FAIRBANKS -- The Alaska Board of Game has approved a plan for state wildlife biologists to shoot black and grizzly bears from helicopters in the middle Kuskokwim River region starting next spring. The goal is to increase the moose population for local hunters.
The Game Board unanimously approved the action late Sunday afternoon.
The program was proposed by the state Department of Fish and Game. The department said it expects to reduce black and grizzly bear populations in a portion of Game Management Unit 19A to as low as possible in the spring of 2013 and 2014, according to a statement issued Sunday night.
State biologists will shoot the bears.
While the game board adopted the proposal for 19A, it tabled until later a controversial proposal to allow the killing of bears by snaring in six Interior game management units.
Unit 19A is about 250 miles southeast of Fairbanks and includes the villages of Kalskag, Aniak, Sleetmute and Stony River, among others.
The department statement did not specify how many bears the department would kill but that "all bears within the 540-square-mile area will be removed," Fish and Game spokeswoman Cathie Harms wrote in an email.
The department estimates there are between 135 and 160 black bears in the area and 10 to 15 brown bears. The department said the two-year plan "will have only a minor effect" on the overall black and brown bear populations in all of Unit 19A.
The board's approval marks the second time in two months it has authorized Fish and Game personnel to shoot grizzly bears from helicopters. The first, in January, allowed department personnel to shoot grizzlies on the North Slope to reduce predation on a rapidly declining musk ox population.
The seven-member game board is appointed by the governor and sets bag limits and seasons for game animals. In recent years, the board has adopted an aggressive policy of expanding human consumption of moose and caribou by killing predators, first wolves and more recently bears.
Board chairman Cliff Judkins said the game board took the action to help residents of the central Kuskokwim region.
"The moose population is very low and local people depend on moose meat," Judkins said. "This program will allow moose numbers to rebound much faster than they can now."
An aerial wolf control program has been in place in Unit 19A since 2004. Private pilots and gunners with state permits have reduced the wolf population by at least 60 percent each year since 2005 but moose numbers have not recovered, according to the department's proposal to the board.
"Adding bear removal to the predation control program should help address this issue," the department wrote.
The moose population in all of unit 19A is estimated at between 2,800 and 5,800 moose.
The new plan is roughly modeled on a similar program near McGrath in nearby unit 19D. In that area, the department captured more than 100 black and grizzly bears and moved them to other parts of the state, in the process successfully boosting moose numbers.
Moving bears was not approved in unit 19A because the program is costly and residents from other parts of the state said they didn't want bears moved to their areas, the department said.
The game board also adopted a proposal Sunday to allow fly-in hunters to land and shoot black bears at bait stations in the Interior, as long as the hunter moves at least 300 feet from his aircraft before shooting.
By TIM MOWRY
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner