A state lawsuit is challenging National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regulations to prohibit certain hunting methods on nearly 100 million acres of national wildlife refuges and national preserves in Alaska.
These regulations attempting to instill such prohibitions would impact some customary and traditional methods of harvest practiced by Alaska’s subsistence users, the state contends.
The complaint seeking a declaratory judgment, a decision resolving the legal uncertainty posed by the litigants, and injunctive relief, a court order to stop the federal agencies’ actions, was filed in the U.S. District Court in Anchorage on Jan. 13.
The federal agencies named in the lawsuit have 60 days to file their response, and after that the court will set a litigation schedule.
“As Alaskans, we have a unique relationship with our land – especially in the most rural parts of our state where residents rely on hunting and fishing to put food on the table,” said Gov. Bill Walker. “These regulations impact our basic means of survival. Alaskans must be able to provide for their families, and the rules that have been put forward by the federal government do not support that.”
“These federal regulations are not about predator control or protecting the state’s wildlife numbers,” said Attorney Gen. Johna Lindemuth. “These regulations are about the federal government trying to control Alaskans’ way of life and how Alaskans conduct their business. This is contrary to state and federal law.”
The lawsuit argues that the regulations adopted by the NPS and PWS would, in part, prohibit qualified rural residents from subsistence hunting and fishing under state subsistence regulations, and expand the discretionary authority of those agencies to prohibit the take of fish and wildlife under state regulations in the future.
“The regulations at issue ban certain state authorized practices,” said Assistant Attorney General Cheryl Brooking. “They are in effect for federally qualified subsistence users, but nobody else, which means all other subsistence users cannot engage in those methods and means of hunting.
“The biggest difference is the way they defined natural diversity,” Brooking said. “They (the federal agencies) are saying that precludes methods and means for hunting predators unless you are a federally qualified user.
“We are trying to protect the rights of all hunters, including subsistence hunters who are not federally qualified,” she said.
Under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, a federally qualified subsistence user is a rural Alaska resident qualified to harvest fish or wildlife on federal public lands in accordance with the Federal Subsistence Management Regulations.
ANILCA Section 801. (5) states that “The national interest in the proper regulation, protection and conservation of fish and wildlife on the public lands in Alaska and the continuation of the opportunity for subsistence way of life by residents of rural Alaska require that an administrative structure be established for the purpose of enabling rural residents who have personal knowledge of local conditions and requirements to have a meaningful role in the management of fish and wildlife and of subsistence uses on the public lands in Alaska.
Under Alaska state law, all residents are eligible to practice subsistence.
