Federal managers close subsistence elk hunt on Afognak refuge lands for the season

Federal managers closed the subsistence elk hunt on Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge lands on Afognak Island Thursday, a month early, after state and federal hunters together took 15% of the island's Waterfall Lake elk herd. That's the point at which federal rules close the season.

The closure follows two early state closures on Afognak, just north of Kodiak Island. Hunters "took advantage of favorable conditions this fall," the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said this month. The state's late elk hunt never opened on the island's west side, and it closed early on the east side Wednesday night.

The state estimated about 535 elk in western Afognak and 160 in the east. By Oct. 20, hunters had reported 51 in the west against a harvest target of 54. By Oct. 26, they had reported 15 in the east against a target of 16. More had likely been taken and not yet reported, the state said.

The federal bulletin didn't say how many elk are in the Waterfall Lake herd or how many were taken. Hunting past the threshold "may impede herd productivity and growth," it said.

Afognak's Roosevelt elk trace back to eight calves caught on Washington's Olympic Peninsula in 1928, in a goat-for-elk exchange with that state, and released on the island in the spring of 1929, according to a state management report. By 1965, the state estimated 1,200 to 1,500 elk in nine herds on the island. Logging roads built after commercial logging began in 1977 made the elk easier for hunters to reach, the report says. In recent years the state has set harvest limits herd by herd, at 10% to 15% of each herd.

The federal hunt is open only to residents of Unit 8, the Kodiak archipelago, with one elk per household by federal permit. Refuge lands on Kodiak, Ban and Uganik islands stay open to federal elk hunting through Nov. 30, subject to the same 15% limit, and the state hunt stays open on Kodiak, Ban and Shuyak islands through Dec. 31 unless it's closed early.