The local fish and game advisory council last week reviewed more than a dozen proposals to change hunting regulations across Southeast Alaska and in the upper Lynn Canal.
The proposals range from requiring hunter safety education across Southeast, to splitting the waterfowl hunt dates, to extending the marten and wolverine trapping seasons.
In addition to making recommendations on proposals by residents and organizations, the Upper Lynn Canal Fish and Game Advisory Council submitted its own idea: to prohibit hunters who kill nanny goats near Haines from participating in the hunt the following year.
The game management district encompassing Haines — Unit 1D — has 22 goat hunt areas. “While we do have a huntable (goat) population amongst some of the subunits, nearly half of the areas with populations are teetering on the huntable/emergency closure line,” the council wrote in its proposal. “Nannies not accompanying a kid can be harvested. The committee wants to see this stopped.”
The council cited Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) data showing that in Unit 1D between 2010 and 2020, 30% of goats harvested between 2010 and 2020 were nannies and that 40% of female goats harvested were done so knowingly.
ADFG wildlife biologist Carl Koch told the CVN the 40% statistic comes from a phone survey conducted about a decade ago. Since 2016 the state has required goat hunters in the Haines area to take a quiz that involves identifying nannies. But he said the quiz has resulted in only about a 5% drop in the average portion of nannies harvested.
“As a biologist I support anything that would encourage reduced female harvest of mountain goats because of their biological life history (i.e., first kid at age 4-6, only 1 kid per year, sometimes skipping a year) means that they are slower to recover from population declines than any other game species in southeast Alaska,” Koch said in an email to the CVN.
Council members unanimously opposed several proposals, including one that would allow residents to harvest a brown bear every two years instead of four and another that would get rid of a requirement for hunters to seal harvested black bear skulls.
The council voted 7-2 against a proposal submitted by council member Adam Smith. Smith, a Skagway resident, proposed extending the black bear baiting season by two weeks to align with the black bear hunting season, which ends at the end of June).
“More fluid and consistent dates make abiding by the law not only easier but also creates a two-week longer window of opportunity for hunters,” Smith said in his proposal.
Several members said they opposed it due to ethical qualms with baiting and concerns that it could habituate bears to human food or other attractants. Council member Kip Keromian called the practice “rather archaic” and member Rafe McGuire said he thinks it’s “a bullshit way to hunt bears.” Smith said he uses bait and game cameras to target boars and avoid sows.
ADFG wildlife biologist Carl Koch said he was “neutral” on the proposal and that he and colleagues at ADFG weren’t sure why the baiting season was designed (more than 30 years ago) to end two weeks before the hunting season. He said only 4% of the harvest usually occurs during the last two weeks of June.
The council unanimously opposed a proposal by Ketchikan’s fish and game advisory council to lengthen the wolverine trapping season across Southeast from Nov. 10 to March 15. It currently ends Feb. 28.
The Ketchikan council said it wanted “to gain back some trapping days lost during previous Board of Game meetings.” (The season used to start in September and run through April.)
Koch said the season was shortened because wolverines have kits in the spring and biologists were concerned about impacts of trapping during that time.
The upper Lynn Canal council supported a different Ketchikan council proposal to extend marten trapping season by two weeks in February to align with wolverine season. The idea behind that proposal is to allow the harvest of bycatch martens.
A proposal index and descriptions can be found on ADFG’s website in the Board of Game section under the “Regulations” tab.
The Board of Game meets Jan. 20-24 in Ketchikan to discuss proposals concerning Southeast. Public comments are due Jan. 6.