40 Mile Herd - Did Last Winter Hit Them?

[Whip]

I know that last winter was tough on a lot of game animals in parts of Alaska and some of the 40 Mile herds range falls into the areas that received incredibly bad snow and ice. I've heard conflicting reports that say the caribou declined badly and others that say they wintered well east of the bad snow areas and avoided a major hit.

Does anybody have knowledge to share? A buddy and I are looking to book a trip there next fall but the conflicting reports have us concerned. I'll of course be calling biologists to get their take, but would love to hear from anyone with knowledge or experience of how the herd is doing this year.

 

[Bambistew]

Call ADFG anf ask. I belive the herd is down 20k animals. The quota for hinting this year was much smaller than years past. Like 800 animals vs 4000.

One transporter was telling hunters not to come.

 

[VernAK]

I've been on the 40 Mile Caribou Coalition for two decades and keep in contact regularly with biologists in charge. The herd was brought from a low of 8K to a high of 80K but indications of stress were visible at about the 60K mark. Because the coalition is international [Yukon Territory of Canada] and involves First Nations folks on both sides, it took time to come to grips with the situation.

Predator control was ceased and bag limits increased in an effort to stabilize the obvious decline of the herd.
Wolf populations rebounded big time and the 40 Mile country got 120 inches of snow.

The herd is now about 40K and hopefully will stabilize but caribou herd fluctuations are not understood. Usually when a herd goes into decline, it falls to some really low number and slowly recovers over a few decades. Many caribou herds all across North America are experiencing declines.

The 40 Mile Herd has a bright spot. Caribou taken in the fall of 21 had little if any fat while those in fall of 22 were very fat, including the calves. This should provide a better pregnancy rate and better trophy quality.

I shot a nice but not spectacular bull in 21 and had 1300 walk past camp one day but I didn't use my second tag as trophy quality was really lacking.

I hope you can arrange a quality hunt into Zone 2 as it's a great wilderness experience.

 

[Whip]

Thanks Vern, I sent you a PM.

 

[chinook907]

I've been on the 40 Mile Caribou Coalition for two decades and keep in contact regularly with biologists in charge. The herd was brought from a low of 8K to a high of 80K but indications of stress were visible at about the 60K mark. Because the coalition is international [Yukon Territory of Canada] and involves First Nations folks on both sides, it took time to come to grips with the situation.

Predator control was ceased and bag limits increased in an effort to stabilize the obvious decline of the herd.
Wolf populations rebounded big time and the 40 Mile country got 120 inches of snow.

The herd is now about 40K and hopefully will stabilize but caribou herd fluctuations are not understood. Usually when a herd goes into decline, it falls to some really low number and slowly recovers over a few decades. Many caribou herds all across North America are experiencing declines.

The 40 Mile Herd has a bright spot. Caribou taken in the fall of 21 had little if any fat while those in fall of 22 were very fat, including the calves. This should provide a better pregnancy rate and better trophy quality.

I shot a nice but not spectacular bull in 21 and had 1300 walk past camp one day but I didn't use my second tag as trophy quality was really lacking.

I hope you can arrange a quality hunt into Zone 2 as it's a great wilderness experience.

Great summary Vern.

 

[AkRyan]

Imo this herd has been mis managed for many years and the lack of state troopers to enforce poaching is dismal. Covid gave us stores with no meat on the shelf and people wonder why we are seeing less animals......families needed to eat so animals got taken out of season plain and simple. The cow moose population in wasilla has shrunk a ton.

 

[VernAK]

Imo this herd has been mis managed for many years and the lack of state troopers to enforce poaching is dismal. Covid gave us stores with no meat on the shelf and people wonder why we are seeing less animals......families needed to eat so animals got taken out of season plain and simple. The cow moose population in wasilla has shrunk a ton.

Perhaps you didn't hunt the 40 Mile Herd when the herd numbered 8K!

 

[AkRyan]

Perhaps you didn't hunt the 40 Mile Herd when the herd numbered 8K!

What year was that? I might not have been alive. I'm just going off what I've seen in the last 10yrs. I know your a knowledgeable fellow when it comes to this but I would hope you also have the ability to see the negative impacts that aren't mother nature. I personally watched a herd get annihilated by a certain ethnic group and while watching them process not a single tag was pulled out and validated. Troopers should do inspection points on the denali, Steese, Dalton etc etc and start tagging people for poaching.

 

[VernAK]

Ryan,
Gotta agree with you. It's long been my opinion that we are long on biology and short on enforcement especially when it comes to caribou herds that are accessible. There have been a couple notable arrests made here in Delta but not near enough.

 

[AKBC]

I suspect the recent change to allow us to print tags ourselves will increase poaching. What would stop someone who isn't checked on the way home from simply printing another tag after the meat is in the freezer and continuing to hunt?

 

[AkRyan]

I suspect the recent change to allow us to print tags ourselves will increase poaching. What would stop someone who isn't checked on the way home from simply printing another tag after the meat is in the freezer and continuing to hunt?

No need to print another if your original isn't used...

