Copper Basin Moose, Caribou Hunt Regs Unchanged

The following press release is courtesy of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game:

The Alaska Board of Game decided in a special meeting held Sunday, October 23, that regulations governing moose and caribou hunting in the Copper Basin will remain unchanged for now. The meeting was called by Commissioner Sam Cotten in response to a request by Ahtna Tene Nene’ citing concerns that subsistence needs are not being met under the current community subsistence hunt system due to growing participation in the Copper Basin moose and caribou hunts.

“The board met, realized they needed to spend more time addressing the issue in front of them, and scheduled a special meeting in early- to mid-March to do that,” said Lem Butler, assistant director for the Division of Wildlife Conservation.

The March meeting will provide an additional opportunity for the public to submit proposals and comment on topics that will be discussed. The meeting will be in-person and will be held in Wasilla or Anchorage.

The caribou bag limit under the Tier I hunt (RC566) for the 2017–2018 hunting seasons remains one caribou per household and may be restricted to bulls or cows only. Season dates are August 10–September 20 and October 21–March 31 and may be closed by emergency order when harvest quotas are reached. All other season dates and bag limits are printed in the supplement at http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=huntlicense.cultural .

The board also voted Sunday not to accept Agenda Change Requests (ACRs) to hear proposals on sheep bag limits, management areas, black bear bag limits, and feral cats. The board accepted ACRs for renewing intensive management plans on the lower Kenai Peninsula and the range of the Mulchatna caribou herd in southwestern Alaska. The board also accepted ACRs to open a hunt for emperor geese, address West Nile Virus testing for raptors, and create a hunter orientation course for moose hunters in Units 7 and 15. The issues accepted by the board will be heard in the form of proposals at meetings in 2017.

The board voted to expand the scope of Proposals 19 and 49 for the Arctic/Western and Northeast Arctic/Interior regional meetings to be applicable statewide, since the regulation the proposals seek to change was adopted at the statewide regulations meeting. Those proposals deal with the shared bag limit for nonresidents accompanied by resident relatives hunting brown bear, sheep, and goats.

For more information on actions taken in Sunday’s special meeting, including agenda change requests accepted by the board and scheduled for the 2017 board meetings, visit the board’s webpage at http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=gameboard.main .