Wanted: 900-1400 dead Alaska black bears

[Oak]

Wanted: 900-1,400 dead Alaska Black bears
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/wild...p-8681979c.html[/FONT]


[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]Sows, cubs fair game in predator-control plan with few restrictions[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]By ALEX deMARBAN[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]Anchorage Daily News[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]Published: April 10, 2007[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]Last Modified: April 10, 2007 at 02:08 AM[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]Beginning this summer, Alaska hunters can kill as many black bears as they like in an area near Anchorage -- including sows and cubs -- as long as they get a free permit under Alaska's predator-control program.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]Wildlife managers want to kill 900 to 1,400 black bears in the 11,000-square-mile area across Cook Inlet northwest of Anchorage because the bears are eating too many moose, said Suzan Bowen, Department of Fish and Game regulations program coordinator. The state estimates there are as many as 2,000 bears in the area.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]The state doesn't call it hunting. Instead, the extraordinary measure is a predator-control program where fair-chase and other hunting ethics don't apply, Bowen said.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]"This is an attempt to take as many black bears as possible," Bowen said. "Guns, bows and bait, whatever they want."[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]An official with at least one hunting group, however, criticized the program and said the state may have overestimated the black bear numbers.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]The Game Board created the new program during its meeting last month. It becomes effective July 1. The killing will take place on the western end of the lower Susitna River and around such river drainages as the Yentna, Skwenta, Kahiltna and Deshka in game unit 16.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]The bear permit will be part of the aerial wolf-kill program in that area, Bowen said. Gunners and hunters with aerial wolf-kill permits are allowed to kill wolves from planes.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]In its effort to increase bear kills in the area, the Game Board, among other things, will also allow land-and-shoot black bear killing. Hunters can find bears from the air and kill them shortly after landing. The hunter must be at least 300 feet from the aircraft.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]The state currently allows hunters only three black bears a year in the area. That hunt will still exist so that out-of-state hunters can take bears, Bowen said.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]Moose numbers in the area have been low for years, though there is plenty of browse for them to eat, said Game Board chairman Cliff Judkins. Information compiled by state biologists shows that bears kill a "staggering percentage" of moose calves, he said.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]"I'm certain there will be some public concern, but doggone it, how else do you get this balance back?" said Judkins. "To do it, we have to reduce the bear population" by killing sows and cubs.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]Black bears number 1,500 to 2,000 in the western unit 16B, the state estimates. Biologists want only 600 black bears left, Bowen said. Once that goal is met, the program will end, she said.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]Moose number about 3,200 to 4,000 in that unit, the state estimates. Biologists want 6,500 to 7,500 moose, Bowen said.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]Moose hunters there have been limited to only Tier II hunts -- the state's most restricted hunt -- for several years, Bowen said. About 1,000 people applied for the permits there last year, with only 360 getting the chance to hunt, she said.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]The looser rules for black bear hunting are likely unprecedented in Alaska history, Bowen said. They will be an exception to regulations prohibiting hunters from killing black bear cubs and sows accompanying cubs.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]Big-game hunts without bag limits in Alaska are rare. Hunters can get as many caribou as they want on Adak Island in the Aleutians, where the animals have no natural predators, and Kodiak Island. The state allows unlimited killing of several small animals, such as squirrels and mice, too.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]Officials will meet soon to discuss details of the new program, Bowen said. Applicants must have a hunting license and be Alaska residents. They probably will have to be 16 or older, she said.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]Aaron Bloomquist, Anchorage Fish and Game Advisory Committee chairman, said the looser rules probably won't boost black bear kills in the area much.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]More than 100 people already fly there each year to kill bears, he said. Hundreds more travel up rivers. Most hunters have their hands full just trying to kill three bears a year. Under the new program, hunters will still have to bring in skulls and hides for sealing, he said.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]The new rules are a step in the right direction, though, Bloomquist said. Black bears also need to be reduced elsewhere, and the only way to do that is to kill sows, he said. There are more than 100,000 black bears in Alaska, the state has estimated.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]"I don't know if the board can really put a dent in the black bear population (anywhere), but in this case they've done pretty much everything they can short of hiring a trapper or killer of some sort," he said.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]Dave Lyon, co-chairman of Alaska Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, said his group has reviewed the information the Game Board used to make its decision and doesn't support the bear killing.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]"It's crummy science," he said, arguing that the state's black bear estimates could be inflated.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]He also doesn't expect a huge jump in black bear kills.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]"Most folks who want to kill a black bear can find a lot easier ways to do it," he said, such as setting up bait stations on the Kenai Peninsula.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]Daily News reporter Alex deMarban can be reached at [email protected] or 257-4310.[/FONT]

