ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
United States District Court, District of Alaska (2022)
Joseph Perry
In Alaska Wildlife Alliance v. Haaland, 2022 WL 17422412 (D. Alaska 2022), the district court
held unlawful a National Park Service (NPS) rule permitting certain hunting practices on National
Preserve land in Alaska on the grounds that it was an arbitrary and capricious abuse of NPS’s
power. (Id. at *20). In 2015, NPS issued a rule prohibiting non–subsistence hunting of predators
on National Preserves in Alaska. (Id. at *1). NPS explained that Alaskan law permitted non–
subsistence hunting of predators in order to increase populations of prey species for human harvest.
(Id. at *2). This ran contrary to NPS’s mission to preserve natural wildlife populations, and thus
required a rule explicitly preempting state hunting law on National Reserve land. (Id.). Following
the 2016 election, the NPS sought to return hunting and fishing regulating authority to the states,
culminating in a 2020 rule allowing state predator hunting practices on National Preserve land in
Alaska. (Id. at *3). NPS reasoned that new data (which had not been available during the 2015
rule–making process) showed that allowing predator hunting results in minimal impacts on prey
species population, and that NPS only held authority relating to hunting regulations in specific
emergency situations. (Id.). Several environmental groups sued, arguing the 2020 rule was
contrary to federal law, that NPS failed to provide good reasons for its determination, and that NPS
acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner in promulgating the rule. (Id. at *6). The court held
that NPS’s position did not violate federal law, as the plain text of the applicable statutes did not
prohibit predator reduction efforts. (Id. at *9). Further, NPS provided sufficient data to justify its
position. (Id. at *14). However, the court held that NPS’s position limiting its own authority to
regulate hunting practices to emergency situations ran contrary to federal law, which grants NPS
wide authority over National Preserve land that necessarily preempts state law. (Id. at *14).
Further, NPS improperly equated Alaska’s sustained yield management laws with its own policy
requiring self–sustaining wildlife populations. (Id. at *15). When an agency claims to comply with
its own policy, but does not in fact comply with that standard, the action is necessarily an arbitrary
and capricious use of power. (Id.). Finally, a specific provision of the 2020 rule regarding use of
bear–baiting was deemed unlawful, as NPS did not provide sufficient justification for its change in
policy. (Id. at *20). The court remanded the 2020 rule to NPS, rather than vacating it, since NPS
informed the court that it would soon readdress the rule. (Id. at *21). Therefore the district court
held that an NPS rule allowing certain predator hunting on National Preserve land was contrary to
federal law, and an arbitrary and capricious use of the agency’s authority. (Id. at *22).
