The Alaska Board of Game has approved a change expanding where archers can hunt on Petersburg’s Mitkof Island.
The change opens bow hunting in an area that has been closed to harvesting big game, except for wolves, since 1962. It eliminates a closed area south of town around the Petersburg road system, which served as a quarter-mile corridor for decades, and adds it to a larger management area.
The Board approved the change with a 4–3 vote at a late January meeting in Wrangell.
Board Member Jake Garner, of Anchorage, voted against it.
“I’m in favor of the quarter-mile corridor,” he said in discussing the proposal. “The archers can go and then participate in the hunt there after a quarter-mile off of the road. So, not looking to change something that’s been in place and working for quite a while.”
The area restricted hunters from taking big game, except for wolves, within a quarter-mile from each side of Mitkof Highway. The area runs from Petersburg’s municipal limits at mile marker 8.75, toward the Crystal Lake Hatchery at mile marker 17.22.
The stretch of land is now part of the Petersburg Management Area, which covers the town proper. That management area was created around 2002 to reduce deer numbers in residential Petersburg, and is open to hunting game by bow and arrow only.
The change opens up opportunity for certified bow hunters to harvest deer, moose, and black and brown bear in the area south of town, and it restricts the harvest of wolves there to archery-only. Hunting wolves by firearm used to be allowed within that corridor, but becoming part of the Petersburg Management Area means hunters can only take big game by bow and arrow.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game had a neutral stance on the change. And Petersburg’s Fish and Game Advisory Committee’s vote on whether to recommend it to the Board was split three ways: 4 members in favor, 4 against, and 4 abstained from voting.
Kaleb Baird, a member of the Petersburg committee and a bow hunter, personally proposed the change. Testifying to the Board of Game in Wrangell about the proposal, he stressed that the area around the road was not truly closed anyway.
“An unrestricted weapons wolf hunt, small game hunting and waterfowl hunting may all take place within this stretch of Mitkof Island, all of which may be done concurrently outside of this closed area,” he said. “This discussion is a matter of opportunity. Does it make more sense to keep it a wolf, waterfowl, small game corridor where firearms are allowed near the highway — or greatly expand the amount of area certified bow hunters have to fill their freezers on an island with an extremely short and restrictive general deer season otherwise?”
The affected area includes popular recreational sites, such as the swan observatory and Blind River Rapids boardwalk trail, and there were some concerns about potential conflicts between hunting and recreational user groups if the change were approved.
The Board also questioned concerns about proximity to homes and private land. But there is a buffer in Petersburg Management Area regulation that prohibits hunting within 100 yards of roads or dwellings.
“The concerns that were raised are the same issues that potentially could have happened in the Petersburg Management Area — we haven’t seen that,” Board Member Allen Barrett, of Fairbanks, said before voting in favor of the change. “You would spread out some of the archery effort from the Petersburg Management Area out to the road system, and you’re going to provide this additional opportunity for people that want to participate in archery.”
Federal lands in the area will remain closed to hunting under regulations.
After approving this change, the Board of Game unanimously voted against a different proposal to repeal another closed area south of town around Blind Slough. From mile marker 15.1 to mile 18.4, the area remains closed to all hunting in the waters of Blind Slough, and within a quarter-mile from each side of Blind Slough.
