Every summer, state wildlife agents in Alaska shoot brown and black bears from helicopters across a region the size of Ohio. There is no limit on how many bears can be killed. There is no credible count of how many bears even live there. And according to multiple court rulings, the entire program is unconstitutional.

Now Alaska wants to do it again — possibly as soon as May — and we need to stop it.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has been running what it calls a "predator control" program across roughly 40,000 square miles of southwest Alaska, targeting bears in an attempt to help caribou herds recover. But courts have repeatedly found the program is not backed by science. In March 2025, the Anchorage Superior Court ruled the program was "unlawfully adopted and, therefore, void and without legal effect." When the state tried to revive it through an emergency regulation, the court struck that down too. Despite these rulings, state agents still went out and killed 11 more bears.

Now the Alaska Board of Game has reinstated the program a third time — still without collecting new population data on the bears being targeted. As Nicole Schmitt, executive director of the Alaska Wildlife Alliance, put it: "This program is not based on science, has no legitimate measures of success, and has cost the state more than $1 million in program and legal fees."

Since 2023, at least 180 bears have been killed under this program. Without urgent court intervention — and without public pressure — that number will keep climbing. Bears are not a pest to be exterminated. They are a vital part of Alaska's ecosystem, protected under the state's own constitution, which requires all wildlife to be managed sustainably as a shared public resource.

Conservation groups including the Alaska Wildlife Alliance, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Trustees for Alaska are in court right now fighting to stop this program before it resumes. We stand with them.

Sign this petition to urge the Alaska Board of Game and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to immediately halt all bear removal operations under the Mulchatna Caribou Herd Predation Management Area program — and to commit to any future wildlife management decisions being grounded in verified science, constitutional law, and respect for Alaska's wildlife.

Bears, caribou, and the entire Mulchatna ecosystem deserve better than this.