Jayapal, Fitzpatrick Urge National Park Service to Prohibit Extreme Hunting Practices in Alaska

SEATTLE – U.S. Representatives Pramila Jayapal (WA-07) and Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01) led a letter urging the quick implementation of a proposed National Park Service (NPS) rule that would protect Alaskan wildlife by prohibiting extreme hunting practices.

“This proposed rule would prohibit the cruelest practices for the hunting and trapping of some of America’s most rare, iconic, and beloved native wildlife, including brown bears, black bears, and wolves, on the approximately 20 million acres of national preserves in Alaska—land that belongs to all Americans,” wrote the lawmakers. “We urge you to finalize the rule in its current form without undue delay.”

The proposed rule effectively reinstates a 2015 NPS regulation prohibiting extreme, unsporting trophy hunting methods on national preserves in Alaska and reverses a 2020 NPS regulation that rolled back protections of native carnivores. These inhumane hunting methods include brown bear baiting, shooting swimming caribou, and killing entire wolf and coyote packs during denning season, fringe practices only employed by a small number of hunters.

The proposed rule would also ensure that the state cannot reduce native predator populations and thus artificially inflate prey populations for hunting purposes, but it does not affect subsistence hunting by local rural residents.

Jayapal led a bipartisan letter in 2018 on the same issue, opposing efforts to roll back these protections for 20 million acres in Alaska.

The letter is cosigned by Donald Beyer (VA-08), Earl Blumenauer (OR-03), Julia Brownley (CA-26), Tony Cárdenas (CA-29), Judy Chu (CA-28), Emanuel Cleaver (MO-05), Steve Cohen (TN-09), Veronica Escobar (TX-16), Henry “Hank” Johnson (GA-04), Barbara Lee (CA-12), Jerrold Nadler (NY-12), Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC-At Large), Scott Peters (CA-50), Mark Pocan (WI-02), Katie Porter (CA-47), Delia Ramirez (IL-04), Linda Sánchez (CA-38), Janice Schakowsky (IL-09), Dina Titus (NV-01), and David Trone (MD-06).

The letter is endorsed by the Human Society Legislative Fund.

The full text of the letter can be found here.

Issues: Environment