## Facts

- Congress enacted the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) in 1980. Title VIII gives a subsistence preference on Alaska “public lands” for nonwasteful subsistence uses by rural residents.
- Wasilie P. Bobby, Sr., sued individually and on behalf of the people of Lime Village, an Athabaskan Alaska Native community that depends on subsistence hunting, including moose and caribou.
- Alaska chose to implement ANILCA’s subsistence preference through state statutes and regulations administered by the Alaska Board of Game.
- The Alaska Board of Game adopted regulations governing subsistence hunting for Lime Village residents that set fixed hunting seasons and individual bag limits for moose and caribou.
- Lime Village residents alleged the regulations did not give sufficient effect to ANILCA’s subsistence preference and did not account for the community’s “customary and traditional” subsistence practices.
- Plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment that the challenged regulations were unlawful under ANILCA and injunctive relief requiring Alaska to issue new subsistence regulations and submit them to the court for review.

## Issues

1. Whether Alaska’s subsistence hunting regulations for Lime Village (including fixed seasons and individual bag limits for moose and caribou) were consistent with Title VIII of ANILCA.
2. Whether Alaska could satisfy ANILCA by providing only a “reasonable opportunity” to hunt, or whether ANILCA requires protection of “customary and traditional” subsistence uses as actually practiced.
3. Whether the federal district court could declare the state regulations invalid and order injunctive relief requiring Alaska to revise its regulations to meet ANILCA’s requirements.

## Decision

- The court ruled for the Lime Village plaintiffs and held that Alaska’s challenged regulations were invalid to the extent they were inconsistent with ANILCA’s Title VIII subsistence requirements.
- The court rejected the state’s approach insofar as it treated subsistence as satisfied by a general “reasonable opportunity” standard rather than ensuring protection of “customary and traditional” subsistence uses.
- The court concluded that the regulatory record must show that subsistence uses will be provided for in both (a) the amount of harvest (quantity/volume) and (b) the timing and length of the opportunity to harvest (duration).
- The court granted declaratory relief and issued injunctive relief directing Alaska to promulgate and submit revised regulations that conform to ANILCA’s subsistence protections for Lime Village’s moose and caribou hunting.

## Legal Principles

- When Alaska elects to manage subsistence uses under ANILCA’s cooperative framework, state subsistence regulations must be consistent with ANILCA’s Title VIII standards governing subsistence on federal “public lands.”
- ANILCA’s subsistence preference protects “customary and traditional” subsistence uses; state regulators must measure restrictions against that federal standard rather than rely on a generalized “reasonable opportunity” formulation.
- Valid subsistence regulation requires an administrative record demonstrating that customary and traditional subsistence uses will be met as to both the quantity of harvest and the duration/timing of the harvest opportunity.
- Standard wildlife tools such as fixed seasons and individual bag limits may be unlawful as applied to a subsistence community if they operate in a way that conflicts with customary and traditional subsistence use patterns protected by ANILCA.
- Federal courts may grant declaratory and injunctive relief to prevent enforcement of state subsistence regulations that fail ANILCA’s consistency requirement and may require the state to adopt compliant regulations.

## Conclusion

In *Bobby v. Alaska*, the District of Alaska held that Alaska’s subsistence moose and caribou regulations for Lime Village—built around fixed seasons and individual bag limits—could not stand where they failed to protect the community’s customary and traditional subsistence uses as required by ANILCA, and the court ordered Alaska to adopt revised regulations consistent with Title VIII.


Bobby v. Alaska, 718 F. Supp. 764 (1989)