Hunting & Fishing

The Mulchatna Caribou Herd is half the size it was three years ago. The herd has dropped from over 27,000 caribou in 2016 to 13,500 caribou in 2019, according to Alaska Department of Fish and Game estimates. To help conserve the herd, state and federal managers have tightened hunting regulations, restricting the bag limit to one caribou. In Game Unit 18, on federal lands, that caribou must be a bull, and the hunt is limited to federally qualified local subsistence users. KYUK hosted a call-in show on Nov. 19 to discuss these regulatory changes, answer questions, and hear from local users about what they've learned about caribou.

Three years ago, there were over 27,000 caribou in the Mulchatna Caribou Herd. Now there are less than half of that, only 13,500, according to Alaska Department of Fish and Game surveys. There are suspects for the decline but no identified causes.

The Mulchatna Caribou Herd population has dropped to half the size that it was three years ago. To conserve the herd, the state issued an emergency order reducing the bag limit from two caribou to one. Now federal managers have released even tighter hunting restrictions. With the herd’s decreased population, some people want the hunt shut down entirely.

The deadline to report the outcome of your Kuskokwim moose hunt has arrived. If you received a permit to harvest a moose in Zone 2 of the Kuskokwim’s RM615 hunt and never got a moose, Tuesday, Oct. 15 is the last day to report that information. However, no matter what the outcome or zone of your hunt, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game wants to know how it went. Biologists are relying more on this information as warming winters make other survey tools less reliable.

An elderly couple rescued three moose hunters when their boat capsized on the Kuskokwim River. Caught in the moment, the hunters didn’t get the Elders’ names. Now the hunters are looking for the couple so that they can thank them.