Luring bears with bait including bacon and donuts, using flashlights to blind prey and shooting wolf pups in their dens will become legal across Alaska on Thursday under a new federal law rolling back bans introduced under the Obama administration.
The highly controversial hunting techniques, which also include using dogs to track bears and shooting swimming caribou from motor boats, have been fiercely criticized by environmentalists, but long employed by indigenous peoples to subsist. Under then-president Barack Obama the National Park Service in 2015 prohibited the practices on national preserves in Alaska.
Alaskan hunters and local officials challenged the ban at the time, arguing it encroached on the way of life of the state’s residents and hurt their ability to feed their families.
“Living off the land is a critical component of rural Alaska lifestyle,” Eddie Grasser, director of wildlife conservation for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, told the New York Times in June.
The controversial practices are rarely used by recreational hunters but used primarily in remote communities, he said.
But naturalists and animal rights groups have slammed the Trump administration’s decision to scrap the bans.
Visitors view former U.S. President Barack Obama’s portrait during the exhibition “America’s Presidents” at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C., the United States, on February 17. Photo: Xinhua
