Federal authorities may have acted illegally when they allowed an Alaskan tribal village to hold an emergency moose and deer hunt, the Ninth Circuit found Tuesday, reversing a district court’s dismissal of the claim.
Alaska sued after the Federal Subsistence Board approved two short-term changes to hunting practices on federal lands in 2020—the opening of an emergency hunt for the Organized Village of Kake and the partial closure of public lands in a game management unit to nonsubsistence users. The changes violated the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, the state’s fish and game department ...