Yesterday, Wilderness Watch, together with Defenders of Wildlife, National Parks Conservation Association and 12 other conservation groups, filed a request in federal court to defend regulations protecting wildlife in national preserves and wildlife refuges in Alaska. Trustees for Alaska filed the intervention on behalf of the conservation coalition.

The motion was filed in response to two separate lawsuits filed by the State of Alaska and the Safari Club International last month. The State and hunting group lawsuits challenge National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regulations prohibiting disreputable sport hunting methods which target bears and wolves in national preserves and wildlife refuges.

“The State wants to kill wolves and bears to increase moose and caribou, but that’s not the purpose of these lands,” said Fran Mauer, a wildlife biologist and Wilderness Watch board member/Alaska Chapter chair. “Alaskans and Americans go to these areas for a lot of different reasons, and we experience them in a lot of different ways. Most people want to see wildlife with its natural dynamics and populations intact. It will profoundly diminish our experiences if these lands are manipulated as game farms.”

The State of Alaska and Safari Club lawsuits are an attempt to allow sport hunters to shoot brown bears over bait, kill wolves and wolf pups during their vulnerable denning season, and use other methods aimed at dramatically reducing populations of wolves and bears to increase moose and caribou numbers for hunting. Most Alaskans and Americans oppose these cruel killing practices.

Read the complete press release here: http://bit.ly/2kIBPWO

Learn more about the Fish and Wildlife Service regulations: http://bit.ly/2lt1RN5

Learn more about the National Park Service regulations: http://bit.ly/2lvX4en

WANT TO DO MORE?

Write Congress TODAY and let your senators and representative know that that you strongly oppose their attempts to overturn the new regulations adopted by the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service that help protect bears, wolves, coyotes and wolverines in national preserves and wildlife refuges in Alaska.

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