A Proposed Rule Could Reshape How Hunters and Trappers Access National Preserves
For the first time in years, hunters and trappers who have long operated in Alaska's national preserves may be looking at a genuine shift in how federal land policy treats their way of life. The Department of the Interior has announced a proposed rule that would roll back a series of regulatory changes made between 2015 and 2024 and restore the framework that governed Alaska's preserves for more than three decades under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980, commonly known as ANILCA.
The proposal is significant not just for what it does, but for what it undoes. Over the past decade, federal rulemaking layered new restrictions onto practices that the state of Alaska had long authorized, leading to confusion, legal battles, and a patchwork of rules that left hunters, tribal communities, and state wildlife managers in a constant state of uncertainty. If finalized, the new rule would clear most of that away.
What Changed — and What's Being Restored
When Congress passed ANILCA in 1980, it created a distinct class of federal land in Alaska. National preserves were not treated the same as national parks in the lower 48 — hunting and trapping were explicitly permitted under applicable state and federal law. That framework held for more than three decades, with Alaska managing its wildlife under a system that had broad acceptance.
Starting in 2015, a series of federal rulemakings began to change that. Certain harvest practices that Alaska had authorized were preempted by federal regulation. Public closure procedures were modified. Federal discretionary restrictions expanded. By the time all was said and done, hunters and wildlife managers were navigating overlapping and sometimes contradictory rules, and court challenges made the situation even more complicated.
The proposed rule from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum would undo those changes. In his words, "For decades, Alaska's national preserves were managed under a framework that respected the State's authority, protected subsistence uses and ensured conservation of wildlife resources. This proposed rule restores that balance. It reduces unnecessary federal overreach, aligns federal regulations with state law, and honors the commitments Congress made in ANILCA."
What the Rule Would Actually Do
The proposal targets four main areas. First, it would restore state-authorized harvest practices in national preserves, consistent with what ANILCA originally intended. Second, it would reinstate the longstanding public notice and consultation procedures that governed closures and restrictions in Alaska park areas before the 2015 changes. Third, it would remove provisions that the department views as unnecessarily preempting state wildlife management authority. Fourth, it would eliminate duplicative or unnecessary regulatory language that accumulated during recent rulemakings.
Importantly, the proposal would not touch federal subsistence harvest regulations under Title VIII of ANILCA. Those protections — which give subsistence priority to rural Alaskans, including tribal members — remain intact.
The proposal also does not strip the National Park Service of its ability to act when needed. If localized concerns arise in a specific area, the NPS retains authority under ANILCA and existing regulations to implement targeted closures or restrictions, but only after meeting statutory criteria and going through proper consultation.
Why Interior Says the Old Rules Weren't Necessary
One of the more pointed aspects of the proposal is the department's conclusion about the prior restrictions. After reviewing the record from past rulemakings and litigation, Interior found that the 2015 and subsequent restrictions were not actually necessary to protect wildlife populations or public safety. The environmental analyses from those prior rules had themselves concluded that harvest levels under state management would not result in population-level impacts.
That finding matters because it strips away one of the central justifications for maintaining the federal overlay. If the science supporting the restrictions acknowledged that Alaska's management system wouldn't cause population-level harm, the argument for keeping federal rules in place becomes harder to sustain.
The Bigger Political Picture
The proposed rule fits squarely into the broader regulatory philosophy of the current administration. It aligns with President Donald Trump's Executive Order 14153, which directed federal agencies to remove obstacles to Alaska's resource potential, as well as Executive Order 14192 on regulatory reform and Secretary's Order 3422.
That framing will undoubtedly generate debate. Supporters of the change argue that federal agencies overstepped in 2015 and beyond, substituting Washington's preferences for a state wildlife management system that had worked for decades. Critics will likely argue that national preserves exist precisely because Congress wanted some baseline of federal oversight, and that rolling back these regulations opens the door to practices that federal managers had concluded warranted restrictions.
But the political context also includes a decade of litigation that has generated genuine instability for everyone involved — hunters trying to plan their seasons, tribal members trying to understand their subsistence rights, and state agencies trying to manage wildlife without knowing which rules would survive the next court challenge. The argument that the status quo itself caused harm isn't without merit.
Tribal Consultation and the Public Comment Process
The department has been careful to build consultation into the process. The National Park Service has already begun pre-consultation outreach with tribes and Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act corporations, and formal tribal consultation will take place during the rulemaking process itself. That's a meaningful procedural commitment given how much of Alaska's hunting and trapping culture is intertwined with subsistence practices protected under ANILCA.
The proposed rule will be published in the Federal Register and will be open for a 60-day public comment period. Details on how to submit comments will be available at regulations.gov once the rule is published. The department has said it will carefully consider all public and tribal input before issuing a final rule.
What It Means for Hunters on the Ground
For sportsmen who have hunted or trapped in Alaska's national preserves — or who have thought about it — the practical effect of this rule, if finalized, would be a return to state management of harvest practices that the federal government had restricted over the past decade.
That means the kinds of hunting and trapping methods Alaska authorizes under its own wildlife laws would once again apply in the preserves without additional federal restrictions layered on top. Bear hunting methods, predator control practices, and other harvest techniques that the federal government had narrowed would be governed by state rules rather than the more restrictive federal ones.
For guides, outfitters, and individual hunters who operate in these areas, that shift would represent a material change in what's legally permissible. It would also reduce the administrative complexity that comes with operating under two overlapping sets of rules — a genuine practical burden for anyone who takes hunting seriously as a pursuit.
A Long-Contested Piece of Public Land Policy
What this rule gets at, at its core, is one of the oldest tensions in American public land management: who gets to decide how wildlife is managed on federal land, the federal government or the states?
Alaska has always occupied a unique position in that debate. ANILCA was drafted with explicit acknowledgment of the state's distinct circumstances — its vast size, its indigenous populations with long-established subsistence traditions, and the fact that hunting and trapping are not peripheral activities but central to how many Alaskans live. The compromise Congress reached in 1980 gave the federal government land management authority while leaving wildlife management substantially in state hands within the preserves.
The regulations passed between 2015 and 2024 shifted that balance. Whether that shift was a reasonable exercise of federal authority or an overreach is something reasonable people continue to disagree about. What's harder to dispute is that the resulting decade of litigation and regulatory instability served no one well.
The proposed rule is an attempt to reset back to a framework that, whatever its imperfections, at least had the virtue of stability and the backing of the original congressional intent. Whether it survives the comment period, potential legal challenges, and eventual scrutiny intact remains to be seen. But for the millions of Americans who care about access to public land and the rights of states to manage their own wildlife, it's a development worth watching closely.
