Alaska Board of Game (BOG) is the state board that sets Alaska's hunting and trapping regulations. It sets season dates, bag limits and closures for caribou, moose, sheep and other game across the state's game management units, meeting in Anchorage, Fairbanks and regional hubs such as Kotzebue.
adfg.alaska.gov ↗Alaska
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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%.
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Coming up
Denali Fish and Game Advisory Committee Meeting & Elections
Cantwell School library, 2nd Avenue, Cantwell, AK 99729 and Over Zoom
Meeting
Middle Yukon River Fish & Game Advisory Committee: Middle Yukon River Fish & Game Advisory Committee Special Meeting Sunday November 15th, 2026 at 1:00 pm
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Upper Tanana Fortymile Fish and Game Advisory Committee Meeting
Meeting
Kenai/Soldotna Fish and Game Advisory Committee Meeting
Meeting
Alaska Board of Game Regulatory Meeting
Meeting
About Alaska Board of Game
adfg.alaska.gov ↗Alaska
The Alaska Board of Game is the state board that sets Alaska's hunting and trapping regulations. It operates under the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and sets season dates, bag limits and closures for caribou, moose, Dall sheep and other game across the state's game management units.
The board meets in Anchorage, Fairbanks and regional hubs such as Kotzebue, and it takes proposals and testimony from local fish and game advisory committees. Recurring questions include how far to cut harvests from declining caribou herds such as the Western Arctic and Mulchatna, predator control programs aimed at wolves and bears, protections for Dall sheep, and hunting limits along the proposed Ambler Road.
The Department of Fish and Game carries out the board's rules, including closing hunts in the field once quotas fill. The board's decisions sit alongside federal subsistence rules on federal lands, and courts have reviewed some of its predator control programs.
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