The King’s Men Hunt The Royal Forests
BY Herschel Smith
5 months, 4 weeks ago
An aerial program to remove predators from caribou calving grounds in Southwest Alaska has wrapped up its second year with a total of 81 brown bears and 14 wolves killed between May 10 and June 5, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced on June 14. The removals are intended to improve calf survival of the Mulchatna caribou herd, which has declined by about 94 percent since 1997.
This spring ADFG employees tracked caribou in the western half of the herd’s calving grounds while patrolling for evidence of predators chasing or actively feeding on caribou. The removal of the 95 total predators was conducted on state land only, according to officials, with efforts focused on an area of about 530 square miles. That’s half the size of the 2023 predator-control area, when 104 total predators were removed (94 brown bears, five black bears, and five wolves). The herd’s eastern calving grounds were not subject to predator removal this year, as officials plan to compare calf survival between the two regions.
No, don’t sell tags to let hunters cull the predator populations. Only the king’s men get to do it, you see. Because only the king’s men hunt the royal forests.
On June 26, 2024 at 2:03 am, TheAlaskan said:
What about the ‘other’ predator…the man on the snowmachine, running down caribou by the tens or more in winter when the herds migrate south towards the southwest Alaska villages. I lived in Dillingham for a number of years and the Natives talked about the herds getting smaller, yet, when a herd was spotted out on the tundra, the men would all jump on their sleds and run them down while lamenting their year by year scarcity.
1997 seems about right because before then, fewer people had snowmachines.
Typical Alaska Fish and Game. They wouldn’t dare look into Native wintertime hunt methods.
On June 26, 2024 at 7:01 am, Don W Curton said:
I remember as a teen wanting to hunt on some family land. I asked why the F was I required to buy a license to hunt on our own private property. The response was that we may think we own the land, but the state owns everything. The land, the water, the oil beneath it, and all the animals on it. We pay taxes on the land as rent to keep it ours, and everything on it is either taxed or requires permits and fees. We own nothing. That was one of my first sobering slap in my face moments as to the reality of our country, land of the so-called “free”.
Also related, mid-80’s. Lots of suburban sprawl into the foothills around Austin Tx. As each new neighborhood was built, city people were educated as to how herds of deer can survive and thrive in urban settings, eating gardens, tearing up landscaping, and doing thousands of $$ of damage to vehicles when they stupidly jump in front of you. Hunters petitioned for the right to (limited) bowhunting within city limits under strict conditions in an effort to cull the explosion of deer. The bleeding heart liberals in the Austin area said NO in a loud voice, then preceded to hire govt. hunters to kill the same deer they so desperately wanted to protect from hunters.
On June 26, 2024 at 8:31 am, Chuck said:
Don – I had a young guy that used to work for me – history degree, wanted to be a teacher – tell me that we should return to feudalism. I explained that we still live in that system. Told him what would happen if his parents or the owner of his apartment complex didn’t pay the annual tithe to the overlords for their property. We are all still servants of our masters, just the masters have changed.
On June 26, 2024 at 10:12 am, Longbow said:
“Only the king’s men get to do it, you see.”
Well, yeah! Hell, they have a super hero costume and a magic shield! They’re endowed with powers and abilities above and beyond those of mortal men!
What do you think you are? A free man or something?
On June 27, 2024 at 1:27 am, TheAlaskan said:
Bears don’t have a huge impact on caribou numbers, so to cull them from aircraft is retarded.
Having said that, just the other night, a brown bear killed a moose calf at the end of my driveway, so there’s that.
On June 27, 2024 at 2:00 am, TheAlaskan said:
Then there’s the king salmon collapse in every river system in Alaska…every river where they traditionally run. Every one. Alaska fish and Game is blaming “climate change,” warming oceans for their crash in numbers, meanwhile reds, silvers, pinks and chums are at normal record runs. Apparently, “warming oceans” don’t affect those salmon species even though they swim in the same ocean as do the kings.
I lived in Kodiak, Alaska for about thirty years. In the early eighties, They started trawling for pollock in a concerted and big way. Pollock fishing is Mid-water trawling. It is not bottom trawling that was and is happening here in the North Pacific. The mid-water boys overfished their hake fishery down south off Washington and B.C. and started fishing pollock up here in Alaska.
It just so happens that kings swim with pollock when they are about the same size…about two or three years at sea. When the trawlers scoop up the pollock, they also get the kings that are swimming with the pollock.
When the trawler offloads his 300,000 pounds of pollock at the processor, anywhere from 7k to 15k of kings are also offloaded to be sorted out ground up in biodry…every delivery, every boat for more than a decade.
On June 27, 2024 at 2:03 am, TheAlaskan said:
Fish and Game is the biggest joke this side of the Nushigak.
On June 27, 2024 at 7:11 am, Rick said:
Alaskan, don’t get me started. I commercially fished the north Pacific. I have seen first hand what you describe. It is one of two reasons why I stopped. (The other being for that for the first time ever I felt lonely.)
Still, I sat in, was vocal, at public comment hearings. I invited F&G on outings, hardly a taker. Their minds made up a priori.
Much more I could say, but for what.
On June 27, 2024 at 7:22 am, Rick said:
Lest it be known as isolated anecdotes. My friend in CA wanted to become a biologist. He knew every native species of flora and fauna by common name and latin name. No lie. I was amazed by the depth and breadth of his knowledge.
Comes time, after college, that he applied to F&G. They denied his application. He tried again. Same result.
What he told me of the inner workings (as much he had been exposed to) was he did not carry the same perception as the ‘club’. That is, he did not toe the political line as favored by the agency.
This precisely aligned with what I was seeing.
On June 27, 2024 at 7:42 am, Rick said:
Abel Maldonado, a freshman legislator in my district, voted for hat gill netters could not fish inside the 15 fathom line for halibut.
Maldonado kn w nothing about commercial fishing. He couldn’t describe a gill net. He had no idea the depth of 15 fathom (seriously!)
But he voted nay at the behest of lefties who themselves were proven to not know reality, but only what feels right. True, proven. In testimony before committee.
(Good luck catching halibut outside 15 fathoms)
Why was Maldonado elected? Because enough voters thought he was ‘one of us’.
Therein is the lesson; you don’t vote for the nicest hair (Edwards) or the most like you (ad infinitum, ad nauseum) but for the one who most understands. The implication is that the voter themselves know the issues, that they be informed. If they will not inform themselves (or take their direction by TV talking heads) they must be informed by them who do know. By you.
On June 27, 2024 at 9:13 pm, Paul B said:
Not only kings men but most likely holders of master degrees in some bio management sience.