A large kill of Nelchina caribou bulls this year has state wildlife biologists worried about the herd's sex life.
At approximately 38,000 animals, according to the latest Alaska Department of Fish and Game count, the Nelchina population remains large and healthy.
But the herd's bull-to-cow ratio is down to about 1-to-5, and there's a chance the bulls might not have been able to impregnate all the cows.
"It is a really minimal (ratio)," said Fish and Game's area wildlife biologist Bob Tobey.
Biologists don't want to see the ratio go any lower, he added. Caribou are polygamous animals, one biologist noted, but a single bull can only do so much.
Biologists would like to see a ratio of at least 3 bulls per 10 cows, Tobey said from his Glennallen office.
That is part of the reason they closed the season Nov. 20 this year, with hunters approaching the harvest quota for the first time this decade.
A federal season remains open for residents of Glennallen and other designated federal hunting areas, but few caribou remain on the federal lands open to hunters. Most of those animals are cows.
"I'd just as soon they shot a few more cows," Tobey added.
Management of Nelchina caribou hunting has become a difficult task in recent years because of complicated state and federal subsistence hunting regimes that give hunters various priorities.
Federal officials give permits to all rural residents. Federal permit holders can shoot caribou of either sex but are limited to hunting on federal lands.
The state gives so-called Tier II subsistence permits to Alaskans who qualify under a complicated point system that ranks people on the basis of past hunting history, place of residence and dependence on wildlife for food. Tier II permit holders can hunt on the large areas of state lands in the Nelchina Basin as well as on the federal lands.
Traditionally, Tier II hunters have been allowed to shoot caribou of either sex. Two years ago, they were limited to bulls-only when the state game board created a Tier I subsistence permit system.
Tier I hunts are open to any Alaska resident who wants to shoot a caribou for food. But Tier I Nelchina caribou permit holders can only kill cows. The state Board of Game set that policy in 1996 when the Nelchina herd reached 50,000 animals and threatened to overgraze its range.
"That was our cow hunt," said regional wildlife supervisor Jeff Hughes.
The cow hunt ended last year when a spring caribou count found only 35,000 animals - about 10,000 less than biologists expected. The herd size was back up over 40,000 animals by this fall, but biologists kept the Tier I season closed, fearing an overharvest.
In 1996, close to 30,000 Alaskans picked up Tier I permits and killed just 5,000 cows. That was largely attributed to the herd spending much of the hunting season in the inaccessible Alphabet Hills between Lake Louise and Paxson, biologists said.
This year, the caribou started the season near the Denali Highway between Tangle Lakes and Paxson and stayed there most of the fall season.
In August, said Rich Holmstrom of Tangle Lakes Lodge, it looked like the entire Nelchina herd was occupying the high tundra around the lakes. Biologists were fearful that if they opened a Tier I season, a caribou massacre would follow.
As it was, Tier II permit hunters who hadn't come close to past kill quotas shot 2,300 bulls by Nov. 20.
"The success rate for these damn Tier II permits is so variable," Tobey said.
Back when Alaska had so-called "sport hunting" seasons and Nelchina permits were picked in a drawing open to all Alaskans, 75 to 80 percent of permit holders were successful, according to Fish and Game's Bruce Bartley.
Since the drawing permits were eliminated in favor of subsistence, success rates have fluctuated from 15 to 50 percent, Tobey said, and "any caribou" Tier II hunts became primarily bull hunts.
Before being limited to bulls only, Tier II hunters killed 70 percent bulls anyway.
Biologists are trying to figure out how to structure a hunt for next year that will kill fewer bulls but keep the overall harvest high enough to keep the herd in balance with its range.
"We have a problem with the 'any caribou' (regulation)," Tobey said, "because the hunters chose bulls. (And) we can't really go back to the Tier I thing. We certainly don't have the caribou to permit us to open that back up now."
Hughes said a Tier II season with some hunters getting bull permits and some hunters getting cow permits is an option, but biologists are approaching that idea cautiously.
* Outdoors editor Craig Medred can be reached at cmedred@adn.com
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