As part of an announcement on Friday, the Trump administration says sport hunters will once again be able to take bears over bait in Alaska’s national preserves under a final rule issued by the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior.
The rule, which was published in the federal register yesterday and is now scheduled to take effect November 18th, overturns restrictions imposed during the Obama and Biden administrations. It restores a management approach that deferred to Alaska Department of Fish and Game regulations for sport hunting in national preserves for most of the period since Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) back in 1980.
Alaska’s national preserves, unlike most national parks in the Lower 48, were specifically established under ANILCA to allow sport hunting, fishing, and trapping under applicable state and federal law. Bear baiting, which has naturally become the most controversial part of the announcement, has been a regulated practice under Alaska state rules since the early 1980s in designated areas and seasons.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the rule returns Alaska’s national parks and preserves to a framework that recognizes the state’s unique conditions and the state’s role in managing fish and wildlife.
“For more than three decades, Alaska’s national parks and preserves were managed under a framework that recognized Alaska’s unique circumstances, respected the State’s role in managing fish and wildlife, protected subsistence uses and conserved these remarkable lands and resources,” Burgum said. “This final rule restores that commonsense framework and gives Alaskans a stronger voice in decisions affecting the lands, wildlife and traditions they know best.”
Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang welcomed the change, calling it a return to the system established by the Alaska Constitution and reaffirmed in ANILCA.
“The change represents a necessary return to the fish and wildlife management framework… which had served Alaska for three decades,” Vincent-Lang said.
The new rule applies solely to sport hunting, the statutory and regulatory term used to distinguish this category of users from subsistence users. For those that hunt for subsistence on federal lands, baiting has always remained available in certain circumstances. All state regulations governing bait stations, which includes permits, registration, setbacks from roads and trails, and required education, will continue to apply.
The National Park Service estimates that harvest of bears over bait in the preserves has historically been low, on the order of no more than about 10 animals per year across all preserves combined.
Despite this fact, the decision was obviously not made without the much anticipated criticism. Environmental groups were quick to call the new rule “outrageous” and “disheartening” as other organizations like The National Parks Conservation Association and the Center for Biological Diversity described the practice as inappropriate for national park units and raised concerns about public safety and wildlife viewing.
Outside of the apparently controversial act of bear baiting, the rule also makes other adjustments, including restoring an allowance for licensed trappers to use firearms in preserves and removing a permit requirement for subsistence users collecting non-edible animal parts for handicrafts.
For the past decade, rules governing hunting methods in Alaska’s national preserves have shifted like the tides with each new presidential administration. President Obama started things off back in 2015 when his administration first slashed bear baiting and several other state-authorized practices. An incoming first-term Trump administration rule reversed many of those restrictions before the Biden administration reverted and reinstated a ban on baiting in 2024. The current rule implements an executive order that was issued on the first day of the current administration directing a return to the earlier framework.
The final rule published in the Federal Register as “Alaska; Wildlife, Harvest, and Access” does not reopen any areas closed to hunting by statute and does not alter the state’s primary authority over fish and wildlife populations.
