Alaska to Resume ‘Barbaric’ Aerial Shooting of Wolves and Bears

Alaska will resume the “barbaric” practice of shooting bears and wolves from helicopters to reduce their numbers with the hope that it will boost moose and caribou herds.

The renewed program would permit hunters to kill as many as 80 percent of the natural predators across 2,000 acres of state lands, reported The Guardian.

“Alaska’s practice of indiscriminately strafing predators is both inhumane and inane,” said Rick Steiner, an ecologist with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), in a press release from PEER. “There is no scientific evidence that this carnage will boost populations of moose and caribou, and there is a growing body of evidence that it disrupts a healthy predator/prey balance in the wild.”

Environmental groups opposed the practice, which they said has more to do with increasing caribou populations as trophy animals to be killed by hunters than it does with science-based wildlife management, The Guardian reported.

The state’s report on the program followed the Biden administration’s upholding of rules set during President Donald Trump’s first term that allowed other inhumane hunting practices, such as killing cubs in their dens, on Alaska federal lands.

On some state lands in Alaska, “intensive management” practices allow game agents to indiscriminately kill any black bear, brown bear or wolf.

In 2023, almost 100 bears were killed by helicopter, including 20 cubs.

The newest plan would allow 80 percent of wolves to be killed by aerial hunters until their numbers are reduced to 35; cutting down the black bear population by 80 percent to 700 individuals; and bringing the number of brown bears down 60 percent to a population of 375.

Critics of the state’s predator control methods said the state admitted in the report that it did not know the full impact of the practices on bear populations, since estimates of brown bear numbers were not known before the kills were allowed. Over half of brown bears killed last year were adult females, which raises additional concerns about the ability of the population to rebound.

“With a desire to avoid delaying the initiation of bear removal; the Department did not have an opportunity to estimate brown bear densities within the IM areas prior to removals,” the state’s report from October 2024 said.

“The goal of the project was to increase caribou calf survival by removing all bears and wolves from the calving grounds during the spring period when calves are highly susceptible to predation,” the report went on to say. “Data does not exist to evaluate whether the goal was achieved.”

Alaska officials refused to allow photographs to be taken of the killings, to subject the state’s program to federal scientific review or to permit independent observers to witness the slaughter, reported The Guardian.

The mass killing of wildlife in close proximity to national parks leads to major declines in predator numbers on federal lands, PEER said in the press release.

“Due to state predator control practices on adjacent lands, the ability of visitors to see intact wolf packs inside Denali National Park, one of the state’s major tourist draws, has plummeted,” PEER explained.

The National Park Service ended a study of wolf behavior in Yukon-Charley National Preserve that lasted more than 20 years because the same types of practices led to the collapse of the resident wolf population.

“Alaska’s predator control policies are cruel and the epitome of penny wise and pound foolish. The amount of tourist dollars from people seeking to view these predators in the wild dwarfs any incremental increase in hunting fee revenue the state hopes to realize,” said Tim Whitehouse, executive director of PEER, whose organization is circulating a national petition in protest of the most recent aerial gunning operation, in the press release. “Unfortunately, given its prior track record, we do not expect a Trump administration to protect wildlife on federal lands from state predator removal operations no matter how devastating or barbaric.”