Large carnivores under assault in Alaska

In Alaska, gray wolves (Canis lupis), brown bears (Ursus arctos), and black bears (U. americanus) are managed in most of the state in ways intended to significantly reduce their abundance in the expectation of increasing hunter harvests of ungulates.To our knowledge, Alaska is unique in the world because this management priority is both widespread and mandated by state law.Large carnivore management in Alaska is a reversion to outdated management concepts and occurs without effective monitoring programs designed to scientifically evaluate impacts on predator populations.Large carnivore management in Alaska should be based on rigorous science including the status and trends of carnivore populations.When Aldo Leopold saw "a fierce green fire dying" in the eyes of a gray wolf he'd just shot, he recognized that his actions taken in the hope of creating a "hunters' paradise" of deer was ill conceived [1].Most of the world now recognizes that apex predators have great intrinsic value as well as providing vitally important ecosystem services.In many cases, these services outweigh some of the inconveniences to humans associated with large carnivore populations [2].At an accelerating rate during recent decades in Alaska, however, brown bears (Fig 1), black bears, and gray wolves have been targeted for significant reductions in abundance in the expectation this will result in more wild ungulates (moose [Alces alces], caribou [Rangifer tarandus], and deer [Odocoileus hemonius sitkensis]) available for hunter harvest.A management priority favoring wild ungulates over large carnivores acquired the force of law with the passage in 1994 of Alaska's Intensive Management Law.This law effectively mandates management to reduce large carnivores and increase human harvests of wild ungulates.The Alaska Intensive Management efforts are occurring without rigorously collected data on the impacts of these management practices on large carnivores [3,4,5] and ecosystems [e.g., 2].Historically, gray wolves and brown bears were nearly extirpated in the conterminous United States because of persecution and habitat loss [6].Similar reductions occurred