Today Attorneys for Animals responded to the latest in a long series of proposed regulations issued by the Department of Interior which weaken the Endangered Species Act; or priviledge oil and gas and other industrial uses of the land; or cater to trophy hunters by allowing some of the most egregious and unsportsmanlike practices in our national parks and National Wildlife Refuges.
Federal lands are held in trust for the benefit of all citizens, not a subset of citizens and special interest groups. The Proposed Rule is slanted to the benefit of one type of recreational use (namely, hunting/trapping, which represents a very small segment of all permissible uses) to the detriment of other permissible uses and the mandate of the refuge itself. A decision to allow bear baiting and trapping at a tourist destination used largely for other recreational purposes seems especially egregious.
Kenai National Wildlife Refuge is home to moose, eagles, brown and black bears, lynx wolves and trumpeter swans.
According to law, one purpose of the Refuge is “to conserve fish and wildlife populations and habitats in their natural diversity, including but not limited to, moose, bear, mountain goats, Dall sheep, wolves and other furbearers, salmonoids and other fish, waterfowl and other migratory and nonmigratory birds.”