Supreme Court backs Alaska moose hunter over park service in broad ruling on jurisdiction
Source: Anchorage Daily News
A moose hunter whose case against the federal government made a rare second trip to the U.S. Supreme Court prevailed on Tuesday.
The ruling marks a win for Alaskans unhappy with federal “overreach” on some public lands but doesn’t topple rural subsistence rights as some feared it might.
John Sturgeon sued the National Park Service after rangers on the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve in 2007 ordered him off the hovercraft he used for moose-hunting trips through the shallows of the Nation River near the Canadian border. The park service claimed the right to manage navigable waters inside parks and preserves. The state maintained that management of those waters was clearly left to the state, which allows hovercrafts.
U.S. Supreme Court justices in this week’s decision ruled unanimously that the Nation River doesn’t qualify as “public land” for the purposes of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. The sweeping 1980 law created 10 new national park units following natural boundaries rather than federally owned lands, adding more than 18 million acres of state, Native and private land.
-snip-
Author: Zaz Hollander | Updated: 13 minutes ago | Published 1 hour ago
Read more: https://www.adn.com/outdoors-adventure/2019/03/26/supreme-court-backs-alaska-moose-hunter-over-park-service-in-broad-ruling-on-jurisdiction/
Related: 17-949 Sturgeon v. Frost (Supreme Court of the United States)
= new reply since forum marked as read