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica]E-mail Address:[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica][email protected][/FONT]

 

[Dangerous Dave]

I'll say one thing Oak, you sure give me some interesting things to think about from time to time. My opinion doesn't matter concerning this issue, and I will instead prefer to hear what the locals have to say about this -should be interesting. You can be sure this proposal is gonna set quite a few folks off on both ends of the argument.

 

[shoots-straight]

By all the biological data I've read concerning bear numbers, it's the adult males that keep the population in check. If you kill all the adult boars in an area then the population explodes. I'v read several studies concerning this..
In British Columbia a study team took an 80 squre mile area, counted the bears, found a 1 bear per square. They removed as many large boars as they could, the population exploded, after 10 years they quit removeing the boars the population went back to 1 per square mile..... The boars will kill every bear bear they can catch... Lions do the same..

 

[Nightwolf]

I plan to hunt that area this year. The gentlemen from Alaska Backcountry Hunters and Anglers was right; there will most likely not be a big jump of bear killed. That area is nasty and is only accessible by plane or taking a daring trip on a river that is very nasty especially in the spring. The thing that bothers me about this is that the Anchorage Daily News is flashing this story all over the front page and writing it in such a way as to get the whole populous of bunny huggers in a stir. They did the same thing with the brown bear hunt they wanted to put on near the Mcneil Falls. The fact is the moose are getting slaughtered by wolves and bears. Some inside info I had was that they where going to open up the baiting in this area for Brown bear as well; such as the program in place in the unit 20E. Once again something that makes sense will probably get put back up for a vote because the anti’s will raise a big fuss over it. Meanwhile my fellow Alaskan hunters will roll over because they don’t want to confront Anti hunters. I think a lot of the people here are blind. They think that just because we can buy guns any where hunt pretty much anywhere, we tend to think our hunting and gun laws are untouchable. But as of lately I see more and more restriction as well as our fish and game getting forced by politics to change there policy because someone don’t want animals killed. In reference to the sows and cubs, most ethical hunters are not going to kill sows and cubs, maybe a sow that has cubs but probably by accident only because the cubs where not in the visible area. I will be hunting out there, I will keep you posted on how many I see taken out of there. Sorry I went on a rant but!! as hunter here it seems like I’m getting pushed around. and ADN is not helping our case at all.

 

[Dangerous Dave]

Nightwolf, thanks for your insightfull response about this issue. It does appear that the news outlets are constantly leading the charge towards social engineering and garnering public opinion by magifying worst case senerios such as this. The mental image of mother bears and cubs being slaughtered by vicisous, bloodthirsty hunters is too useful to their cause to pass up.
This same mental imagery was used to perfection in getting Prop 118 passed banning mountain lion hunting out here in California. I can still remember the commercials on tv pummeling the public with images of cute kittens and their cougar mothers playing together in a perfect world... but ONLY if Prop 118 passed. You were a heartless SOB if you didn't vote to ban cougar hunting... how could it miss? Public sentiment ran so high, legislators actually started looking in to start voting on banning OTHER forms of hunting... bow hunting in particular.
One last thing and I'll fall off my soapbox. The Fish & Game/Wildlife departments have been infiltrated by quite a few "income re-distribution, socialist" sets of iconoclasts, dedicated to banning all hunting forever. What better place to wreak havoc than in the middle of the departments that are managing our wildlife conservation programs?

 

[northwestalaska]

mis-guided Alaska

I need to start off with the following comments:

1- I am a long time resident of Bush Alaska-33 miles north of the Arctic Circle and 600 miles from a road.
2- I own a hunting/fishing/backcountry outfitting business.
3- I am a Biologist.
4- I am a hunter and I support hunting in this great state we call home and many of you want to visit some day.

With all of that said lets pick this piece of crap apart. In Alaska many/most state decisions appear to be made based upon the needs of the hunting community with little of in this case No regard to good science. The amount of carnage that Fish and Game is advocating in this bear kill concept is so far off of the charts is hard to take it seriously.

