
- Plaintiffs cite earlier operations they say killed 175 grizzlies and five black bears since 2023 and note courts previously faulted the state’s process and struck down emergency rules after 11 bears were killed.
- State officials defend the effort as necessary to rebuild the Mulchatna herd for subsistence use, pointing to survey data showing the highest calves-to-cows ratio since 1999 in a western subgroup and calling predation the limiting factor.
- The sides dispute the scope of the operation, with the state describing a roughly 1,200-square-mile focus area and environmental groups asserting authority over about 40,000 square miles near Lake Clark and Katmai national parks.