Nature & Outdoors
RSSNature and Outdoors in Alaska is the state's wildlife, public lands and waters, and the activities Alaskans pursue in them. It tracks hunting and fishing seasons, wildlife management decisions, and access to trails, parks, refuges and fisheries statewide.
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Wednesday, Oct 21
Ermine Skate opens Midtown Anchorage storefront as founder receives legislative citation
Paxson Woelber opened Ermine Skate's new Anchorage shop, got a surprise legislative citation and cut the ribbon with a skate that isn't for sale yet.
by Walter AlaskaNews3w ago4 min read
Craig council weighs putting back topics it cut from Shaan-Seet agreement
Craig's council weighed putting back two topics it cut from a working agreement with Shaan-Seet, after the village corporation said it won't sign without them.
by Walter AlaskaNews3w ago2 min readFrom 
Kodiak herring food and bait fishery opens Oct. 26 with a 1,280-ton limit
Kodiak's herring food and bait fishery opens Monday with 1,280 tons up for grabs, 130 fewer than last year. Eastside still gets the biggest slice.
by Walter AlaskaNews3w ago2 min read
Cutter Munro returns from Bering Sea patrol that tracked three Chinese research ships
The cutter Munro is home after 112 days off Alaska, watching three Chinese research ships and boarding fishing boats. How many boats? It didn't say.
by Maggie AlaskaNews3w ago2 min read
Fish and Game's women's outdoor program offers a Dall sheep and goat hunting clinic Nov. 7
Fish and Game will spend a November Saturday teaching women to hunt Dall sheep and mountain goats, for $55. It's one of BOW's last Anchorage classes of 2026.
by Alaska News3w ago2 min read
Fall hunters topped the Fortymile quota, but a 100-bull winter hunt still opens Oct. 27
Fall hunters took 577 Fortymile bulls, more than the whole year's 550 quota. The state still opens a 100-bull winter hunt Oct. 27, calling it sustainable.
by Alaska News3w ago2 min read
Fish and Game mails annual angler survey that sets the state's sport catch numbers
Fish and Game is mailing its yearly survey to 47,000 angler households. What they write down becomes the state's official count of fish caught and kept.
by Bill AlaskaNews3w ago2 min read
Troopers cite Nikiski man over out-of-season moose and missing harvest ticket
Troopers cited a Nikiski man over a spike bull moose they say he took out of season, without the free harvest ticket the state requires for general hunts.
by Bill AlaskaNews3w ago1 min read
More from Nature & Outdoors
Feds move more Western Gulf cod from trawlers to pot boats, second time this month
Feds moved 200 more tons of Western Gulf cod from trawlers to pot boats Wednesday, the second shift in eight days. Trawlers aren't catching it. Pot boats are.
by Bill AlaskaNews3w ago2 min read
Anchorage drops landfill injection well plan and turns to an evaporator for leachate
Anchorage's landfill trucks about 118,000 gallons of leachate a day to the sewer. Plan B for a 2028 state deadline: evaporate some of it with landfill gas.
by Walter AlaskaNews3w ago3 min read
Tuesday, Oct 20
Fairbanks-area draft transportation plan and its air pollution test are open for comment
FAST Planning wants comment by Oct. 30 on its $1.6 billion draft Fairbanks transportation plan and air pollution test.
by Walter AlaskaNews3w ago2 min read
USDA asks fishermen for fuel cost data for $8 billion relief program, sets no payment
USDA asked fishermen to send in fuel cost data for its new $8 billion fuel relief program. Sullivan says Alaska fishermen are eligible. Nobody's said how much.
by Walter AlaskaNews3w ago2 min read
Trawl briefing leaves state board asking about its own waters
Fish board members asked if federal trawl science covers state waters. Not the state-run fisheries, it turns out. Trident showed a net that touches bottom less.
by Bill AlaskaNews3w ago4 min read
Feds propose syncing Alaska's sablefish season with halibut's hours
Federal managers want Alaska's sablefish season on halibut's clock, so longliners stop throwing back sablefish in the season's first and last hours.
