Numbers of AK hunters up measurably

[thxmrgarand]

Number of hunters is climbing in Alaska
by TimMowry_FairbanksDailyNewsMiner
 Outdoors with Tim Mowry
Jan 17, 2011 |
While hunting may be declining in many states, record numbers of Alaskans are taking to the field, according to a story by Riley Woodford in the Alaska Fish & Wildlife News, the official newsletter for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
Woodford reports that more than 105,000 Alaskans bought hunting licenses in 2009, more than at any time in history. Alaska resident hunting license sales are up about 18 percent over the past decade; there were about 17,570 more hunters in Alaska in 2009 than in 2000.
Alaskans bought 105,128 hunting licenses in 2009. That’s up from 92,634 in 2005, a 14 percent increase in just five years. In 2000, 87,558 licenses were sold. This outpaces Alaska’s population growth to about 710,000 people — an 18 percent increase in resident hunting licenses to the 11 percent increase in population over the past decade.
While the number of resident hunters is up, the number of nonresidents hunting in Alaska is down about 10 percent. In 2000, 15,927 nonresident hunting licenses sold, and in 2005, that number had dropped a few hundred to 15,608. In 2009, 14,099 nonresident licenses were sold. That’s 1,828 fewer nonresident hunters.
For more statistics on hunting in Alaska, go to www.admin.adfg.state.ak.us/admin/license/licstats.html.
To check out Woodford’s entire story, go to www.wildlifenews.alaska.gov.

[S.E.Ak]

Number of folks liveing here is up.Happy to guides will soon be needed for black bear in S.E. to cut some traffic.

[Winter Hawk]

Amen to the guides being needed for black bear in S.E.  On Prince of Wales Island we were inundated by folks looking for bears, many of whom had no business being in the woods.

-WH-

[Sourdough]

An awful lot of those were Military troops that had just returned from overseas and finally got a chance to go hunting.  The Interior is not growing, we are stagnant.  The only grouth we see is the additional militart being brought in.  That accounts for the 1% growth rate listed for Fairbanks.  We have been stagnate since back in the mid 80s.

[S.E.Ak]

I'll agree that Anchorage is STAGNANT.If Fairbanks has not grown much what is causeing the winter wood smoke problem,is this new or always been that way? Here we have gone from 2,800 year round folks to around 1,200 at least in the winter which is great.

[Winter Hawk]

S.E.Ak,

Fairbanks is in a bowl, and when it gets cold there is an inversion layer which keeps the air from mixing.  When I lived there in the '60s and '70s the ice fog was terrible.  I imagine that more folks are heating with wood now (we did when we returned there 10 years ago) which could be where the wood smoke problem comes from.

Of course, when I moved up in '66 the population of the Fairbanks North Star Borough was around 38,000 souls, and the whole state had around 350,000.  Despite stagnation in Anchor Town and Fairbanks, the last I heard it was more than double that.  That means more folks are trying to stay warm....

Speaking of which, I am going to throw another log on the fire and hit the sack!

-Kees- (in S.E. Ohio)

[Sourdough]

We've always have had a problem with inversions, and wood or coal smoke.  The recent increase in heating oil prices has forced some folks to use more wood and coal to heat their homes.  Then the EPA went and lowered the standard on us.  This now makes us out of compliance far more often than before. 

S. E. Ak:  By the interior I mean the area between the Alaska Range and the Brooks Range.  Anchorage does not fall into that area, they are South Central.  Anchorage and Wasilla are growing by leaps and bounds.  They also have cheap gas, lower than the Henry Hubb price for the folks in the lower 48.