Tier II caribou winners named July 27, 2007

Frontiersman

MAT-SU - Around 8,000 hopeful caribou and moose hunters are scheduled to find out the revised status of their Tier II subsistence permits today when the Alaska Department of Fish and Game plans to release a new list of permit winners. Caribou season opens August 10.

Alaska Superior Court Judge Jack Smith ruled last Friday that the state unfairly denied many Nelchina basin hunters a permit and ordered the state to rescore the permit applications using new criteria. That ruling came in response to a suit filed by hunters, tribal organizations and Native villages.

According to Fish and Game, tens of thousands of people have applied for the tightly regulated Nelchina caribou and moose subsistence permits in the past. Bounded by the Parks, Glenn and Denali highways, the area is a coveted hunt because it is easily accessed by vehicle or on foot.

The Tier II process is designed to judge how important the subsistence hunt is to an applicant's lifestyle and awards permits by a scoring system. Applicants score points based on criteria such as how long they have hunted the herd or where they buy most of their groceries and gasoline.

This year the state made drastic changes to the hunt regulations. Around 1,500 fewer people applied, prompting the state to extend the application deadline. Those changes included the mandate that hunters carry out inedible parts of the animal, such as the hide and head, drawing complaints from hunters.

The state Board of Game also changed the scoring rules for the first time in the state's history to directly hinge on an applicant's income. Under the new rules, hunters with an annual household income of $51,640 or more would receive zero points in the permit scoring system.

The $51,640 limit is around $10,000 less than the average family income in the Valley.

That prompted the suit from Native groups and hunters, who claimed the figure was unfair and did not take into account other important factors.

For example, the application made no allowance for a household where the $51,640 was shared by children, grandchildren and grandparents all living under one roof, or for families who gained extra money that year from a one-time sale of assets and immediately spent it to pay off an expense like student loans. One of the plaintiffs told the court he had hunted the herd for years, but was disqualified because his retirement income was too high.

&#8220To say a long family personal history of utilizing moose or caribou should be ignored because of income sends a negative signal to the young of Alaska that economic success is detrimental to cultural imperatives,” Smith said, alluding to the predominately rural and Native makeup of subsistence hunters.

Around 2,800 applicants who fell below the income cutoff would not be rescored, since the new criteria will not affect their scores. The remaining 5,200 hunters will have their applications rescored by Fish and Game. The state did not have a prediction of how many applicants would lose or gain permits today under the new scoring, but said the status of hundreds of permits would be changed.

To check the new status of a Tier II Nelchina hunt application, visit www.wildlife.-alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=interdt2.dt2main or call Fish and Game at 907-267-2409.