Fairbanks, AK - The National Park service released a draft environmental assessment for guided sport hunting in the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve last week. Superintendent Jeanette Pomrenke says guides quit leading hunts in the Preserve in the mid 1980’s due to a lack of interest. “I think it is because the preserve is remote and hard to reach," she says. "Also, I think there was just no good market for guiding. I don’t think it was a popular destination.”
Subsistence and sport hunting without guides still takes place in the Preserve, but Alaska statute does not allow non-resident visitors to hunt big game or brown bears without a guide. The Park Service decided to look at reintroducing guided hunts based on a request from local residents and the Alaska Professional Hunters Association.
The United States is currently working with Russia to create a transboundary area. The effort would tie the Preserve and the Cape Krusenstern National Monument to a Russian National Park that country is working to designate. Pomrenke says the environmental assessment has nothing to do with the transboundary agreement. “In fact within the transboundary the National Parks – the Bering Land Bridge and Cape Krusentsern - their rules and regulations wouldn’t be changed at all by such an agreement,” she says.
The environmental assessment offers three alternatives for guided hunting management. The Park Service is considering whether to award contracts for up to three guides annually. Based on the alternatives, legal hunting areas could overlap and the number of clients differs between 20 and 30 per year. The document is open for public comment until December 9th.