Victory For Wildlife: National Park Service Restores Ban On Bear Baiting In Alaska

The National Park Service made a landmark announcement on Friday, introducing a final rule that prohibits the use of bait to attract and kill brown and black bears in Alaska’s national preserves.

Bear baiting is a controversial hunting practice where bait, such as food or scented attractants, is used to lure bears to a specific location, enabling hunters to more easily target and kill these helpless animals.

While this is a positive step forward in abolishing some of the most inhumane hunting and trapping practices, the rule fails to tackle other cruel methods. This includes the killing of hibernating mother black bears and their cubs in dens, perpetuating substantial suffering not only for black bears but also for brown bears, wolves, and coyotes.

“While we applaud the ending of harmful and dangerous bear baiting on Alaska’s national preserve lands, the agency left in place other draconian killing measures including black bear hounding, the killing of female black bears and their cubs while asleep in the their wintertime dens, and the culling of entire wolf and coyote families at pup-rearing den sites,” Wendy Keefover, senior strategist of wildlife protection for the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), told WAN.

In 2020, HSUS and other conservation groups sued over a rule permitting state-authorized hunting practices, such as bear baiting on federal preserves. This rule reversed a ban on non-subsistence hunters using methods like bear baiting, hunting black bears with dogs, killing wolves during denning season, and hunting swimming caribou.

In 2022, U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason uncovered multiple flaws in the initial rule after the National Park Service disregarded its 2015 finding that state regulations failed to adequately address public safety concerns regarding bear baiting.

Last year, the agency proposed reinstating the ban on hunting methods prohibited during the Obama administration. While the new rule prioritized addressing bear baiting, it failed to tackle other cruel hunting practices.

Those who support cruel killing methods often justify their actions by claiming it is necessary to eliminate native carnivores in order to boost prey populations for hunters, a practice referred to as “predator control.” Yet, scientific evidence overwhelmingly shows that predator control is not only ineffective, but also has destructive ramifications for both native carnivores and their prey.

In 2019, the HSUS revealed disturbing footage showing a father and son ruthlessly killing a hibernating mother bear and her cubs in their den in Alaska. After shooting the mother bear, despite the cubs’ cries of fear, the poachers mercilessly shot the two cubs at point-blank range.

Unscientific “intensive management” practices aimed at native carnivores have resulted in the decline of species like brown bears, causing harm to entire families and disrupting ecosystems.

While the ban on bear baiting is a positive step forward, further action is needed to safeguard wolves, coyotes, and other species from facing inhumane deaths caused by humans.