House bill 211 sponsored by Kiana Democrat Dean Westlake met opposition in a house session early Monday afternoon.
The act would require, through statute, that nonresident hunters have a hunting guide present to hunt caribou from the Western Arctic, Central Arctic, Porcupine and Teshekpuk herds.
Westlake said during the house session that passing HB 211 would put Alaska on par with regulations applied to the Canadian half of the porcupine caribou herd.
Opposition for the regulation came from North Pole’s Tammie Wilson, Kenai’s Gary Knopp, Big Lake’s Mark Neuman, and Healy’s Dave Talerico.
Representative Wilson said she trusts the Board of Game and that regulation for what Westlake proposed already exists.
“I just want to make it clear the Board of Game right now has tools it can use, even in this instance,” Wilson said. “They can make a nonresident hunter apply for a drawing permit, the board of game can limit those number of permits and reduce the number of nonresidents in the field.”
Rep. Neuman added that trying to provide management of wildlife through statute is difficult because it’s not as flexible as regulation set by the Board of Game.
After the four opposing Representatives presented, the session was moved to the next day’s calendar leaving the possibility for a vote on Wednesday or a future date.
Tyler Stup is a reporter at KNOM in Nome.
Born and raised in Colorado, Tyler graduated from Colorado State University class of 2016. Majoring in economics, he sought a path that combined his studies and radio. When the opportunity came to do radio in Western Alaska he jumped at it the first chance he got. He’s been in radio for three-and-a-half years now and has loved every second of it.
