Alaska; Hunting and Trapping in National Preserves

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>National Park Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>36 CFR Part 13</CFR> <DEPDOC>[NPS-AKRO-36475; PPAKAKROZ5, PPMPRLE1Y.L00000]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1024-AE70</RIN> <SUBJECT>Alaska; Hunting and Trapping in National Preserves</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Park Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The National Park Service amends its regulations for sport hunting and trapping in national preserves in Alaska to prohibit bear baiting and clarify trapping regulations. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective on August 2, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket to read comments received, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and search for Docket ID: NPS-2023-0001. <E T="03">Document Availability:</E> The Revisiting Sport Hunting and Trapping on National Park System Preserves in Alaska Revised Environmental Assessment (EA) and Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) provide information and context for this rule and are available online at <E T="03">https://parkplanning.nps.gov/akro</E> by clicking the link entitled “Revisiting Sport Hunting and Trapping on National Park System Preserves in Alaska” and then clicking the link entitled “Document List.” <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Sarah Creachbaum, Regional Director, Alaska Regional Office, 240 West 5th Ave., Anchorage, AK 99501; phone (907) 644-3510; email: <E T="03">AKR_Regulations@nps.gov.</E> Individuals in the United States who are deaf, deafblind, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability may dial 711 (TTY, TDD, or TeleBraille) to access telecommunications relay services. Individuals outside the United States should use the relay services offered within their country to make international calls to the point-of-contact in the United States. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) allows harvest of wildlife in national preserves in Alaska for subsistence purposes by local rural residents under Federal regulations. ANILCA also allows harvest of wildlife for sport purposes by any individual under laws of the State of Alaska (referred to as the State) that do not conflict with Federal laws. ANILCA requires the National Park Service (NPS) to manage national preserves consistent with the NPS Organic Act of 1916, which directs the NPS “to conserve the scenery, natural and historic objects, and wild life in the System units and to provide for the enjoyment of the scenery, natural and historic objects, and wild life in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” 54 U.S.C. 100101(a). Thus, the NPS recognizes that its conservation stewardship mandate for national preserves in Alaska includes both utilitarian uses of wildlife as well as recognition of their intrinsic value. The NPS also recognizes that both the utilitarian use and intrinsic value of wildlife are concepts that predate the NPS Organic Act, and thus the NPS. On June 9, 2020, the NPS published a final rule (2020 Rule; 85 FR 35181) that removed restrictions on sport hunting and trapping in national preserves in Alaska that were implemented by the NPS in 2015 (2015 Rule; 80 FR 64325). These included restrictions on the following methods of taking wildlife that were and continue to be authorized by the State in certain locations: taking black bear cubs, and sows with cubs, with artificial light at den sites; harvesting bears over bait; taking wolves and coyotes (including pups) during the denning season (between May 1 and August 9); taking swimming caribou; taking caribou from motorboats under power; and using dogs to hunt black bears. The 2015 Rule prohibited other harvest practices that were and continue to be similarly prohibited by the State. These prohibitions also were removed by the 2020 Rule. The 2020 Rule also removed a statement in the 2015 Rule that State laws or management actions that seek to, or have the potential to, alter or manipulate natural predator populations or processes in order to increase harvest of ungulates by humans are not allowed in national preserves in Alaska. The NPS based the 2020 Rule in part on direction from the Department of the Interior (DOI) to expand recreational hunting opportunities and align hunting opportunities with those established by states. Secretary's Orders 3347 and 3356. The 2020 Rule also responded to direction from the Secretary of the Interior to review and reconsider regulations that were more restrictive than state provisions, and specifically the restrictions on harvesting wildlife found in the 2015 Rule. On January 9, 2023, the NPS published a proposed rule (88 FR 1176) that would prohibit certain harvest practices, including bear baiting; and would prohibit predator control or predator reduction on national preserves. In developing the proposed rule, NPS sought input from