Subsistence

Sixteen senators voted yes to SJR4,  which urges Congress to exempt legally obtained walrus, mammoth and mastodon ivory from other laws that ban ivory.

The Togiak National Wildlife Refuge announced last week that the Nushagak Peninsula federal subsistence caribou hunt will close when 218 caribou are taken, rather than the original maximum harvest limit of 300. So far, 23 caribou have been reported harvest.

Petersburg fishermen and processors joined with other commercial interests to remind the board of the economic importance of the annual springtime export.

“The number one challenge is loss of polar bear habitat, meaning sea ice,” says James Wilder, the polar bear program leader for the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

As the climate changes, subsistence hunters in Alaska are changing with it. With warm temperatures this winter across the state, sea ice is forming exceptionally slowly in the Arctic and Bering Strait regions.

With its waters visible outside the window of Harrigan Centennial Hall, Sitka Sound, the site of the Sitka sac roe herring fishery, is one of the biggest battles this cycle.