By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
A pair of Sitka black tail deer stroll in town in this file photo. (Sentinel Photo)
Proposals to lower the deer hunting bag limit for non-federally qualified subsistence users in Southeast’s Game Management Unit 4 will be up for consideration when the state Board of Game convenes later this month in Ketchikan.
Since 2019, all hunters in Unit 4 have been able to harvest up to six black tailed deer annually. Previously the limit was four animals for non-rural hunters.
The board will meet Jan. 19-24 to discuss hunting and trapping topics pertinent to Southeast Alaska. Proposals 10 and 11 in the board packet suggest returning the bag limit to four deer.
The unit includes Admiralty, Baranof and Chichagof islands. All those living in communities in the unit – including Sitka – are federally qualified subsistence users and wouldn’t be directly affected by the proposed changes.
“Decreasing the bag limit would have minimal impact on most sport hunters while reestablishing a clearer priority for federally qualified subsistence hunters. Returning the bag limit to the historically more common four deer should reduce conflict between rural and urban hunters,” Juneau Fish and Game Advisory Committee chairman Kevin Maier states in his proposal, number 10 in the board packet.
In his suggestion, Maier notes that some people from rural parts of Southeast are advocating broad closures of hunting areas in Unit 4 to those who are not federally qualified subsistence users.
“In the latest round of the Federal Subsistence Board process, federally qualified hunters have cited conflicts with non-federally qualified hunters, asking for broad closures of federal land to non-federally qualified hunters,” Maier wrote. “To help avoid such drastic closures, advisory committees, advocacy groups, and individual Juneau hunters have volunteered to work with federally qualified hunters as well as the Federal Subsistence Board to reduce these conflicts and find compromises – this proposal represents part of that effort.”
Another proposal before the board, number 11, is comparable to Maier’s suggestion.
Neither proposal would impact hunting opportunities or bag limits for residents of communities designated as rural by the U.S. Department of the Interior Federal Subsistence Board. The only two non-federally qualified cities in Southeast are Ketchikan and Juneau. Hunters from Outside also would be affected by the proposed changes.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game opposes both proposals. Deer populations around Unit 4 are healthy, ADFG wildlife biologist Steve Bethune told the Sentinel.
“Deer populations are very high – robust is the word I like to use,” Bethune said. “We think that deer populations may actually be near maximum capacity in some watersheds.”
The total deer harvest in Unit 4 is 5,000 and 7,000 deer annually. Data collected by the department indicate that about 97 percent of non-federally qualified hunters – most from Juneau – have taken four or fewer deer annually between 2019 and 2021, the biologist added. For Juneau residents hunting in Unit 4, the northern and eastern stretches of Admiralty Island are most accessible. Hunters are required to report how many deer they shoot and where they take the animals each year.
The Sitka Fish and Game Advisory Committee voted to oppose the lowering of deer bag limits, but Heather Bauscher, who chairs the committee, says she understands why people in small towns feel a desire to curtail Juneau hunters.
“There’s concern across Southeast over hunting pressure in specific areas around communities, and that’s really what all of these proposals are about,” Bauscher said. “I think the local community concerns coming out of Angoon and Hoonah and Pelican have been heightened because of food security concerns related to these past few years of COVID and things like reductions in Marine Highway sailings and transportation of goods and just having a harder time getting food to rural communities… (But) as far as the state’s concerned, you cannot reduce harvest opportunity without a conservation or biological concern. Based on the data before us, there isn’t legality for reducing the bag limit.”
In addition to the pair of state-level proposals, three federal-level proposals that aim to curtail non-rural deer hunting in Unit 4 will be discussed at the meeting of the Federal Subsistence Board, Jan. 31 through Feb. 3 in Anchorage.
The trio of changes proposed to the FSB in April included closing the western part of Admiralty Island to non-subsistence hunters between Sept. 15 and Nov. 30 (WP22-07), and reducing the bag limit for non-subsistence users in the Northeast Chichagof Controlled Use Area to two male deer (WP22-08). The third would reduce the non-federally qualified bag limit around Lisianski Inlet to four deer from the current total of six (WP22-10).
Details are posted on doi.gov/subsistence/archives.
In light of the federal proposals, both Bauscher and Bethune described the two state proposals as an “olive branch” directed toward rural hunters.
“We had a few Juneau AC representatives speak during our AC meeting and it was explained that... those Juneau proposals were an olive branch - because they’re afraid of more of these sort of proposals that could fully exclude non-federally qualified subsistence users and getting completely shut down in certain areas,” Bauscher said. “So (the Juneau AC) proposed a bag limit reduction as an alternative to fully excluding non-federally qualified users.”
Bethune noted this as well.
“Both proposals were submitted specifically to… offer an olive branch to the subsistence users who have submitted the federal proposals to limit deer hunting by non-federally qualified hunters,” he said.
Fish and Game opposes the federal proposals, though the Sitka AC has remained neutral on that topic.
The comment period for the Board of Game proposals ends at midnight today. Comments can be submitted by following the link posted at https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=gameboard.main. Comments also can be faxed to (907) 465-6094.
In-person testimony will be accepted in Ketchikan during the meeting. To address the board physically, a person must register by 2 p.m. on January 21.
For those who wish to comment on the federal proposals, the Subsistence Board accepts testimony by email at subsistence@fws.gov or fax (907) 786-3898. People can testify to the FSB by phone or in-person.
Bauscher encouraged interested people to give testimony at meetings.
“People can speak up at the Board of Game in their written comments, or during the upcoming Board of Game meeting or even at the Federal Subsistence Board… There’s going to be multiple upcoming public comment opportunities in all of these forums over the next few weeks,” she said.
