Hitting the high points

I’d been thinking about potential topics for this week’s column when the past week’s news handed me several. The shooting in the Washington Naval Yard and the EPA/DEC intimidation inspection of recreational miners near Chicken were a couple of possibilities. I’ve been receiving Fish and Game news releases about various moose and caribou hunts either being extended or closed and an email from a friend upset about how the community harvest system is working (or not) in Unit 13. I was also considering writing about how modern technology can influence hunt planning and the actual hunt itself.

Decisions, decisions. How about a little on each topic?

The Washington Naval Yard shooting has reignited gun control talk in Congress, but most accounts I’ve read state that chances of any movement on this legislation are slim and none. The good thing I have heard is that, finally, folks seem to be getting the idea that dealing with mental health issues (i.e., recognition, treatment and reporting) will have a far greater effect on reducing these mass shootings than any gun-specific legislation ever could.

I have a longtime friend here in the Valley whose sister and family recreationally gold mine near Chicken. Their mining claim was one of the sites invaded by armed members of the EPA/DEC looking for water quality violations while the family was present and actively mining. The way I heard it, the family was very surprised and confused by these armed agents bursting out of the vegetation and operating in a threatening and intimidating manner. This was a very frightening confrontation for these folks. No violations were found and no citations were issued.

So what’s up with the heavy hand of government here? Governor Parnell has ordered an investigation and our federal legislative contingent is also looking into the matter.

About half of the area involved in the fall portion of registration permit hunt RC860 for Fortymile caribou will close today at 11:59 p.m. The other half of the area has been closed since Sept. 2. Caribou harvest quotas are expected to be met. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) has also announced an emergency order extension of registration moose hunt RM841 in the central portion of Unit 22(A). The RM841 moose hunting season was extended through today. Due to poor early season weather and local harvest needs, the season was extended six days to allow additional opportunity to reach the harvest quota of 22 antlered bulls. Several other moose and caribou hunts have already been closed, either by emergency order or by announcing the quota for a registration hunt has been met.

I haven’t had time to discuss in detail with my friend about his concerns with the community harvest situation in Unit 13, but I can guess. This program was originally established to address the concerns local residents expressed about protecting and continuing their subsistence hunting traditions while also attempting to provide some amount of drawing permit hunt access of these same resources for other residents of Alaska. The idea was controversial but was working, at least initially.

With the “discovery” that anybody from anywhere in the state, not just a local community resident, could organize a community harvest group or, more accurately, a “hunting club” with the required number of participants who are all willing to follow the restrictions placed on community harvest participants, what seemed like a possible solution to a longstanding allocation problem has become a whole new problem in and of itself. We’ll explore this further in a future column.

Last but not least, my original thought for this column. My wife has an antlerless moose permit for this season. Access into her hunting area is limited, but doable. We have been spending time looking for places to go hunting. I’ve been taking GPS coordinates along some of the access routes and then plotting those points on Google Earth aerial photos of the areas. This gives us an overview of places worth watching and possible access paths into the specific areas.

Debby (my wife) has been researching land ownership through the borough website along these routes. Years ago when I hunted in this area, virtually all the property was in public ownership and access was not an issue. Over the years, much of the land has moved into private ownership and we are trying to figure out what’s what so we can avoid a possible trespass situation.

Hunting in the Valley has sure changed over the years.

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.