by Bill AlaskaNews3w ago2 min read
St. Paul Island fuel facility seeks state renewal of its oil spill plan
St. Paul Fuel wants the state to renew the spill plan for the tank farms holding 1.1 million gallons of the island's fuel. Comment opens Wednesday.
by Bill AlaskaNews3w ago2 min read
Late elk hunt won't open on western Afognak after hunters near the harvest limit
Afognak elk hunters already reported 51 of the 54 elk Fish and Game planned to allow, so the late registration hunt won't open on the island's west side.
by Bill AlaskaNews3w ago2 min read
About Nature & Outdoors
Nature and Outdoors in Alaska takes in the state's wildlife, public lands and waters, and the hunting, fishing and recreation Alaskans pursue in them. It spans sport, subsistence and commercial fishing, hunts for moose, caribou, elk and sheep, and access to parks, refuges and trails.
Decisions come from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the Board of Fisheries, the Board of Game, federal fishery managers and the National Park Service. Seasons open and close as harvest limits fill, and stocks of concern, salmon limits in contested fisheries and halibut shares between charter and commercial fleets are recurring questions. Fishing fleets and seafood plants also depend on federal relief and loan programs and on export paperwork that NOAA explains to sellers.
More from Nature & Outdoors
Goat hunt north of Port Valdez closes Wednesday night after harvest tops the limit
Hunters north of Port Valdez reported 9 goat points against a cap of 8, so Fish and Game is shutting the hunt Wednesday night, 10 days early.
by Bill AlaskaNews3w ago2 min read
Fish and Game offers 20 permits Wednesday for a Resurrection Peninsula goat hunt
Fish and Game opens 20 permits Wednesday for a November goat hunt on the Resurrection Peninsula. Take a nanny and you're out of goat hunting for five years.
by Bill AlaskaNews3w ago2 min read
Monday, Oct 19
Once-rare hybrid crab were nearly half of big Bering Sea males after snow crab collapsed
After the heatwave wiped out billions of snow crab, snow-Tanner hybrids moved in, reaching nearly half the big males last year. The rules have no box for them.
by Maggie AlaskaNews3w ago3 min read
Sunday, Oct 18
Subsistence commission pushes a plan for Gates of the Arctic's depleted Dall sheep
Gates of the Arctic's Dall sheep have crashed in places, and the park's subsistence commission has drafted a plan to manage them. It's now out for comment.
by Maggie AlaskaNews3w ago3 min read
Saturday, Oct 17
Helicopters will keep a remote Unuk River gage running below British Columbia mines
Interior ordered helicopter flights to service a USGS gage on the Unuk River, which watches the water coming down from three British Columbia mining projects.
by Maggie AlaskaNews3w ago2 min read
State plans to destroy abandoned skiff on Wasilla's Seymour Lake unless its owner claims it
A 24-foot skiff whose registration ran out in 2012 is headed for the scrap heap on Seymour Lake, unless its owner shows up and pays the state's bill.
by Maggie AlaskaNews3w ago2 min read
Gravina Island sea cucumber divers get two hours as the area's cap nearly runs out
Divers have nearly hit the sea cucumber cap off Gravina Island's west shore in two weeks, so the state is giving them two hours there Tuesday.
by Bill AlaskaNews3w ago2 min read
Fish and Game closes Yakutat commercial set gillnet fishery for the rest of the season
Fish and Game closed Yakutat's commercial set gillnet fishery for the season on Oct. 15, matching the usual mid-October closing date.
by Bill AlaskaNews3w ago2 min read
Park Service proposes ATV access across Gates of the Arctic for Anaktuvuk Pass residents
Anaktuvuk Pass hunters could drive off-road vehicles across Gates of the Arctic under a proposed rule ending a 1986 ban rooted in dictionary definitions.
by Alaska News3w ago4 min read
Friday, Oct 16
State plans to approve air permit change for Pikka oil plant on North Slope
Pikka's oil plant wants to trade some nitrogen oxides for volatile organic compounds, and state regulators are preliminarily on board. Comments run to Nov. 16.
