Alaska Department of Fish & Game

Hiker injured by bear on Jones Point Trail in Haines

A hiker attacked by a bear on the Jones Point Trail got herself out. It is the second bear attack in Haines in under a month, and both bears are loose.

by Maggie AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min read

A police drone searched south Anchorage for a brown bear before dawn

Anchorage police flew a drone over a south Anchorage neighborhood before dawn looking for a brown bear. Whether they found it is not public.

by Alaska News1mo ago1 min read

One black rockfish a day in Kodiak and Afognak waters

Kodiak anglers can keep five rockfish a day but only one black and one yelloweye. Fish deeper and off the rock piles to fill the rest of the bag.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min read

Subsistence fishing reopens on the upper Yukon, village by village

Subsistence fishing reopens on the upper Yukon in stages from Sept. 26 to Oct. 6, timed so Canadian-bound fall chum pass each stretch of river first.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min read

Follows: Subsistence salmon fishing reopens on the Tanana and Yukon after closures

Tanana subsistence and personal use fishing goes 24 hours

Tanana River subsistence fishing opens to full gear around the clock Tuesday, after six straight years of restrictions on a fall chum run that came back.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min read

Follows: Strong chum run opens Tanana coho fishing and more gear this weekend

Goat hunt RG249 north of Valdez Arm closes

Goat hunting north of Valdez Arm closes Tuesday night, four months early. Hunters have reported five of the seven goat points allowed this season.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min read

Nelchina caribou could be hunted again in 2027 under a state proposal

Nelchina caribou hunters could get 150 Tier II bulls in 2027. The herd has more than doubled since 2023 but is still below the state's goal.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min read

Past three miles, Sitka residents fish under nonresident rules

Cross three miles off Sitka and residents fish under nonresident rules, so a lingcod that's legal inshore can end your day in federal water.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min readFrom Sep 18

Southeast's Dungeness fleet gets a 30-day fall season after a short summer

Southeast's Dungeness crabbers get 30 days this fall after an early summer closure, and Wrangell has asked the state to seek a federal fishery disaster.

by Alaska News1mo ago1 min read

Last Unit 22 bull moose hunt closes early as quota fills

The Seward Peninsula's fall moose hunt is over, closed area by area as quotas filled. One section shut three days in. The winter hunt opens Jan. 1.

by Alaska News1mo ago1 min readFrom Sep 13

State says genetics funding enabled first Western Alaska chum bycatch cap

State-funded genetic testing helped create a 45,000-fish Western Alaska chum bycatch cap. NOAA implementation is expected no earlier than 2028.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min readFrom Sep 16

Follows: Pollock official puts bycatch impact on Western Alaska runs at 1.9%

ADF&G cuts Southeast fall Dungeness crab season to 30 days

Southeast's Dungeness fleet gets 30 fall days instead of 60, because a harvest projection built from one week of June fishing came in short.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min readFrom Aug 7

Yakutat gillnetters must donate Chinook found dead in Situk nets

Yakutat set gillnetters open Sunday. Any king that dies in the net gets its dorsal fin cut off and handed to somebody in town who needs it.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min read

Southeast trollers got ten more days, and a smaller fleet to fish them with

Southeast trollers got ten more days for coho. There is a smaller fleet to fish them, and the harvest is still headed below the record lows.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min read

Trollers get Neets Bay back through the middle of October

Neets Bay is open to trollers again through Oct. 10, six weeks after it closed so the hatchery association could take its cost recovery chum.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min readFrom Aug 21

A goat season that runs to January is closing after six days

A goat hunt east of Unakwik Inlet closes Sunday, six days into a season that runs to January. The department says 30 days is closer to normal.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min read

Kuskokwim closures lifted because the coho run ended, not because it recovered

Six weeks of Kuskokwim subsistence closures lifted Friday, not because the coho finally came back but because the run is over for the year.

by Walter AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min read

Fish and Game sets Prince William Sound fall herring quota at 749 tons, citing weak spring spawn

Prince William Sound's fall herring quota came in 633 tons under what the plan allows, and the spawn number behind that call was never published.

by Walter AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min read

Kotzebue's chum run beat the forecast; the state will not say by how much

Kotzebue's chum harvest beat the forecast, and the state will not say by how much. Nobody counted the fish upriver for the second year running.

by Walter AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min read

Juneau's hatchery waters reopen six weeks ahead of schedule

Fishing reopens near Juneau's Macaulay hatchery six weeks early, six coho a day. The closure traced back to fish lost in a landslide in 2020.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min read

