Alaska Bear Cull Now Faces Emergency Court Halt

Alaska is a very different place from almost anywhere in the lower 48. The size and wild nature of much of the Great Land mean that many of the people, mostly Natives, who live out in the bush communities depend, as they have for thousands of years, on subsistence hunting for food. A primary objective of subsistence hunters is caribou.

Caribou herds can consist of thousands of animals when they form up for migrations, but some herds here are doing better than others; one such is the Mulchatna herd, found between Dillingham and Bethel, which has been declining. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has been conducting an aerial cull of bears in the area to help the herd recover, but now two organizations, one from Outside, are suing to stop the cull.

Two environmental groups are asking an Anchorage Superior Court judge to pause a program killing bears in Southwest Alaska — part of an effort to boost the Mulchatna caribou herd — before it gets underway later this month. https://t.co/ILAQs9WKmp
— Anchorage Daily News (@adndotcom) May 2, 2026

There are a couple of conflicting priorities here: One, humans v. animals, the other, predators v. prey. Bears are a major source of mortality for caribou calves, and that holds true almost everywhere bears and cervids share habitat; in Colorado, bears are a major source of mortality for elk calves, as they are for whitetail fawns in Pennsylvania. They can cut quite a swathe through a herd, and in Alaska, a herd like the Mulchatna herd can attract a lot of bears.

Thus, the controversy.

The plaintiffs in the case, the Alaska Wildlife Alliance and Center for Biological Diversity, are seeking a preliminary injunction. Their attorney as well as a lawyer for the state of Alaska argued before Superior Court Judge Adolf Zeman on Friday afternoon in Anchorage.
The state’s intensive management efforts are slated to resume this month for a fourth season. Since 2023, personnel with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game have used small airplanes and a helicopter to kill 191 bears in a remote part of Southwest Alaska between Dillingham and Bethel where the Mulchatna caribou herd calves each May.

The Center for Biological Diversity is headquartered in Arizona, not Alaska. It's unclear what their stake in all this is.

The area in question is mostly roadless and sparsely populated, but again, many of the people who do live there are dependent on subsistence hunting.

Proponents of the program in the department and on the state Board of Game argue that predation from bears is a primary reason the Mulchatna herd has drastically declined over the last decade, and that they are required by state statute to implement policies that will increase the abundance of prey species for subsistence users and hunters.
At issue in Friday’s hearing is a dispute over whether policymakers used sufficient biological data to justify the program when it was authorized. The Mulchatna predator control policy was initially approved by the Board of Game in 2022, and in the years since, a series of legal challenges has played out in lawsuits and regulatory meetings.

So far, every legal challenge to this bear cull has failed, leaving open the question as to whether this is (once again) an attempt by interests from Outside trying to dictate Alaska policies.

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Nobody, in or out of Alaska, should be happy about the bear cull. It's an unfortunate decision that had to be made: reduce a major source of predation to help a prey species recover. Personally, though, I'm inclined to rely on the Department of Fish & Game for these decisions; they have wildlife biologists experienced in population management on staff to make these determinations, and I would sooner take their word than an environmental lobby from Arizona.

The hearing is happening on Friday. Whatever happens, we'll know soon, and so will the bears.

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