Board Of Game Upholds Dall Sheep Airplane Ban

The Alaska Board of Game recently released the regulation results from its recent fall meeting. The complete list of changes and failed proposals can be viewed here.

The Fairbanks News-Miner also had reported that a proposal that would legalize hunting Dall sheep was shot down:

The Alaska Board of Game has reaffirmed that using an airplane to spot Dall sheep while hunting is illegal.

The board on Tuesday narrowly shot down a proposal that would have repealed the regulation on using planes to hunt the sheep, the Peninsula Clarion reported.

The ban was put in place in 2015 and has since survived much scrutiny. It was instituted on grounds that airplanes give certain hunters an unfair advantage and lead to crowding in sheep hunting areas.

The board voted 4-3 in favor of keeping the ban.

Here’s KTOO with more on the meeting:

Among the changes was a clarification on definitions related to moose antlers and their points, brow tines and forks, which can determine whether a moose is legal to hunt.

The board also voted to ban the use of “air bows” for hunting big game in Alaska. Using compressed gas, air bows fire an arrow with enough power to take down game as large as a bison.

In another example of keeping up with advances in hunting technology, the board decided to update rules around the use of electronic devices in hunting, things like game cameras that can now transmit real-time images to cell phones. The board voted to prohibit the use of wireless communication in the taking of a specific animal until after 3 a.m. the day after the use of the device, in most cases.

The board removed a restriction it put into place in 2012 that limited applications for bull moose permit hunts to three, agreeing with the Department of Fish and Game that the restriction had come with the unintended consequence of voiding some applications.