An Alaska Superior Court judge denied Wednesday an injunction by two conservation nonprofit organizations challenging the state’s program of controlling the population of bears to increase the population of caribou for human consumption.

The Alaska Wildlife Alliance (AWA) and Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) had enjoined the court to stop the bear control program run by the Alaska Board of Game and Alaska Department of Fish and Game on the Mulchatna caribou calving grounds in southwest Alaska until the court would rule on the merits of the AWA’s pending 2025 lawsuit challenging the legality of the program, according to the ruling shared by the CBD via its press release.

The AWA alleged back in 2023 that the state’s Board of Game killed “99 bears (including 11 cubs) from helicopters and airplanes in less than a month, with no scientific justification or public input.” A previous court ruling decided that the killings were unconstitutional, but the program was later reinstated, according to the CBD.

Superior Court Judge Adolf Zeman denied the plaintiffs’ injunction on the grounds that analyzing the veracity of bear population data was not the court’s specialty and the conservation groups failed to convince the court that the state had “no reasonable basis” for the predator control program, the ruling revealed.

Two environmental groups are asking an Anchorage Superior Court judge to pause a program killing bears in Southwest Alaska — part of an effort to boost the Mulchatna caribou herd — before it gets underway later this month. https://t.co/ILAQs9WKmp

— Anchorage Daily News (@adndotcom) May 2, 2026

The state was legally bound to promote “a harmonious balance between consumption, preservation, and expansion of natural resources,” the judge stated in the ruling, citing the Alaskan constitution.

The ruling comes just as the Mulchatna caribou herd calving season nears, CBS News reported. The calves, being vulnerable, provide rich pickings for bears or wolves. (RELATED: Wild Video Shows Grizzly Bear, Wolf Nearly Coming To Blows While Hammering Down Dead Animal)

The caribou population had declined from a peak of about 190,000 animals to about 13,000 between the late 1990s and 2019, before rising to about 16,280 by 2025—four years after hunting them was prohibited, CBS News reported.

The judge agreed that the state’s intensive game management program could permanently hamper the study of bears in the area if the plaintiffs’ injunction were denied. However, he also stated that, were the injunction to be granted, the people who relied on the Mulchatna caribou herd for food, and whom the state represented, would lose much more of the herd to the bears.

The judge also pointed out that, contrary to the plaintiff’s arguments, the Alaskan authorities were bound not to maintain the population of the caribou herd but “to increase it to a level sustainable for and consistent with consumptive use.” The state is the guardian of game resources, according to the ruling.

The CBD expressed disappointment in the judge’s decision, arguing in their press release that the state would therefore continue to gun down bears while the predator control program’s legality was still being contested in court.

“We are deeply disappointed by the court’s decision to allow the gunning program to move forward today,” said Nicole Schmitt, the AWA executive director, according to the CBD’s statement. “The state already killed close to 200 bears under a program which was later found unlawful. We can’t undo the slaughter of those bears, which includes dozens of cubs, and I fear history will repeat itself until these issues can be resolved, again, in court.”