A third Baranof Island goat zone closes early as the state guards the herd

Mountain goat hunting in the Lisa Creek zone on Baranof Island closes at 11:59 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 13, after just two billies filled the area's entire season quota — the third Baranof goat zone shut down early this year.

The zone's quota was two males or one female, and both goats taken were males, so the state closed it for the rest of the season, through next June. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game said the area is vulnerable to over-harvest because of low goat numbers and easy access — the same reasoning it gave in closing the South Baranof and Necker Bay zones this year. Necker Bay shut down just over a week ago after an identical two-goat quota; South Baranof is closed for the second year running.

The concern is female goats. The department says shutting a zone down as soon as one female is killed has worked to protect the breeding population while still giving hunters a shot at males. Heavy female harvest, it says, has driven local goat declines in the zones most popular with Sitka hunters, even though Unit 4's goat population overall is generally productive.

Baranof is divided into 34 separate hunt zones so managers can track goat numbers area by area, and this is a recurring flashpoint: Lisa Creek was also closed early in 2021, and again in 2022 by federal order on subsistence lands. Not everyone agrees the limits are right — one commenter to the Board of Game has argued the state's harvest cap is too conservative for Southeast Alaska.

The quotas rest on aerial surveys, and the department didn't fly island-wide counts in 2024 or 2025. Managers say they'll reassess after new surveys this fall.