Bear Mountain goat zone on Baranof closes Sept. 18 after quota fills

Mountain goat hunting closed in the Bear Mountain zone on Baranof Island Friday night, the fourth Baranof zone shut down this season and the second straight year Bear Mountain has closed early.

The zone's quota was three males or one female. Hunters took two males and a female, and the state closed it.

That trigger is deliberate. Shutting a zone as soon as a female is killed has been "very effective in reducing female harvest and has helped maintain high harvest opportunities for male goats," the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said, warning that further hunting could over-use the zone. For permit holders, it means a zone disappears mid-season, after trips are already planned.

Bear Mountain joins South Baranof, which never opened, and the Necker Bay and Lisa Creek zones, both closed earlier this month. The rest of Unit 4 stays open until quotas fill or the season ends.

What underpins all of it is thinner than it looks. The department says its quotas come from its most recent aerial surveys — but no island-wide goat survey was flown in 2024 or 2025, and this year's zone quotas closely track the ones used last year. New surveys are planned this fall, and the department says quotas will be reassessed once they're done.