 

[Confluentus]

Imo this herd has been mis managed for many years and the lack of state troopers to enforce poaching is dismal. Covid gave us stores with no meat on the shelf and people wonder why we are seeing less animals......families needed to eat so animals got taken out of season plain and simple. The cow moose population in wasilla has shrunk a ton.

Even if you assume that some large proportion of harvest was not reported (unlikely imo), the winter quota last year didn’t even get close to being met. A person could have gone up to the Steese any weekend from November through March and shot their two caribou. I don’t think it’s a management issue. Last winter there was a lot of weather-related mortality, far more than human harvest.

 

[Yaremkiv]

About the only way to know is either talk to biologist/adfg or someone who spoke to biologist/adfg. I'll be up north myself in a couple weeks, hopefully hunt is still open

 

[Muzzyfool]

I've been on the 40 Mile Caribou Coalition for two decades and keep in contact regularly with biologists in charge. The herd was brought from a low of 8K to a high of 80K but indications of stress were visible at about the 60K mark. Because the coalition is international [Yukon Territory of Canada] and involves First Nations folks on both sides, it took time to come to grips with the situation.

Predator control was ceased and bag limits increased in an effort to stabilize the obvious decline of the herd.
Wolf populations rebounded big time and the 40 Mile country got 120 inches of snow.

The herd is now about 40K and hopefully will stabilize but caribou herd fluctuations are not understood. Usually when a herd goes into decline, it falls to some really low number and slowly recovers over a few decades. Many caribou herds all across North America are experiencing declines.

The 40 Mile Herd has a bright spot. Caribou taken in the fall of 21 had little if any fat while those in fall of 22 were very fat, including the calves. This should provide a better pregnancy rate and better trophy quality.

I shot a nice but not spectacular bull in 21 and had 1300 walk past camp one day but I didn't use my second tag as trophy quality was really lacking.

I hope you can arrange a quality hunt into Zone 2 as it's a great wilderness experience.

I've been on the 40 Mile Caribou Coalition for two decades and keep in contact regularly with biologists in charge. The herd was brought from a low of 8K to a high of 80K but indications of stress were visible at about the 60K mark. Because the coalition is international [Yukon Territory of Canada] and involves First Nations folks on both sides, it took time to come to grips with the situation.

Predator control was ceased and bag limits increased in an effort to stabilize the obvious decline of the herd.
Wolf populations rebounded big time and the 40 Mile country got 120 inches of snow.

The herd is now about 40K and hopefully will stabilize but caribou herd fluctuations are not understood. Usually when a herd goes into decline, it falls to some really low number and slowly recovers over a few decades. Many caribou herds all across North America are experiencing declines.

The 40 Mile Herd has a bright spot. Caribou taken in the fall of 21 had little if any fat while those in fall of 22 were very fat, including the calves. This should provide a better pregnancy rate and better trophy quality.

I shot a nice but not spectacular bull in 21 and had 1300 walk past camp one day but I didn't use my second tag as trophy quality was really lacking.

I hope you can arrange a quality hunt into Zone 2 as it's a great wilderness experience.

Hey Vern,

I had a few questions about zone 2.

Do air transporters need any permits to fly into that area?

If you had to pick a 10 day window, when do you think the best time to go would be?

Lastly, how quickly (if it did close) does zone 2 close?

I’ve got transport lined up, as long as it doesn’t require any kind of permits.

 

[VernAK]

Transporters are licensed by State but I'm not sure if they are restricted to an area.

The big problem being and out of area transporter would most likely be infringing on a local transporters landing strips that may have taken years of hard work to develop. Confrontations are common.

An out of area transporter won't usually know where the herds are and where they are going. Ask your transporter where he intends to take you.

Is he a licensed transporter or a guy with an airplane. If he intends to fly around and look for animals, that's illegal.

Caribou bulls have much nice trophy quality the later you get into September.

 

[Muzzyfool]

Transporters are licensed by State but I'm not sure if they are restricted to an area.

The big problem being and out of area transporter would most likely be infringing on a local transporters landing strips that may have taken years of hard work to develop. Confrontations are common.

An out of area transporter won't usually know where the herds are and where they are going. Ask your transporter where he intends to take you.

Is he a licensed transporter or a guy with an airplane. If he intends to fly around and look for animals, that's illegal.

Caribou bulls have much nice trophy quality the later you get into September.

He’s a licensed transporter out of Fairbanks, I was looking at flying into

Transporters are licensed by State but I'm not sure if they are restricted to an area.

The big problem being and out of area transporter would most likely be infringing on a local transporters landing strips that may have taken years of hard work to develop. Confrontations are common.

An out of area transporter won't usually know where the herds are and where they are going. Ask your transporter where he intends to take you.

Is he a licensed transporter or a guy with an airplane. If he intends to fly around and look for animals, that's illegal.

Caribou bulls have much nice trophy quality the later you get into September.

He’s a licensed transporter out of Fairbanks. I was looking to fly into Golden Run. We were looking at September 10-20th timeframe.