ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A Wednesday ruling by an Anchorage Superior Court judge clears the way for the state Department of Fish and Game to kill large numbers of bears in Southwest Alaska this month.

Opponents of the state’s predator control program around the Mulchatna caribou herd are suing to overturn its expansion, arguing it violates Alaska’s constitution. The two environmental groups that brought the case requested a court injunction last month. But following a hearing last week in Anchorage, Superior Court Judge Adolf Zeman sided with the state, clearing the Department of Fish and Game to begin killing bears this season.

The Alaska Wildlife Alliance and Center for Biological Diversity argued that given the ongoing lawsuit, the court should pause aerial bear gunning operations this spring while the lawsuit plays out.

One of the main issues in the litigation is whether state policymakers have sufficiently collected and assessed bear population data in the region. In his decision, Zeman explained that the plaintiffs had not met the bar required for an emergency order to halt the measure, which has been formally approved by the state’s Board of Game.

“The Court is in no position to second guess the Department’s biologists in their technical conclusions. The Court must give deference to the Department on these technical game management decisions,” Zeman wrote. “The Department appears to have balanced the need for an increase in caribou numbers while at the same time not substantially harming the overall bear population.”

A separate court case last year did largely halt aerial bear gunning in the area just east of Wood-Tikchik State Park. But that suit hinged on an argument that the Board of Game had failed to adequately give notice to the public about the expanded predator control plan before approving it.

“We’re happy with the ruling. We’re happy that science prevails, and we can continue the program,” Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang said Wednesday after the ruling came down.

Crews of Fish and Game personnel are expected to spend several weeks flying fixed wing aircraft and a helicopter over the Mulchatna caribou herd’s calving area. In recent years, they’ve removed close to a hundred bears in just a few weeks, shooting them from the helicopter. That work is expected to resume this month.

Fish and Game has reported killing 191 bears in three seasons, almost all of them brown bears.

The aggressive tactic is intended to help more newborn caribou calves survive predation in the hopes of restoring the Mulchatna herd to a size where sport and subsistence hunters can harvest meat. The herd has been closed to hunting since 2021.

“We want to see the caribou herd thrive, but the state simply hasn’t shown that the unrestrained killing of bears is going to help us get there. We need to stop this disgraceful waste of the state’s limited resources and work based on science to protect all our wildlife,” said Cooper Freeman, state director for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs in the case.

The lawsuit against the state over the Mulchatna predator control program remains active, despite Wednesday’s injunction ruling.

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