by Walter AlaskaNews3w ago2 min read
Forest Service favors larger Prince of Wales logging plan that may restrict deer hunting
The Forest Service favors the bigger of two Prince of Wales logging plans in a draft decision that finds it may significantly restrict subsistence deer hunting.
by Walter AlaskaNews3w ago3 min read
Board of Fisheries will weigh Homer Spit net closures and a Kodiak trawl ban
Homer Spit nets, Kodiak trawlers and who gets the last Cook Inlet king are all on the Board of Fisheries' winter menu. Public comments are open now.
by Bill AlaskaNews3w ago3 min read
Four Southeast towns face 2030 deadline to disinfect sewage, with costs up to $14 million
Sitka, Haines, Skagway and Wrangell must start disinfecting the sewage they pipe into Southeast waters by 2030. Cost estimates run as high as $14 million.
by Walter AlaskaNews3w ago3 min read
Yakutat-area moose hunt west of the Dangerous River closes after hunters reach 30 bulls
Thirty bulls down on the west side of the Dangerous River, and that's the limit. Moose hunting there, near Yakutat, ends Saturday at 11:59 pm sharp.
by Bill AlaskaNews3w ago2 min read
North Slope oil rule now covers accidental polar bear deaths the agency doesn't expect
North Slope oil companies can seek five more years of polar bear and walrus coverage, now including an accidental death the government says it doesn't expect.
by Walter AlaskaNews3w ago4 min read
NOAA moves to renew paperwork for a Bering Sea trawl fleet down to 14 active vessels
NOAA wants to keep the Bering Sea factory trawl fleet's permit paperwork as is. The fleet it covers has dropped from 20 active vessels to 14.
by Bill AlaskaNews3w ago2 min read
Park Service final rule allows bear baiting again in Alaska national preserves
Bear baiting is back in Alaska's national preserves, the fourth switch in 11 years. The Park Service expects no more than 10 bears a year taken over bait.
by Walter AlaskaNews4w ago3 min read
State proposes splitting Fairbanks-area air pollution zone, separating North Pole
The state wants separate air pollution zones for Fairbanks and North Pole, split roughly along Badger Road. North Pole would keep the violations.
by Walter AlaskaNews4w ago2 min read
Norton Sound salmon season draws the fewest commercial permit holders since 2007
Just 72 permit holders fished Norton Sound salmon commercially this year, the fewest since 2007, and king salmon missed every escapement goal in the region.
by Walter AlaskaNews4w ago2 min read
Thursday, Oct 15
State to survey Craig households on subsistence harvests for the first time since 1998
State researchers will survey 128 Craig households in February about what they hunt, fish and gather, the first full count there since 1998.
by Walter AlaskaNews4w ago2 min read
Magnitude 5.6 earthquake near Lake Minchumina is felt in Fairbanks and Wasilla
A magnitude 5.6 quake hit near Lake Minchumina early Thursday and was felt from Fairbanks to Wasilla. USGS gives a magnitude 4 aftershock 7% odds within a week.
by Walter AlaskaNews4w ago2 min read
Fish and Game closes Hodzana Hills caribou hunt as Dalton snowmachine access opens
Winter snowmachine use opens on Dalton corridor trails Nov. 1, so Fish and Game is closing the small Hodzana Hills caribou herd's hunt the night before.
by Bill AlaskaNews4w ago2 min read
Federal managers move 700 tons of unused Atka mackerel to Bering Sea trawlers
Boats that catch Atka mackerel by accident barely caught any, so federal managers are handing 700 tons to the trawl co-op that catches it on purpose.
by Walter AlaskaNews4w ago2 min read
Port of Alaska asks federal regulators to shrink Terminal 1 beluga shutdown zone
The Port of Alaska wants the beluga shutdown zone for Terminal 1 pile driving cut from 9,000 meters to 1,300. Federal fisheries regulators will decide.
by Walter AlaskaNews4w ago2 min read
