To the editor:
I was on the Fairbanks Advisory Committee for 11 years, just got off in December for some health reasons, but plan on fighting the Alaska Department of Fish and Game on the moose hunting in the Tanana Flats.
As you know, the only bulls you can hunt there are spike-fork, 50-inch, or three brow tine bulls.
We on the FAC fought to keep that from happening but two guides and a Board of Game member and biologist Don Young pushed that in. The guides wanted bigger bulls and a longer season for their clients, not caring whether you get meat for your freezer.
Then local biologist Don Young came up with the calf hunt to give us meat in our freezers but I fought against that. So then he came up with the antlerless hunt - which still meant you could kill calves.
So if you want to get rid of the cow hunt, then please show up and help us to get rid of the antler restrictions on the bulls.
We are trying to compromise with Fish and Game and not jump back in to any-bull hunts, but to get rid of the spike-fork part of the rules so we still have recruitment of young bulls. We would make the rules 36-inch and two-brow tine. The only way it's going to happen is for everyone to show up like they did at the advisory board meeting during the election and testify.
Another thing is that we need wolf control in 20A real bad.
With the cow hunts going on the wolves are not getting trapped. We have more wolves out there, and that means more moose we don't get for our freezers to feed our families.
The argument for the spike-fork, 50-inch, is people get a longer season.
With the price of gas and with most people that time of year in a hurry to get meat in the freezer and work done around the house, they probably don't have four weeks of leave to waste looking for a moose to fill their freezer.
So please show up like you did at the advisory board meeting and be heard Feb. 29 and tell the Board of Game what you want, not what the local biologist wants.
Lee "Skip" Olsen
Fairbanks |
