Just in time for Alaska's spring bird hunt, a new federal law is taking effect that allows subsistence hunters to target migratory birds without having to get a federal duck stamp -- a sort of waterfowl hunting permit on top of the still-required state hunting license.
Many rural hunters struggled to get duck stamps and some ignored the requirement, said Pete Probasco, assistant regional director for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska and chairman of the Alaska Migratory Bird Co-Management Council. Federal authorities tended to look the other way, he said.
The $15 federal stamps bear images of waterfowl and are sold -- among other places -- at post offices, even though they aren't postage. But they often weren't in stock, and some rural residents don't live near a post office, according to federal managers.
Then-U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, a Democrat, and Rep. Don Young, a Republican, pushed for the change. The provision that passed was an amendment Young inserted into the Federal Duck Stamp Act of 2014 to strip away the requirement for Alaska subsistence hunters, according to his office. The act amended an existing law regulating migratory bird hunts.
"This is a major victory for rural Alaska," Young said in a video message played Wednesday at the annual meeting of the Co-Management Council, which he began and ended with a duck call.
The Fish and Wildlife Service announced Wednesday it was putting in place an interim policy to implement the new law while regulations are being developed. The council put attention on the new policy at its meeting in Anchorage at the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association building.
Spring waterfowl hunts are allowed in much of rural Alaska, including the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Northwest Alaska, the Alaska Peninsula, the Aleutian chain and the Pribilof Islands, Probasco said.
The exemption also covers fall hunts for residents of those areas as well as Southeast Alaska and parts of the Kenai Peninsula, Probasco said. But hunters still will need state duck stamps, he said.
Myron Naneng, a member of the co-management council and president of the Bethel-based Association of Village Council Presidents, said subsistence hunters had assumed since 1997 they would be exempt from the stamp requirement. That year, the U.S. Senate approved amendments to treaties with Canada and Mexico to allow spring and summer migratory bird subsistence hunts in Alaska. The council includes state, federal and Alaska Native representatives.
AVCP, an Alaska Native nonprofit organization, has fought since 1997 to strip away the duck stamp requirement, he said.
He called the changes "historic."
The Alaska Migratory Bird Co-Management Council also on Wednesday celebrated its 15th year. After the speeches on duck stamps, the group broke for an anniversary potluck in which rural participants brought some of the food. Among the dishes being served: bowhead whale, boiled octopus and white-fronted goose soup.
Almost all fees raised from the federal duck stamp program go toward buying or leasing waterfowl habitat for conservation.