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The 2017 moose season is set to begin next week, with the monthlong harvest opening on September 15. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has already seen an increase in permits being issued as the season approaches. Last year's harvest for District 3 – encompassing Wrangell, Petersburg, and surrounding islands – had seen 110 moose taken, according to ADFG harvest records. It was the district's best on record, surpassing 109 harvested in 2009. "Everything's pretty much the same," Pet...
Alaska’s salmon season is winding down and while catches have made the record books in some regions, the statewide take will fall a bit short of the 204 million fish forecast. “We are within about 10 percent of the forecast, so that’s very positive and overall it’s been a pretty good season,” said Forrest Bowers, deputy director of the commercial fisheries division of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The statewide salmon catch through Friday topped 191 million. The shortfall, Bowers said, again stems from the arrival of fewer pink salmon...
One of Wrangell’s two seafood processors has drawn down production early for the season due to lower than expected returns this summer. Updated twice daily, on Tuesday the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Blue Sheet reported just over 143 million salmon have been harvested statewide, though numbers were not available for the Bristol Bay, Kuskokwim and Aleutian Islands districts. Seventy-four percent of these are pink salmon, with over 106 million already reported in. Coming off of last year’s season – declared a “disaster” by Gov. Bill W...
PETERSBURG — The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced August 15, that the 2017/2018 commercial Dungeness crab fall fishing season in Registration Area A (Southeastern Alaska) will be reduced in duration. All waters open to commercial Dungeness fishing in Southeastern Alaska will open at 8:00 a.m. on Sun., October 1, 2017 and will close at 11:59 p.m. on Tues., October 31, 2017. In accordance with the Southeastern Alaska Dungeness Crab Management Plan [5 AAC 32.146(3)], the department has completed an analysis of the incidence of l...
JUNEAU – The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced today that the retention of king salmon is prohibited in all Southeast Alaska salt waters, king salmon may not be retained or possessed; any king salmon caught must be released immediately and returned to the water unharmed. These regulations will be effective 12:01 a.m. Thursday, August 10 through 11:59 p.m. Saturday, September 30, 2017. The Southeast Alaska king salmon sport fishery is managed under the directives of the Southeast Alaska King Salmon Management Plan (5 AAC 47.055). T...
A regional conservation group recently called attention to the prospective sale of a disused Canadian mine, and suggests the exchange could bode poorly for efforts to maintain water quality in transboundary rivers. The Tulsequah Chief zinc mine is across the Canadian border in British Columbia located along the Tulsequah River, a tributary of the Taku River. It has been out of use since 1957, and its critics contend it has since been a source of headache both for its past owners and for subsistence users along the Taku watershed it neighbors....
June 14, 1917: The School Board has elected Miss Edith Carhart principal of the Wrangell Public School for the coming term. Miss Carhart is not a stranger in Wrangell, having been principal of the school here during the term of 1909-10. She was re-elected but preferred to return to the States. She has had 17 years experience. For the past three years she has been principal of the Fobes school at Snohomish, Washington Miss Tressa Curtin has been elected teacher of the primary department. Miss Curtin has had 11 years as a teacher, seven of which...
Want a fishing license to crew on a salmon boat this summer? Got friends or family visiting who want to wet a line for a prized Alaska catch? Don’t count on it. If the Alaska legislature continues to defy its constitutional obligation to pass a budget, those opportunities will be lost because there won’t be any state workers to issue fishing licenses. Layoff notices went out on June 1 to thousands of state employees who will be off the job at the July 1 start of the fiscal year. That’s just one of the lesser impacts of the legislative impasse,...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – A Douglas Island homeowner shot a brown bear after feeling threatened by the animal, Alaska wildlife officials said. The 725-pound brown bear was shot on May 25, said Ryan Scott, Alaska Department of Fish & Game wildlife regional supervisor. It is the first documented, or legal, killing of a brown bear in Douglas Island reported to the department since 1974, the Juneau Empire reported. “It’s a rare event to have them on Douglas or really in Juneau,’’ Scott said. “Over the years we’ve had reports of bear swimming adjacent t...
Home grown shellfish and kelp are gaining momentum in Alaska, spurred on by growing markets and the steadfast push by Governor Walker’s visionary mariculture task force. Applications for more than 1,000 acres of oyster and kelp farms were filed with the Department of Natural Resources by the April 30 deadline, far more than usual. Fifteen are for new farms in the Southeast, Southcentral and Westward regions of which seven plan to grow kelp exclusively. Two farms at Klawok also are adding kelp to their current oyster growing operations. ...
June 14, 1917: The School Board has elected Miss Edith Carhart principal of the Wrangell public school for the coming term. Miss Carhart is not a stranger in Wrangell, having been principal of the school here during the term of 1909-10. She was re-elected but preferred to return to the States. She has had 17 years experience, and always been reelected wherever she has taught. Miss Tressa Curtin has been elected teacher of the primary department. Miss Curtin has had 11 years as a teacher, seven of which were spent in the Fobes School at...