Control of predators should be based upon peer-reviewed studies not based upon the wishes of a pro-hunting government. Nature (once you remove man) keeps populations in balance through a series of checks and balances. This effort to remove possibly 70+% of the existing bear population is so the area will have more Moose is stupid. What is the carrying capacity of this moose range? Is it ok for a state to decide to remove one population to benefit another sound management practice?

We have lots of Bears in NW Alaska and they are just now coming out of winters sleep. We have a low but healthy moose population and a very high population of caribou. Should the State of Alaska decide that 600,000 caribou is too high and advocate airplane hunting of caribou to reduce the population or let nature sort it out as it will in the next 10 or so years?

Ok that’s it on my soapbox. Common since if key when you read about these types of things happening up here in Alaska. We are not all wack jobs up here!

 

[Dangerous Dave]

Great points. It does seem that the Alaskan F&W dept. is over-reacting and is biased toward bear culling/hunter opportunity. Doesn't sound very biologically sound at all. I wonder what's behind it all.

 

[Nightwolf]

It seems to me that as hunters and part of the Fish and game department’s job is to control the resources of the state. We hunt to level out populations so that Mother Nature’s extreme habits can be mediated a little. What I mean is that if a population of moose or caribou is at 100,000 and the amount of bear or wolves are low. 3 years later the moose or caribou population is down to 50,000 and the bear or wolf population has tripled or even just doubled. Then it is their job to make sure that area is targeted to cull some of the population of predators. All this before the wolves or bears kill enough moose or caribou to the point that there is not enough in the area to feed the large amount predators. Then they die off. So I’m sorry but I disagree very much so! If you are a hunter as you say then why would you care if the F& G was pro hunter. We are a tool for the F& G to help maintain a healthy population. That is good biology. That is the whole point of hunting. Bear and wolves are predators so just like coyotes they to need to get killed down to a level that will not wipe out the moose or caribou. I’m sorry But I live down here and if you talk to someone who fly’s over that area such as willow Air or the pilots out of Talkeetna. They see more bears in that area then any other area they fly over. The concentration is ridiculous. They also know that the moose are getting scarce. What is most ridiculous is the moose kill sights. That’s why I’m hunting there because I know the bears are ridiculous over there. They love it there because the cover is great for them. I just love how people are so quick to judge and say F&G is so dead wrong. But don’t worry like I said before the way this has been blasted on the news the bunny huggers will unite unlike us hunters and get this initiative over turned.

 

[northwestalaska]

Nightwolf

Nightwolf

I do not live in the Valley so My input may not be very valid but Good Biology?? Based upon what? I fly a lot up here and I see lots of bears coming out of hibernation this time of year and they seem to be in high concentration. So does that count as Good Biology? I see a lots of moose getting ready to drop claves this time of year, does that count as Good Biology and do we have lots of Moose because I see lots of moose grouping up. Well Noooo…. They are grouped up so feeding is easier in the heavy snow. AF&G does a lot of their work based upon a preconceived conclusion to increase ungulates not based upon good science.

I am glad that you are hunting in unit 16 and good luck but to advocate killing sows, cubs or anything that looks like a black bear in too extreme and makes all Alaskan hunters look bad. 2 thumbs down on this decision!

Walt
Northwest Alaska Back Country Rentals
Kotzebue Alaska
www.northwestalaska.com
Your best bet in Camp, Raft and Canoe rentals in all of NW Alaska!

 

[Dangerous Dave]

Nightwolf... NOW I get where you're coming from. As I stated in my first post, my opinion of the matter doesn't count because I'm not a local and therefore didn't know if your wildlife department was overreacting or not. From what you're telling me, they aren't and are trying to do what is required. If it makes good biological sense, I'm all for it. We'll just have to see if it "flys" or not.

 

[AkBearHunter]

This hunt will more than likely turn out like the hunt in 20E did, lots of hoopla and exceitement over it but in the end, not much will happen. Last time I talked with someone about the Unit 20E grizzly baiting hunt there had only been 2 bears taken and the population was not afftected that much by the change. ACCESS is the biggest problem with Unit 16, not everyone owns a boat, plane or airboat and chartering to hunt there is not going to be cheap.....and who wants to pay that kind of money to shoot sows and cubs? I think a few bears will be taken but in the end, it will probably end up just like the Unit 20E hunt. Not to get off subject but what about that stupid tourism promotion "Big Wild Life"??? Thats got to be the dumbest slogan I have ever heard!!! Ok, rant off......

