"There were people in the room with tears in their eyes because it has been such a long road to get here," said Rosa Meehan of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in Anchorage.
The overriding goal was to set a sustainable harvest, officials said. Time will tell if 58 is the right number. Another goal is for Russia and Alaska hunters to split the quota equally. Bears in the Chukchi and Bering seas wander between both countries. About 40 bears are taken in Alaska each year, says APRN. While there is no legal hunt in Russia, poaching is a regular problem, and officials there hope the subsistence quota will help them work to discourage poaching.
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