Alaska allowing hunters to use bait to kill grizzlies

FAIRBANKS, Alaska — More than 250 wolves have been killed in a state-sanctioned predator-control program. Now Alaska game officials are targeting grizzly bears.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game last week began issuing permits for hunters to use bait to kill grizzly bears near Tok as the state expands its predator-control program to put more moose and caribou meat in the freezers of Alaska hunters. Tok is 250 miles northeast of Anchorage.

It's the first time the state has allowed hunters to bait grizzly bears and the first time the state has targeted grizzly bears instead of wolves in its predator-control efforts.

Fish and Game officials are expecting a backlash.

"Any time there's a predator-control program, it comes along with a big helping of controversy," said Fish and Game Department spokeswoman Cathie Harms.

Unlike the state's aerial wolf-control program, in which pilots and their shooters must submit résumés and be approved by Fish and Game before obtaining a permit, the only requirement for a grizzly bear permit is that hunters be Alaska residents.

An estimated 135 grizzly bears inhabit the portion of Game Management Unit 20E, where the program is being conducted. The state has established a quota of as many as 81 bears for the first year.

Cubs and sows accompanied by cubs may not be taken under the permit.

The grizzly bear-control program is designed to help a shrinking moose population in the area by reducing the number of moose calves killed by grizzlies.

"If we can help more moose survive the first year, the moose population may be able to increase and provide more harvest for people," said state wildlife biologist Jeff Gross in Tok.

Critics say the grizzly bear program lacks the same kind of biological-research justification that is missing in the wolf-control program, now in its second year. Biologists do not have a good idea what kind of effect bears or wolves are having on moose, they claim.

"We're opposed to it for the same reason we're opposed to aerial gunning," said Karen Deatherage, Alaska director for Defenders of Wildlife. "They don't have sound science to justify these programs."

Baiting grizzly bears, which is illegal under general hunting regulations, is especially alarming, considering Fish and Game has opposed baiting brown bears for several years, she said.