In some places, termed Predator Control Areas, especially aggressive efforts include agency shooting of bears (both species) from helicopters, snaring of bears, and shooting female brown bears accompanied by cubs. The lack of significant Intensive Management efforts from habitat improvement is precluded by scale, cost, and in the case of fire, threats to human structures. Although habitat management such as controlled burns to create early-succession moose habitat is an identified Intensive Management technique under the law, the most significant Intensive Management efforts have been implemented by liberalizing hunting regulations for large carnivores. Under this law, before the Board can change hunting regulations to reduce human take of ungulate species, Intensive Management must occur. The law specifies that Intensive Management must occur when the Alaska Board of Game makes a finding that the harvestable numbers of ungulates are insufficient to meet human demand for game meat. The Alaska Intensive Management law sets a management priority for high levels of harvests of wild ungulates in areas where these ungulates are “important for human consumption” (Alaska Statutes 16.02.255). In Alaska, large areas of intact habitat for large carnivores persist, although in some areas, habitats and populations are depleted by human activities such as roads, logging, mining, and other development.

Similar reductions occurred throughout the world (e.g., for Europe]. Historically, gray wolves and brown bears were nearly extirpated in the conterminous United States because of persecution and habitat loss. Alaskan brown bears in Denali National Park. The Alaska Intensive Management efforts are occurring without rigorously collected data on the impacts of these management practices on large carnivores and ecosystems. This law effectively mandates management to reduce large carnivores and increase human harvests of wild ungulates. 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. 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, caribou, and deer ) available for hunter harvest. In many cases, these services outweigh some of the inconveniences to humans associated with large carnivore populations. Most of the world now recognizes that apex predators have great intrinsic value as well as providing vitally important ecosystem services. 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.

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