Tribal entities, subsistence user groups, and the State of Alaska. The harvest practices at issue in the 2015 Rule, 2020 Rule, and this final rule are specific to harvest under the authorization for sport hunting and trapping in ANILCA. None of these rules address subsistence harvest by rural residents under title VIII of ANILCA. <HD SOURCE="HD2">The 2015 Rule</HD> Some of the harvest methods prohibited by the 2015 Rule targeted predators. When the NPS restricted these harvest methods in the 2015 Rule, it concluded that these methods were allowed by the State for the purpose of reducing predation by bears and wolves to increase populations of prey species (ungulates) for harvest by human hunters. The State's hunting regulations are driven by proposals from members of the public, fish and game advisory entities, and State and Federal Government agencies. The State, through the State of Alaska Board of Game (BOG), deliberates on the various proposals publicly. Many of the comments made in the proposals and BOG deliberations on specific hunting practices showed that they were intended to reduce predator populations for the purpose of increasing prey populations. Though the State objected to this conclusion in its comments on the 2015 Rule, the NPS's conclusion was based on State law and policies;  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> BOG proposals, deliberations, and decisions;  <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> and Alaska Department of Fish and Game actions, statements, and publications leading up to the 2015 Rule. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> Because NPS Management Policies state that the NPS will manage lands within the National Park System for natural processes (including natural wildlife fluctuations, abundances, and behaviors) and explicitly prohibit predator control, the NPS determined that these harvest methods authorized by the State were in conflict with NPS mandates. NPS Management Policies (4.4.1, 4.4.3) (2006). For these reasons and because the State refused to exempt national preserves from these authorized practices, the NPS prohibited them in the 2015 Rule and adopted a regulatory provision consistent with NPS policy direction on predator control related to harvest. The 2015 Rule further provided that the Regional Director would compile, annually update, and post on the NPS website a list of any State predator control laws or actions prohibited by the NPS on national preserves in Alaska. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Alaska Statutes (AS) section 16.05.255(k) (definition of sustained yield); Findings of the Alaska Board of Game, 2006-164-BOG, Board of Game Bear Conservation and Management Policy (May 14, 2006) (rescinded in 2012). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">See, e.g.,</E> Alaska Board of Game Proposal Book for March 2012, proposals 146, 167, 232. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See, e.g.,</E> AS section 16.05.255(e); State of Alaska Department of Fish and Game Emergency Order on Hunting and Trapping 04-01-11 (Mar. 31, 2011) ( <E T="03">available at Administrative Record for Alaska</E> v. <E T="03">Jewell et al.,</E> No. 3:17-cv-00013-JWS, D. Alaska pp. NPS0164632-35), State of Alaska Department of Fish and Game Agenda Change 11 Request to State Board of Game to increase brown bear harvest in game management unit 22 (2015); Alaska Department of Fish and Game Wildlife Conservation Director Corey Rossi, “Abundance Based Fish, Game Management Can Benefit All,” Anchorage Daily News (Feb. 21, 2009); ADFG News Release—Wolf Hunting and Trapping Season extended in Unit 9 and 10 in response to caribou population declines (3/31/2011); Alaska Department of Fish and Game Craig Fleener, Testimony to US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources re: Abundance Based Wildlife Management (Sept. 23, 2013); Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Hunting and Trapping Emergency Order 4-01-11 to Extend Wolf Hunting and Trapping Seasons in GMU [Game Management Unit] 9 and 10 (LACL and KATM) (Nov. 25, 2014); ADFG Presentation Intensive Management of Wolves, Bears, and Ungulates in Alaska (Feb. 2009). </FTNT> As stated above, the 2015 Rule only restricted harvest for “sport purposes.” Although this phrase is used in ANILCA, the statute does not define the term “sport.” In the 2015 Rule, the NPS reasoned that harvest for subsistence is for the purpose of feeding oneself and family and maintaining cultural practices, and that “sport” or recreational hunting invokes Western concepts of fairness which do not necessarily apply to subsistence practices. Therefore, the 2015 Rule prohibited the practices of harvesting swimming caribou and taking caribou from motorboats under power which the NPS concluded were not consistent with generally accepted notions of “sport” hunting. This conclusion ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 100k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━