Looking ahead to the upcoming board of game meeting

The Alaska Board of Game (BOG) will hold their Central & Southwest Region Meeting from January 10-17, 2025, at the Best Western Lake Lucille Inn in Wasilla. You can access the proposals to be discussed on the ADF&G, BOG webpage under meeting information. By the time you read this, the time to submit on-time comments will have passed, but you can still submit written comments as Record Copies (RC’s) at the meeting up until the specific proposal(s) you are interested in are being deliberated.

The Matanuska-Susitna Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission (MSBFWC) discussed these proposals at their recent meetings but because of meeting schedules, bad roads, and the holiday season, were unable to draft formal comments about the proposals in time for submission. However, we did develop a series of comments on proposals we thought warranted our consideration, which will be submitted as an RC at the meeting. Our vice-chairman submitted his thoughts on several of the proposals to the committee working on this and I’ll use some of his comments here. I will mix some of my own thoughts with these comments as well.

There doesn’t appear to be any shortage of bears, either brown or black, around the region. Several of the proposals dealing with bears are asking for increased seasons, increased bag limits, or other factors which would potentially increase harvest opportunities. The commission supports the proposals which increase harvest opportunity, or which give Fish and Game increased management ability to help regulate bear populations.

Something many people don’t understand is that once man starts dabbling in an ecosystem by managing a few populations of animals, say prey species like moose and caribou, without managing other populations like predatory species such as wolves and bears, an imbalance in animal numbers can develop over time. This imbalance can eventually hurt numbers of all the various populations, both predator and prey.

There is one controversial proposal which asks the BOG to grant Fish and Game authority to do aerial predator control using state employees. I think the board should grant the department this authority. Using only “civilian” hunters to do this in predator control areas hasn’t really resulted in the reduction in numbers of predators needing to be removed. Giving the department this authority/ability adds another tool to the ecosystem management toolbox scenario. Just because the department can do this doesn’t mean they will do this in anything other than an extreme situation.

There are also several moose proposals asking for reductions in harvest numbers, adding an archery only season, and continuing the antlerless moose seasons in most areas in the region. Many of these proposals were submitted by Fish and Game, based on data they have collected in recent years. I would recommend that the board approve the department proposals since these various proposals and objectives were developed based on scientific data and sound management techniques.

Adding a specific hunting weapon season becomes an allocative proposal. On the one hand, allowing an archery only season will provide more hunting opportunity with little increase in harvest. Bow hunters, as a group, tend to only have around a 5% success rate. Firearms hunters usually harvest a significantly higher number of animals so fewer hunters can participate for the same number of animals taken.

On the other hand, why should bow hunters get a special season when blackpowder (read muzzleloading) hunters are not? The blackpowder hunters will probably harvest more animals than archers, but not as many as a modern rifle hunter, so why grant one group a preference over another? Allocation is the board’s and not the department’s venue.

Fish and Game has a proposal asking for the authority to require a registration permit to hunt ptarmigan in Unit 13. This area is readily accessible and receives a lot of hunting pressure for the birds. Currently, data on ptarmigan harvest is all voluntary and available data is sketchy to develop management schemes for this population. By requiring a permit to hunt the birds, Fish and Game can require hunters to turn in wings and other parts to help the department learn about harvest numbers, age and sex of birds, and other biological data. Not all that much is currently known about the status of these bird populations.

I would venture that the MSBFWC’s general stance on these upcoming game proposals is that if the proposal gives the department a better ability to manage the various animal species, then the commission supports the proposal. If it hurts management, don’t pass it.