## Facts

- Alaska’s Constitution requires renewable resources, including wildlife, to be managed on a sustained-yield principle.
- Alaska enacted an intensive-management statute (AS 16.05.255) directing the Board of Game to manage for abundant big-game prey for human harvest, using tools including habitat changes and predation control consistent with sustained yield.
- The Alaska Board of Game adopted predator-control plans in 2006 affecting wolf and bear populations; unlike earlier versions, the plans did not include an express sustained-yield clause.
- Conservation organizations and an individual hunter challenged the 2006 plans, alleging violations of the sustained-yield clause and the intensive-management statute.
- The superior court granted summary judgment to the State and Board, ruling the constitution required sustained-yield consideration for predators but the statute did not, and it denied the hunter’s request for attorney’s fees for lack of prevailing-party status.
- Appeals and cross-appeals were consolidated in the Alaska Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether the Board of Game has a constitutional and statutory duty to apply sustained-yield principles to predator populations when adopting predator-control plans.
2. Whether the challengers proved the 2006 predator-control plans failed to comply with sustained-yield principles.
3. Whether denial of attorney’s fees to the hunter was an abuse of discretion based on prevailing-party status.

## Decision

- The court held the Board has both a constitutional and statutory duty to apply sustained-yield principles when establishing predator-control plans that materially affect predator populations.
- The court affirmed summary judgment for the State and Board because the challengers did not meet their burden to show the 2006 plans violated sustained-yield principles.
- The court affirmed denial of attorney’s fees to the hunter because he was not a prevailing party.

## Legal Principles

- The sustained-yield requirement in Alaska’s Constitution applies broadly to wildlife management and constrains agency actions that significantly affect predator populations, not only prey species.
- The intensive-management statute must be read consistently with the constitutional sustained-yield mandate and extends sustained-yield considerations to predator-control measures used to implement intensive management.
- In reviewing wildlife regulations, courts apply deferential review and do not substitute policy judgments for the agency’s; challengers must present evidence creating a genuine dispute that the agency’s action is inconsistent with sustained yield.
- Absence of explicit sustained-yield wording in a regulation is not dispositive if the plan’s substance includes population objectives, monitoring, and limits aimed at maintaining sustainable predator levels.
- Attorney’s fees generally require prevailing-party status; a party who obtains no substantive relief or material change in the parties’ legal relationship is not a prevailing party.

## Conclusion

The Alaska Supreme Court ruled that sustained-yield principles constrain predator-control planning under both the Constitution and the intensive-management statute, but it upheld the 2006 plans because challengers failed to prove noncompliance, and it affirmed denial of attorney’s fees because the claimant did not prevail.


West v. State, 248 P.3d 689 (Alaska 2010)