Federal board declined to start Unit 13 moose closure early as rule stays unpublished

The Federal Subsistence Board last month rejected an Ahtna request to put its Unit 13 moose closure into effect early, leaving federal Bureau of Land Management land open to all moose hunters for the 2026 season. Nearly six months after the board adopted the closure, it still hasn't taken effect.

The board voted in April to close BLM land in Unit 13 to moose hunting by anyone who isn't a federally qualified subsistence user, Alaska News reported. But the closure starts only when the final rule is published in the Federal Register, and as of Wednesday it had not been.

The land at stake is about 1,468 square miles, roughly 6% of the Unit 13 hunt area, including federal subsistence hunt areas along the Richardson Highway near Paxson and the Delta and Gulkana river corridors, according to an Interior Department fact sheet. Under the closure, other hunters could still travel, camp and hunt or trap other species there, but not hunt moose. The board adopted it to continue subsistence uses of moose, the fact sheet says, citing declines in other important subsistence resources, reports of low harvests and high competition from other hunters.

The Unit 13 federal moose season opened Aug. 1. The Ahtna Intertribal Resource Commission asked the board Sept. 9 to put the closure in place right away for the rest of the season. Federally qualified users "continue to face intense competition from non-federally qualified users," commission board chair Donna Renard wrote in the request. She also warned that if the final rule took effect mid-season, it could create confusion for hunters already in the field.

The board turned it down Sept. 16. In a bulletin, it said the request came "too late in the season to effectively implement or enforce," with the state hunt closing Sept. 20. With hunters already in the field, the board said, adopting it "could cause confusion and conflict."

The board has used the same emergency process to put other April decisions in place while the rule is delayed. On Sept. 3, it approved a Tanana Chiefs Conference request to start a similar closure in Unit 25D early, citing the delay. On Sept. 10, it extended the federal moose season in Unit 13 itself to Sept. 30, another change adopted in April.