Federal board rejects request to start Unit 13 moose closure on BLM land early

The Federal Subsistence Board rejected a request to immediately close Bureau of Land Management land in Unit 13 to moose hunting by anyone who is not a federally qualified subsistence user, the board announced Sept. 16.

The Ahtna Intertribal Resource Commission filed the emergency request Sept. 15. It asked the board to put into effect early a closure the board adopted in April. That closure takes effect only when the final rule is published in the Federal Register. As of Wednesday, it has not been published.

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

The decision left the BLM lands open to all hunters under existing rules for the rest of the 2026 season.

In the request, Donna Renard, chair of the commission's board of directors, wrote that "federally qualified subsistence users continue to face hunting pressure from non-federally qualified users during the height of the season."

An Interior Department fact sheet said the closed BLM lands total "about 6% of the Unit 13 hunt area," about 1,468 square miles. Once in effect, the closure would bar non-federally qualified users from hunting moose there but still allow travel, camping and hunting or trapping other species.

The fact sheet said the board adopted the closure to continue subsistence uses of moose, noting declines in other important subsistence resources, public reports of low harvest and high competition with non-federally qualified users. It said the final rule was likely to be published in late summer 2026.

The board took a different course in Unit 25D. On Sept. 3, it approved a Tanana Chiefs Conference request to put an April closure there into effect early, citing a delay in publishing the final rule, according to a board bulletin. That closure ran Sept. 10 through 20.