100 dead bears

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility  (PEER) have joined the list of environmental groups outraged by the state of Alaska’s execution of just shy of 100 bears and a handful of wolves that once roamed a remote area about the size of Rhode Island.

The group this week dispatched a media release saying it has urged Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland to cut off federal funding to states like Alaska “engaged in excessive predator control.”

Calling the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s aerial predator shoot this spring  “both a biological black eye and a blatant misuse of federal conservation funding,” PEER said Haaland should block the transfer of federal Pittman-Roberston Act funds that annually cover just under 70 percent of the budget for Fish and Game’s Division of Wildlife Conservation. 

PEER last year spearheaded a group of environmental organizations charging Alaska “illegally diverts millions of dollars in federal wildlife conservation aid to support prohibited predator control that dispatches hundreds of wolves and bears each year to increase the number of moose and caribou.”

Read the PEER Story…