Follows: Juneau loses two months of fishing to a 2020 landslide

The state held Kenai coho at two a day through November

Kenai coho limits stay at two a day through November instead of rising to three, on abundance numbers the state admits it can't monitor well.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min read

Bait allowed again on lower Klawock River as fall coho move in

Bait fishing reopened on lower Klawock River from September 15 through October 15 as fall coho arrive, though upstream areas remain lure-only year round.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min read

Eshamy District salmon season closes Friday night

Eshamy closes Friday night on a season in which nobody reported catching anything for two weeks, under a fishing cap set by an allocation formula.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min read

Copper River coho periods stretch to 36 hours next week

Copper River gillnetters get 36-hour openings Monday and Thursday, up from 24-hour periods, after a delta survey counted 40,780 coho above the expected range, following a difficult summer.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min read

Nonresident rockfish retention stays closed in Ketchikan waters

Nonresident anglers in Ketchikan cannot keep yelloweye, quillback, canary, China, copper, tiger or rosethorn rockfish through year-end, though Alaska residents may keep one a day.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min read

Low water slows Seward's youth coho fishery, open through Oct. 5

Kids have four more weeks to catch a silver at Seward Lagoon, where low water has been holding the fish outside waiting on enough rain to get in.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min read

Fish and Game suspends ice house registration in the Copper Basin

Ice anglers in the Copper Basin won't have to register their fishing shelters this winter, after the state found there's no way to do it online.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min read

Prince William Sound noncommercial shrimp fishery will not reopen in 2026

Prince William Sound shrimpers got about five weeks this year and the commercial fleet got none. The state hasn't published a reason for the closure.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min read

NOAA funds Alaska work on what stranded marine mammals ate

A stranded Alaska killer whale died of sepsis after swallowing three kinds of fishing hooks. NOAA is paying the state to keep examining these animals.

by Maggie AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min read

State approves 183-acre Heceta Island clearcut with 300-foot beach buffer

Alaska approved clear-cutting 183 acres on Heceta Island with a 300-foot beach buffer, rejecting the state's own habitat biologist's recommendation for 1,000 feet to protect winter deer habitat.

by Walter AlaskaNews1mo ago3 min read

Bear Mountain goat zone on Baranof closes Sept. 18 after quota fills

Bear Mountain is the fourth Baranof goat zone closed this season — on quotas built from surveys the state hasn't flown island-wide since 2023.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min read

Alaska sets 25 online-only permits for Raspberry Island cow elk

Twenty-five Raspberry Island elk permits go out online Sept. 24, first come first served. Sixteen more go only to whoever shows up in two Kodiak villages.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min read

Kodiak's silver limit drops as its king limit rises

Kodiak's silver salmon limit dropped to one a day this week, while the king limit rose back to two after a spring of tight restrictions.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min read

Two Southeast geoduck beds stay closed until biomass recovers past 30% threshold

Two Southeast geoduck beds stay closed after surveys found less than a third of the clams left. Sea otters are eating them, and the quota fell 40 percent.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min read

The state's analysis of Alaska's first crab hatchery says it would add little

Alaska's first crab hatchery wants a permit. The state's own analysis says the crab it releases would likely make no measurable difference to the fishery.

by Walter AlaskaNews1mo ago5 min read

Ten sockeye a day holds through December in the Wood and Nushagak

Anglers can keep 10 sockeye a day in the Wood and Nushagak through December, double the usual. The kings in the same water are a stock of concern.

by Bill AlaskaNews2mo ago1 min read

The any-bull option closes in Unit 13C after three moose filled the quota

The any-bull option closes in Unit 13C at midnight Tuesday after three bulls filled the quota. The subunit's allotment dropped from five last year.

by Bill AlaskaNews2mo ago1 min read

Four Southeast shrimp areas open Oct. 1, including one the department had ruled out

Fish and Game told District 15-East in July that its shrimp season was over. It opens Oct. 1 after all. Two areas it said might reopen will not.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min readFrom Jul 31

Southeast king crab quota rests on a figure the state's own report gives two ways

The assessment gives two rates for unsurveyed water. One clears the opening threshold; the other does not, and the report does not explain which was intended.

by Walter AlaskaNews2mo ago3 min read

Follows: Southeast Alaska's king crab fishery will open, barely clearing the bar

Bristol Bay's Nushagak opened late this year to protect its king salmon

Bristol Bay's Nushagak District opened weeks late this season to protect its struggling king salmon, delaying the fleet's access to the sockeye run.

by Bill AlaskaNews2mo ago2 min read