OPINION: Biologists challenge rationale for state’s ‘intensive management’ of Mourchatna

Recently, a state-led cull of 81 bears was conducted in southwestern Alaska. The total number of bears killed since May 2023, including bears with cubs and mother bears, is now 180. In mid-June, the Alaska Department of Fish and Wildlife issued a press release outlining the agency’s official position on this “intensive management program.” In simple terms, the goal of the program is to mass-cult bears and wolves to “rebuild” the Mulchatna caribou herd, which reached a record high of 200,000 in the late 1990s but has since declined to about 13,000.

Fish and Wildlife Service leaders argue that killing bears and wolves is the only thing the agency can do to increase the size of the herds, and that the program is based on sound science and a “logical step in adaptive management” as the agency seeks to grow the herd toward an arbitrary goal of 30,000.

What Alaskans need to know is that many knowledgeable biologists, both inside and outside of the Fish and Wildlife Service, strongly disagree with the state’s official position and its rationale. Some biologists and junior managers most familiar with the Mulchatna IM program say not only is the Fish and Wildlife Service’s predator-killing approach wrong, but that the senior managers driving the program are ignoring the research and recommendations of the service’s caribou researchers. Worse yet, these managers continue to spread disinformation that contradicts what biologists have learned from their research.

As many of the biologists with close ties to the Murchatna herd have recently retired or taken other jobs, we’ve found they are more willing to publicly share their knowledge and criticisms of Fish and Wildlife Service policies and operations. At least one former agency employee has offered up their own commentary and analysis to air their concerns. Here’s some of what we’ve learned from other “insiders.”

Let’s start with Pat Walsh, who served as the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge’s biological director since 2001 and recently retired from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Walsh points out that the Mulchatna herd’s range includes parts of the refuge, and adds that he “worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on caribou management at Mulchatna” — at least until Fish and Wildlife leaders decided that his opinion no longer mattered, given the direction they had chosen to take: killing bears and wolves.

Walsh recently shared his criticism of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s recent Mourchatna “advisory announcement” news release, in which he disputed many of the claims the service made, some of which are highlighted here:

First, Walsh pointed out that the department’s summary of the decline of the Murchatna herd from 1997 to 2019 “doesn’t tell the whole story.” He wrote, “The herd underwent what has been called a ‘population explosion,’ growing from about 13,000 in the 1970s to 200,000 in the 1990s, before falling back to around 13,000 today – so it is fair to say it is back to historical norms.”

Additionally, the Fish and Wildlife Service noted that caribou survival can be affected by disease, predation, capture and food availability and quality, and that “the Wildlife Service has determined that predation is a manageable issue.”

Walsh points out, “The Game Commission’s reasoning erroneously suggests that disease, fishing and habitat quality cannot be addressed. They can be addressed, and ADFG researchers have a track record of studying each of these in other management situations. The current reliance on predator control as the only option is the result of both a misinformed commission and senior management at ADFG.”

Second, the state argues that “reducing bear and wolf numbers was a logical step in adaptive management…Predator control is a tool that agencies can readily use to reverse the decline of the herds.”

“One could argue that reducing predators was not the logical step,” Walsh said. “The state’s intensive management policy itself states that predator control is not an ‘immediate measure,’ but rather a last resort.”

There’s much more, but I’ll end with Walsh’s observation that “the Marchatna Caribou Predator Management Program is driven by the fact that caribou populations are well below the 30,000-80,000 target set by the Game Commission in 2008,” a target that “was ecologically unrealistic at the time and has increasingly proven to be unrealistic since. Revising population targets based on the ecological potential of the herd eliminates the need for predator management regulations and immediately permits human harvest.”

This last point is crucial because the main rationale for the state’s IM is to “restore this (human) food source.” If hunting of the Mrchatna packs were permitted again, mass culling of bears and wolves by the state would be unnecessary.

Others closely involved with the Mulchatna caribou herd and the IM program requested anonymity, at least for now, because of their ties to the Fish and Wildlife Service. One former state employee agreed with Walsh that the Fish and Wildlife Service’s caribou population goals are unrealistic and largely data-based. If the herd’s population goals were based on known information about caribou biology and the state’s own research, predator control wouldn’t be necessary.

Biologists and managers closest to the Mulchatna study and IM program have the same question: Why is so much weight being placed on a number that has no scientific basis, and why are Fish and Wildlife Service leaders ignoring or dismissing the findings of their own researchers?

There’s more to say, but that’s enough for now.

My views on the Mrchatna IM program are well known by now, and I am encouraged that people with “insider” knowledge are beginning to speak out to those of us who have been strong critics of the state’s killing of bears and wolves for no reason at all, but rather a grossly unethical killing practice that we claim is based at least in part on science and respect for other creatures, including predators.

There are more illuminating — and disturbing — revelations about the inner workings of the Fish and Wildlife Service to come, that’s for sure.

Anchorage nature writer and wildlife conservationist Bill Sherwonit is a widely published essayist and author of more than a dozen books, including “Alaska Bears” and “Animal Stories: Encounters with Alaska’s Wildlife.”

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