A new emergency legal motion is asking a court to stop Alaska from moving ahead with plans to kill an unlimited number of brown and black bears across roughly 40,000 square miles of southwest Alaska this summer, warning the program could resume within weeks if it is not halted.

The filing argues the state is attempting to restart a predator control effort that has already been repeatedly challenged in court, despite prior rulings that found key parts of the program unlawful. Advocates say the operation could begin again as early as May without immediate legal intervention.

“The court has already ruled that this program is unlawful and that last summer the state carried it out ‘in bad faith,’” said Nicole Schmitt, executive director of the Alaska Wildlife Alliance. “In response, the state wrapped this unconstitutional program in the same tired packaging, with the same legal flaws. The facts remain that this program is not based on science, has no legitimate measures of success, and has cost the state more than $1 million in program and legal fees.”

The motion asks the Alaska Superior Court to issue a preliminary injunction that would block the Alaska Department of Fish and Game from conducting bear removal operations within the Mulchatna Caribou Herd Predation Management Area while the broader lawsuit continues. The groups behind the filing, including Alaska Wildlife Alliance and the Center for Biological Diversity, warn that, without court action, bear control efforts could resume imminently, leading to irreversible impacts on wildlife populations.

“I really want to see the Mulchatna caribou herd grow and thrive, but this unscientific and cruel approach of killing every bear in sight across southwest Alaska can’t be the way forward,” said Cooper Freeman, Alaska director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Alaska needs to stop wasting public resources and make wildlife management decisions firmly rooted in science and sustainability. That’s what the constitution requires, and it’s also what will be best in the long run for bears, caribou and the entire ecosystem.”

The case is tied to an ongoing lawsuit brought by Trustees for Alaska, which challenges the legality of reinstating the Mulchatna bear control program under the state’s sustained yield clause. That constitutional provision requires wildlife to be “managed” as a renewable public resource and maintained over time, and has previously been interpreted by the Alaska Supreme Court to apply to all wildlife, including bears.

“The state is once again primed to gun down bears from helicopters this spring even though it still has no idea how many bears live in the targeted area,” said Michelle Sinnott, staff attorney with Trustees for Alaska. “The Alaska Constitution requires the state to manage bear populations sustainably. Instead of collecting credible scientific evidence of bear populations, the Board of Game once again gave the department a blank check to kill bears across an entire region. That’s exactly the kind of unconstitutional, shoot-first management the court has already rejected.”

Under the 2022 version of the Mulchatna bear control program, state wildlife managers killed 175 brown bears and five black bears in 2023 and 2024. The original program was challenged by Alaska Wildlife Alliance, and in March 2025, the Anchorage Superior Court ruled it unconstitutional, finding that it had not been based on credible scientific evidence and was therefore “unlawfully adopted and, therefore, void and without legal effect.”

Following that ruling, the Alaska Board of Game attempted to reinstate the program through an emergency regulation, which the court struck down in May 2025 as an improper attempt to bypass its earlier decision. Despite that ruling, state officials still killed 11 additional brown bears. The board later reinstated the program again in July 2025, this time without new population data for brown or black bears in the affected area.