State wants Tier II rationing ready as Fortymile caribou herd declines

The Fortymile caribou herd has shrunk by an estimated two-thirds since 2017, and the state wants a plan ready to ration hunting if it keeps falling.

The local Fish and Game advisory committee in Tok begins reviewing proposals Tuesday, including that plan and 11 others for the herd.

The herd, which ranges from the hills east of Fairbanks into Canada's Yukon, peaked at about 83,000 caribou in 2017. It has since declined an average of about 14% a year, to an estimated 24,000 to 28,000 in summer 2025, according to an Alaska Department of Fish and Game proposal. The department projects it could fall to 17,500 or fewer by 2028 to 2030.

At that point, the number of caribou hunters could take would drop below what the state has found Alaskans reasonably need for subsistence, 350 to 400 caribou a year. State law then requires what's called a Tier II hunt, which rations permits among applicants based largely on how much they depend on the herd and what other food sources they have. Without a Tier II rule in place, the department says it could have to close all hunting until the Alaska Board of Game acts. So the department is asking the board to put one on the books now.

The fall hunt has already shrunk. Its quota fell from 4,500 caribou in 2021 to 395 in 2025, according to the Fortymile Caribou Herd Harvest Management Coalition. The coalition says Alaska residents took 75% of the harvest from 2021 to 2024, but in the 2025 state season nonresidents took 65%.

Several proposals take aim at nonresident hunting. The coalition wants nonresident access tied to the quota, ending when it drops below 400. Resident Hunters of Alaska and two individual hunters want nonresidents mostly or entirely shut out, with exceptions for nonresident military in some proposals. Others would end proxy hunting, open the season earlier or redraw hunting zones.

The advisory committee's own proposals point to other declines around Tok. They say a 2025 survey counted 261 Dall sheep in the Tok Management Area, 77% below the 2006-2019 average, and that moose in Unit 20E have dropped by about half in five years. It wants a predator control plan for the sheep that would allow aerial shooting of wolves and coyotes, and it wants to close a late-August moose season that produced six moose in 2025.

The Upper Tanana Fortymile Fish and Game Advisory Committee doesn't set rules. Advisory committees make recommendations to the Board of Game, which takes up Interior and Eastern Arctic proposals March 19 to 26, 2027, in Fairbanks. The Tok committee meets at 7 pm Tuesday in the Fish and Game conference room.