A pair of French travelers made their way down the Stikine River to Wrangell from Telegraph Creek using a homemade dugout. Both in their early twenties, friends Theophile Bouton and Karl Panchout have spent the past year exploring the Northwest, and their 11-day trip down the transboundary river was just one of a series of adventures. This part of the story begins in the Yukon, which Panchout hitch-hiked across Canada to reach from Quebec about 11 months ago. "I met a friend of my uncle there,"...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced that the 2017/2018 commercial Dungeness crab fishery in Southeastern Alaska will be opening as scheduled at 8 a.m. on June 15. Dungeness crab fishermen must register their vessels and applicable gear with the department. The holder of a valid 2017 Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission permit for Southeastern Alaska Dungeness crab must be onboard the vessel during fishing operations and the permit holder’s name must be listed on the vessel registration. Buoy tags must be purchased prior to f...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Sport Fish announced the bag and possession limit of king salmon in the Wrangell Narrows-Blind Slough terminal harvest area, effective June 1 through July 31. Under the regulations, king salmon bag and possession limits for residents and nonresidents will be two fish for those 28 inches or greater, and two fish less than 28 inches in length. Additionally, king salmon caught by nonresident anglers in the terminal harvest area do not count toward...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced Tuesday king salmon sport fishing regulations have changed for the marine waters adjacent to the Stikine River in District 8, near Petersburg and Wrangell. From May 25 through July 15, sport fishing for king salmon is closed for the Grey's Passage area. This area is defined by all waters encompassed by a line from Babbler Point to Hour Point; Point Highfield to an ADFG regulatory marker located at the eastern entrance of Blind Slough; a...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – King salmon fishing crews in Southeast Alaska have fallen short of catching their limit for the winter season. This year’s commercial harvest total is down from the previous two winters, KFSK-FM reported last week. Crews have caught about 43,000 king salmon this season after catching more than 45,000 in each of the past two years. The winter had been looking even bleaker four weeks ago before a late surge, said Grant Hagerman, Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s troll management biologist. “So a down year,” Hagerman...
Senior students at Wrangell High School presented their end-of-year projects for parents, faculty and other passersby last week at the school gym. Twenty-four members of this year's graduating class worked on a variety of assignments to meet their core requirements. School activities director Bill Bradley explained the projects are self-driven, and encourage students to give back to the community as best they can. Projects are at least 25 hours each, which can be difficult to arrange when...
The month-long King Salmon Derby will get to a start on Saturday, the 65th in Wrangell's long-running competition. Wrangell's annual derby is organized by the Chamber of Commerce, and during its month long run draws close to 1,000 participants. Last year's grand prize winner was Malia McIntyre, who brought in a 46.7 pound king salmon toward the end of the derby. As with last year, first prize for 2017 will yield a $6,000 jackpot. Additional prizes for second through fourth place are $4,000,...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game released its forecast for commercial salmon harvests this year, projecting a strong run of pinks for Southeast in 2017. If panning out as projected, the news should come as a relief to the region's fishermen after a disappointing 2016 harvest. The report details last year's commercial salmon season, which had come in about 30 percent lower than forecast. Alaska fishermen caught 112,500,000 salmon in 2016, of which 52.9 million had been sockeye and 39...
SITKA - The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced April 10 that under Chinook salmon management provisions of the Pacific Salmon Treaty the 2017 abundance index for Southeast Alaska has been calculated to be 1.27, which results in an all-gear harvest limit of 209,700 treaty Chinook (non-Alaska hatchery-produced Chinook). The preseason troll treaty harvest allocation for 2017 is 154,880 Chinook or 108,320 fish lower than the preseason limit available in 2016. While there is no ceiling on the number of Chinook salmon harvested in the...
PETERSBURG, Alaska (AP) – A group of volunteers from five southeast Alaska communities is working to document bats as part of a program aimed at combating a deadly virus caused by the animals. Volunteers from Petersburg, Juneau, Haines, Sitka and Wrangell are participating in this year’s program, which is coordinated through the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Over the last three years, the program has helped gather data to prevent White Noise Syndrome. The fungal disease has killed off more than 7 million bats in the Lower 48 since it was...
Seafood sales at American retail stores are on an upswing and should remain that way for the foreseeable future. Better yet - demand for fish captured wild in the USA showed the biggest gains of all. That’s good news for Alaska, which provides nearly 65 percent of wild-caught seafood to our nation’s supermarkets (95 percent for salmon!). A new survey by trade magazine Progressive Grocer showed that retail seafood sales rose nearly 40 percent over the past year, and 56 percent predicted an upturn in seafood sales this year. U.S. wild caught sea...
The Department of Fish and Game announced late last week its opening for the directed lingcod fishery will be starting next month. For the outside waters of Southeast District, east of 144° W., the fishery opens May 16 just after midnight. Lingcod management areas will remain open to directed lingcod fishing until November 30 or when harvest allocations are taken, whichever occurs first. In round pounds, the largest allocation will be for the East Yakutat section between 137° and 140° W., at 11...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – The state of Alaska’s toolkit for increasing moose and caribou numbers includes killing wolf pups in dens, shooting wolf packs from helicopters, and adopting liberal hunting regulations that allow sportsmen to shoot grizzlies over bait. But when state officials wanted to extend “predator control’’ to federal wildlife refuges, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said no. And after years of saying no, the agency late last year adopted a rule to make the denial permanent. Alaska’s elected officials called that an outrage...