 

[guppie9]

That silly slogan is only for north seattle and not the whole state. I personally think its stupid. The only big wild life you will see there is all the trailer trash in spandex at the Wal-Mart.

 

[AkBearHunter]

That slogan is for Anchorage and most people hate it, they did a poll and a vast majority of the people didn't like it. The ad agency said "Oh don't worry, it will grow on you".......what a crock, we still hate it!

 

[northwestalaska]

Big Wild Life

After the unit 16 bear hunt it should be " Anchorage..Big Dead Wildlife" This is a needles black eye for the hunting community. We can find so many way to shoot ourselves in the foot up here!

walt
www.northwestalaska.com

 

[Erik in AK]

Please remember its the Board of Game who sets seasons and bag limits, not ADF&G. Granted, the board often acts at the behest of the department, but the department's job is to provide public (hunter) opportunity in a way that does not harm the long term viability of a given population. This is why we have such a variety of creative tag schemes.

Bear predation is not the cause of 16's moose woe's, habitat shift is. 16's moose browse, which used to be extensive, has either matured or disappeared. The riparian zones regenerate regularly, and now represent the bulk of the moose habitat in GMU 16. This tends to concentrate moose into corridors where bears and hunters can get at them. Killing off a bunch of bears (assuming objectives are met) will result in a temporary increase in moose, but many if not most of those animals will just be killed by human predators instead of ursine ones.

The board and ADF&G are trying to apply a political solution (predator control) to a bio-political problem. There are not too many bears in 16 biologically speaking. In fact there are exactly the number of bears the habitat will support, oherwise they wouldn't be there. The problem is that there not as many moose in GMU 16 as there used to be, and people are putting pressure on the department to "do something". Considering that the department is not sufficiently insulated from political interference, "something" is predator control. Why? Because it's expedient. It double dips, if you will, by increasing hunter opportunity for one popular species (bears) in order to increase another popular species, and it temporarily relieves biologists from having to say out loud what they really want to do....set GMU 16 on fire.

What GMU 16 needs is a habitat overhaul, nothing more, nothing less. We tend to wrongly associate moose with muskeg swamps, but they only provide bedding areas...spruce bogs provide little if any food to a moose. It is my understanding that the reasons for this decrease in prime moose habitat are layered; The area was last burned extensively in the 50's, and the '64 quake caused most of upper Cook Inlet to drop, which raised the water table in the lower Susitna/Yentna country. This caused a natural expansion of boggy ground, and willow and birch needs well drained soils.

The best way to achieve this is through fire but the area has hundreds of private cabins that weren't there back in the heyday of it's moose hunting. The presence of the cabins makes the fire option politically untenable, so we resort to Plan B....killing the competition.

 

[the nikster]

I, too, am not an Alaskan resident. But I have been there several times and own property near the area in question.
Changing the rules has done nothing to increase my opportunity. I am no more likely to harvest a sow or cub today than 2 years ago.
Were the intergallectic fish and game to open Mars to the harvesting of sows and cubs,:
1. Bunny lovers would unite and create a huge stink
2. Media would print unfavorable opinions
3. Access would be limited
4. Little or no effect would be evident on the local population.

I believe that ZERO hunters are going to choose this unit to hunt because they always wanted to harvest a 30lb bear. Perhaps a few folks who already use the area, will harvest a sow or cub towards the end of an otherwise unsuccessful hunt.
This is true in deer units in the lower 48. Hunters awake opening morning dreaming of Boone and Crockett but later settle for smaller animals.
Others can argue biology, politics, or whatever-I know hunters, and as a group, this will have little if any effect.

 

[BuzzH]

Erik in AK said, "Killing off a bunch of bears (assuming objectives are met) will result in a temporary increase in moose,"

I say EVEN IF kill objectives are met...you may or may not be killing the offending black bears. Typically, a small segment of the predator population learn to kill moose in any significant numbers. If you dont kill the right bears, you still have the same problems.

Wide open predator "control" rarely works.

 

[wadeerslayer]

I dont where to stand in this, both northwestalaska and night wolf have good arugements!