Good news for moose hunters

Editor’s note: Howard Delo’s weekly outdoors column typically appears in the Friday edition of the Frontiersman. An old Delo column from June 2012 was accidently placed in the paper instead of the correct April 5 column, which is printed blow. The Frontiersman apologizes for any

confusion.

For those of you who had hoped to receive a 2013 moose drawing hunt permit and didn’t, there is still some chance of getting lucky. I received a notice recently from Fish and Game explaining that several moose drawing hunt permits in the Interior will be awarded on a first-come-first-served basis beginning May 1 at 8 a.m.

Here’s the deal. Normally, Fish and Game receives many more drawing hunt applications than permits to be issued for a hunt. To award permits in a fair manner, each hunt applicant is assigned a random number by computer and random numbers are then selected by the computer for the number of permits to be issued. I’ve been applying for decades and have yet to be selected by that darn computer for moose.

Twelve different moose drawing permit hunts in GMUs 20, 21 and 24 didn’t receive as many applicants as there are permits to be awarded. Fish and Game has decided to award the extra permits anyway. Now before you start salivating too much, there are reasons why these particular hunts didn’t draw many applicants.

One of the hunts is only open to active-duty military or veterans who are both disabled and certified bowhunters. A couple of other hunts are only for certified muzzleloader hunters. Several of the hunts are located in areas that are difficult and expensive to access. Some of the hunts have specific requirements like antler size restrictions or leaving the meat on the bone until retrieved from the field.

In order to learn which specific hunts are available, visit http://tinyurl.com/d28xlfs and view the list. This page lists all the undersubscribed hunts for all species for which permits are available and contains a link to the special application you must use if you decide to apply. To learn the specific conditions and requirements of each hunt, review the hunts in the 2013-2014 Alaska Drawing Permit Hunt Supplement available at Fish and Game offices or online. Hopefully, you retained a copy from last fall’s application period.

Beside all that, there’s one more catch. You have to fax your application to the Fairbanks Fish and Game office no sooner than May 1 at 8 a.m. There is no online ability to apply for these permits and any applications received before May 1 at 8 a.m. cannot be considered. If you have questions about the application process for these hunts, call (907) 459-7272.

The Alaska Legislature has only a few days left in its current session. As you can imagine, time is going fast and things are getting frantic in Juneau. One of the business items yet to be addressed is the confirmation (or not) of the governor’s various board appointments. This includes Board of Fisheries (BOF) and Board of Game (BOG) nominees. At the time of this writing, only the House Resources Committee hearing, scheduled for 1 p.m., Friday, remained for the three BOF appointees. I’m not sure about the BOG candidates, although they may be part of this same committee’s meeting agenda.

The governor re-appointed Vince Webster and Tom Kluberton, both current BOF members, and had earlier appointed Reed Morisky to replace Bill Brown, who resigned during this past board cycle. These committee hearings tend to be more of a formality because the candidates are almost always moved to the joint legislative confirmation hearing where the actual confirmation by vote of the legislators takes place. However, the committee hearings do allow for questioning of appointees as to voting records or personal interests in serving on the board.

The health of our Northern District salmon populations, as you have read here, is in dire straits. Our area is coming up this next BOF cycle in the March 2014 Upper Cook Inlet meeting for consideration of proposals to address these issues. We need to have board members who are concerned about the health and viability of the salmon resource first and foremost and only concerned about the allocation of the harvestable part of the resource as a secondary issue.

Board members tend to be labeled as either commercial or sport fish oriented because of the background they bring to the board. Both Kluberton and Morisky would be considered sport fish oriented. Webster is commercially oriented, but when I served on the BOF with him, Webster generally voted for the health of the resource first and argued allocation second. Given some recent controversies on the BOF, Webster’s possible continued service is far from a sure thing.

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. You can leave him a message by emailing sports@frontiersman.com.