There is a stretch of federal land in Alaska — some 22 million acres of national preserve, owned by every American — where it may soon be legal again to enter a den and shoot a hibernating mother bear and her cubs by the light of an artificial lamp. To kill wolf pups and their mothers at the den during denning season. To lure brown bears with piles of bait, run black bears down with packs of dogs, and gun down caribou as they swim. These are not the practices of subsistence or fair-chase hunting. They are the leading edge of a fight over who our public lands are really for.
What’s happening — and what’s at risk
In March 2026 the National Park Service proposed a rule that would strip federal protections from Alaska’s national preserves and hand wildlife management back to the state — which has aggressively expanded exactly these methods. The stated goal is “predator control”: kill enough wolves and bears, the theory goes, and there will be more moose and caribou for hunters to take. The catch is that the science doesn’t back it up. Study after study has found that slaughtering native carnivores to inflate game herds simply doesn’t work — and it comes at a steep ecological price, because predators are what keep these systems in balance. When Alaska first allowed brown-bear baiting on state lands near the Kenai, human-caused bear deaths jumped roughly six-fold, collapsing a local population.
This is the heart of the trophy-hunting problem on public lands. National preserves and refuges were set aside by Congress to protect wildlife in its natural diversity — not to be run as game farms for the benefit of trophy seekers. Turning them over to predator-killing programs doesn’t just inflict needless suffering on highly intelligent, social animals; it rewrites the purpose of the land itself.
Where it stands in 2026
The Alaska preserves rule went out for public comment in spring 2026, drawing fierce opposition from conservation groups, scientists, and — according to repeated polling — a majority of Alaskans themselves. It is the latest turn in a fight that has now flipped with each administration: an Obama-era rule banned these methods in 2015, the first Trump administration reopened them in 2020, the Biden administration restored the ban in 2024, and the current administration is moving to tear it down again.
There is reason for cautious hope. On the neighboring Kenai National Wildlife Refuge — governed by a different law — federal courts have repeatedly upheld the government’s authority to ban brown-bear baiting, and in late 2024 the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the state’s challenge, leaving those protections in place. The legal foundation for protecting wildlife on federal land is strong. But the preserves rule rests on different ground, and its outcome is still unwritten.
“It’s about state rights and hunting heritage” — and why that doesn’t hold up
Supporters — the State of Alaska, Safari Club International, and hunting-advocacy groups — argue that Alaska was promised authority over wildlife within its borders, that hunting is a legitimate heritage and a tool of management, and that decisions should rest on the best available science. Those points deserve respect. Hunting can be done ethically and sustainably, and the subsistence hunting that feeds many Alaska Native and rural families is a genuine right that no one should casually dismiss.
But this rule isn’t about subsistence, and it isn’t fair chase. Baiting hibernating bears and killing pups in their dens are methods that many hunters themselves reject as unsporting. On authority, the courts have said plainly that the federal government may set conservation rules on federal land — that is not overreach, it is the law. And on science, the “best available” evidence cuts the other way: predator-control killing to boost game herds is precisely the approach researchers have found ineffective. When the cruelty is this stark and the justification this thin, “heritage” is doing a great deal of work to cover for trophy killing.
What we’re calling for
- Keep the federal ban on cruel predator-control methods — den killing, bear baiting, and the killing of hibernating bears, cubs, and denning pups — on Alaska’s national preserves and all federal public lands.
- Manage national preserves and refuges for natural wildlife diversity, not as game farms for trophy hunters.
- Protect native carnivores like wolves, bears, and mountain lions from recreational trophy killing on public lands.
- Ground wildlife decisions in independent science, and reject “predator control” programs the evidence doesn’t support.
- Honor genuine subsistence rights while drawing a clear line against trophy hunting and method-based cruelty.
How to help
Public lands belong to all of us, and the agencies deciding their fate are required to weigh public input. Here’s where your voice counts:
- Submit comments whenever the Park Service or Fish and Wildlife Service opens a period on these hunting rules — say plainly that you oppose den killing, baiting, and trophy predator hunts on public land.
- Urge your members of Congress to defend federal authority to protect wildlife on federal lands.
- Support the conservation and animal-protection groups litigating and organizing against these rollbacks.
- Spread the word — most Americans have no idea these methods are being brought back on land they own.
These animals, and these lands, belong to all of us — not to the few who would turn them into trophies. Get involved with Funny not Funny and help us keep public lands a refuge, not a killing field.