Court backs hovercraft ban in Alaska's national preserves

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A federal appeals court says the National Park Service can ban hovercraft — boats propelled by noisy blowers — within national preserves in Alaska.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a decision Monday says the Park Service has regulatory authority over a river in a preserve in Alaska even if the state claims ownership of the riverbed.

The ruling came in the case of John Sturgeon of Anchorage, a moose hunter who operated his hovercraft on the Nation River within the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve.

Rangers ordered him to stop operating the boat in 2007 and he sued in 2011.

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