Alaska Senate passes bill that ties hunting and fishing residency requirements to PFD eligibility

Kurt Whitehead lives in Klawock on Prince of Wales Island, and every summer, he said, as the humpbacks and herring and salmon return, so too do the island’s seasonal residents.

“They’re basically tourists,” he said by phone Monday. “You can be nice and call them seasonal residents, but really, they only come to our state just for the hunting and the fishing, and sometimes they stay as little as one week, and sometimes they stay as much as maybe four or five months, but their whole intent is just to harvest as much as possible.”

Unlike most tourists, they’re able to buy fishing and hunting licenses reserved for residents. That’s because of the state’s eligibility requirements, Whitehead said — once you’re in Alaska for a year, basically all you have to do is keep a home in the state, plan to come back and not claim residency anywhere else. 

“Some of them do have homes, but there’s a large majority of them that just have an RV parked on somebody’s lot,” Whitehead said.

Whitehead wants that to change. He’s been pushing for lawmakers to close the residency loophole, and on Monday the Alaska Senate passed a bill that would do just that.

In a 15-5 vote, senators approved Senate Bill 171, which would tie residency to PFD eligibility — and that means that in most cases, you can’t leave the state for more than 180 days during the year and remain eligible. There are exceptions for people in the military, college students and some others, though there’s some debate about how consistently those are applied in practice.

Tribes, Fish and Game committees and municipalities from around the state submitted letters in support of the bill.

Retired New York police officer David Egleston of Thorne Bay told lawmakers he’d reviewed license sales for his community and found many seasonal residents and fishing lodge owners had received resident licenses.

“None of them owned a snow shovel in Alaska,” Egleston wrote.

A deputy director of the Alaska Wildlife Troopers told a House committee earlier this year that the loose definition of residency makes it difficult for officials to prosecute people who take advantage.

Resident licenses typically have higher daily catch limits and allow folks to participate in resident-only personal use fisheries, like dipnetting on the Copper or Kenai rivers. Or, take king salmon — in Southeast, nonresidents are limited to between one to three kings a year. But residents this summer can catch two per day. Resident licenses are also a lot cheaper — often four to five times less expensive than what nonresidents pay.

Clinton Cook leads the Craig Tribal Association, not too far from Klawock on Prince of Wales Island, and he said people who spend most of their time out of state shouldn’t benefit from the breaks the state cuts its residents.

“They’re a citizen when it’s convenient for them,” Cook said by phone Monday. “That’s not OK.”

Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, R-Nikiski, sponsored the bill in the Senate.

“When people who do not live permanently in Alaska capitalize on Fish and Game laws meant for residents, they diminish harvest opportunities for year-round residents, the people who shovel snow and stick it out throughout the entire course of the year in our great state,” Bjorkman said.

Sen. Mike Shower, R-Wasilla, said he’s concerned the new requirements could exclude some retirees who leave Alaska for extended periods despite a long history in the state.

“There were some concerns from a number of individuals about what this may impact, especially on those that may leave the state for the wintertime, which a lot of us do as you get older, go out and visit family and things like that,” Shower said.

He said he was also concerned it could violate the Alaska Constitution’s guarantee of equal access to fish and game resources.

Shower joined Sens. Shelley Hughes, R-Palmer, Robb Myers, R-Fairbanks, Scott Kawasaki, D-Fairbanks, and Kelly Merrick, R-Eagle River, in voting no on the bill.

It now heads to the House, where its prospects are unclear — lawmakers have just about three weeks until all legislation dies at the end of the regular session.