Four brown bears line up at the top of the falls on the Brooks River on Sept. 6, 2021, to fish for salmon. Brooks Falls draws bears from around the region, as well as Katmai National Park and Preserve tourists who travel there to view the bear crowds. (Photo by L. Law/National Park Service)
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s decision to kill almost 200 brown bears in order to boost a struggling caribou herd violated due process and was unconstitutional, an Anchorage Superior Court judge ruled Friday.
Judge Andrew Guidi’s 10-page decision means at least a temporary end to the state’s controversial bear-killing program, which was intended to aid the struggling Mulchatna caribou herd.
“Unless they want to seek a stay of this decision, they’ve got to stop killing bears,” said attorney Joe Geldhof, who represented the Alaska Wildlife Alliance in a lawsuit that prompted Friday’s decision.
The Alliance sued the state in 2023 to challenge the application of Alaska’s “intensive management” project in Southwest Alaska.
Originally designed to kill wolves in order to boost the populations of prey species that hunters pursue, the program was expanded in 2022 to cover bears that have been preying on the Mulchatna caribou herd.
That herd, which contained 200,000 animals at its peak in 1997, has declined to about 13,000 animals and is closed to hunting.
Anchorage attorney Michelle Bittner filed a separate lawsuit, also challenging the state’s bear-killing program.
Both lawsuits argued that the state’s Board of Game failed to follow adequate due process standards before beginning the program.
Before a judge could consider the merits of either case, state attorneys argued that Bittner did not have the standing to bring a lawsuit on the issue. That argument went all the way to the Alaska Supreme Court, which ruled in February that Bittner could bring her case.
That cleared the way for the Alaska Wildlife Alliance’s lawsuit to advance as well, with oral arguments taking place in March.
Ruling Friday on the merits, Guidi concluded that the Board of Game violated due process and did not provide adequate public notice when it began its bear-killing program.
“The notice provided by the BOG contemplating extension of an existing wolf control program to lands managed by the federal government that was altered to include a bear removal program on state lands substantially changed the subject matter of the proposal,” Guidi wrote. “These changes went far beyond varying, clarifying or altering the specific matter of the proposal addressed in the original notice. As a result, the BOG failed to adhere to mandatory due process standards.”
Guidi also found that the Board of Game violated the Alaska Constitution’s principle of sustained yield because it valued the sustainability of caribou herds but didn’t adequately study what would happen to bear populations.
“The issue of the bear population and distribution is an obvious salient issue touching on sustainability,” he wrote. “Addressing the sustainability of a constitutionally protected resource like bears almost certainly requires the BOG to engage in more than a rudimentary discussion about a bear population or engage in conclusionary opinions when considering a proposal to initiate a program calling for the unrestricted killing of bears.”
A spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Law, which represented the Board of Game in the lawsuit, said the state is reviewing the order and considering its options for how to proceed.
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