State looks to add value in hunting regs

If you’re as tired of reading about the poor 2012 king salmon returns as I am writing about them, then let’s go a different route this week. The caribou hunting season opened July 1 along the Dalton Highway in Unit 26 and, if you haven’t already picked up a copy of the new hunting regulations booklet, it should be available at any Fish and Game office or wherever hunting licenses are sold.

For the past few years, the booklet has contained a summary of changes by hunting unit number in the front. This year is no different, but the few changes by species to Units 13, 14A, 14B and 16 for the 2012-2013 season only target black bears and black bear baiting. There are some statewide changes for archery and crossbow equipment, and a mention about the felt-sole wading shoe prohibition, which goes into effect Jan, 1, 2013. See the regulations booklet for specifics.

The first 36 pages of the hunting booklet contain explanations, descriptions and definitions of all the general regulations and requirements you will encounter as you hunt around the state. Most of the information is similar to previous years, but I did notice some new information on some common wildlife parasites and diseases, and a nice summary chart of black bear salvage requirements by game unit and date. It’s a good idea to review this entire section prior to hunting to refresh yourself on general hunting requirements.

Also, here’s a quick reminder that if you haven’t already done so, you need to return the harvest report card from all your harvest tickets for last season. For instance, I had harvest tickets for moose, caribou and black bear for the 2011-2012 season. I mailed in the caribou and moose report cards shortly after the seasons where I hunt for these species closed and filed online a couple of nights ago to clear my black bear harvest report, since that harvest ticket overlapped into this past spring bear season. Don’t forget to pick up your new harvest tickets for this 2012-2013 season.

Some of you might already be aware of this next item, but I just found out about it while surfing the Fish and Game website. The Wildlife Conservation Division has contracted with a company called ECONorthwest to research the economic importance of wildlife in Alaska. Quoting from the webpage: “This will help the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s leaders better understand how hunting, trapping, wildlife viewing and other wildlife-related activities affect Alaska’s economy through the money residents and visitors spend directly on wildlife-related activities, as well as the ways wildlife improves Alaskans’ quality of life.”

ECONorthwest has already started collecting data using a variety of methods including email and telephone surveys and interviews. This data collection began in May and will continue at least through the summer. A first draft report, executive summary and press release are due by June 28, 2013. The final draft is scheduled to be completed by Oct. 28, 2013. The budget for this project is $364,850.

I looked through the survey questions posted on the website and noted their similarity to an economic value report the Sport Fish Division contracted for a few years ago. Part of the purpose of the sport fish economic report was to finally determine a definable value for the sport fish industry in Alaska.

This would allow some comparison between the sport and commercial industries in determining how important each industry was, economically, to a region and the state. As it turned out, the value statewide for each industry concerning species, both industries were targeted about equal. In some regions, the sport fish industry far out-valued the commercial industry for the same species. That knowledge helps Board of Fisheries members better balance allocations and managers to see a clearer picture of user group importance.

This wildlife study splits the state into five regions: North, Interior, Southwest, Southcentral and Southeast. I hope the final report is structured such that the value of each wildlife activity in each region is declared. Within the Southcentral region, the Mat-Su, Anchorage, Kenai Peninsula and Valdez-Cordova are shown. I hope we can see the value for the Mat-Su!

I think it will be of great interest to see how valuable the hunting and trapping industries are to the overall economy of Alaska. I suspect some folks might be surprised at the actual dollar values.

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.