National park service bans bear baiting in Alaska
The ruling is the first step to protect bears in national preserves, as advocates say other cruel hunting methods like killing cubs and pups in dens must now also be stopped too.
Animal advocates have welcomed plans by the National Park Service (NPS) that will ban bear baiting in Alaska.
The new rule, announced by the NPS last week, prohibits sport hunters from using bait like donuts, dog food, and meat to entice and then slaughter bears on national preserves in Alaska.
While the controversial hunting method has long been condemned by animal advocates, the Service noted in a statement that its new ban is to address significant public safety concerns and protect visitors.
According to the NPS, bear baiting encourages bears to become conditioned to human-provided food, which can increase the likelihood of dangerous human-bear interactions.
Animal advocacy groups have applauded the ban, but were quick to point out that the ruling leaves various other dangerous and cruel hunting methods still in place.
“Stopping bear baiting in preserves is important for visitor safety and ecological health. The rest of this rule is disappointing,” said Jim Adams, Alaska Senior Regional Director for the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA).
Adams explains that the new ruling will continue to allow so-called sport hunting methods that include killing bears and cubs in their dens and killing wolf pups during the denning season. It will also permit hunters the use of artificial light at the den sites of black bears.
“In its rule, the Park Service recognizes that numerous sport hunting practices conflict with the agency’s mission - yet allows them to continue”, says Adams.
The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) echoed these sentiments, and said that while the ban on bear baiting is “vitally important”, the group is “devastated” by the ruling’s omissions to prohibit other cruel hunting methods.
Last year, the National Park Service received more than 116,000 comments in support of the proposed rule to ban all of these hunting methods, but now the final ruling has only limited bear baiting.
Of the 54 million acres of national parklands in Alaska, approximately 22 million are managed as national preserves which allow for hunting and fishing. The law surrounding such activities - which wildlife can be killed and how - has been at the centre of a decades-long political debate.
The cruel hunting methods that HSUS, NPCA and other groups want prohibited were originally all banned back in 2015. But that ban was reversed in June 2020 under the Trump Administration, which stripped protections for bears and cubs on federally run national preserves.
Conservation groups then rallied together and took legal action against the Trump Administration’s decision, which led to a Federal District Judge rejecting the reversal in 2022. The National Park Service’s latest announcement is a result of that legal action.
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