Alaska: Heli hunting on Brownbears

[Flbt]

The price of guided hunting in Alaska is obscene. It has turned into a rich man’s adventure. The cost of air taxi alone (not even a guided hunt) has become priced out of reach for any one of ordinary means. I have been an Alaskan resident and hunter for many years and I say without hesitation that the quality of fish and game management in this state is questionable at best. Our numbers are way down on salmon, caribou, moose, sheep, pretty much everything. Environmental factors surely contribute but overharvest has been a major issue. Predator control is a valid concept, but having state agents killing bears by the hundreds from a helicopter while the state is simultaneously selling the “opportunity” to hunt the same animals (with extremely expensive guides being required for non residents) and the whole thing reeks of mismanagement. The Fairbanks area had A LOT of moose a couple decades ago, to the point moose/car collisions were getting problematic. I would see moose along the road almost daily. Then the state decided on a winter hunt for cow moose (about 15 years ago if I recall correctly) which killed way too many. I only rarely see cow and calf moose around here anymore and have personally not seen a bull within 100 miles in several years. The numbers have not recovered and our recent winters have been extremely hard on these animals. They are built for cold but the recent trends of mid winter warmth bringing heavy snow and freezing rain has been very hard on the calves. Caribou are not doing better. Look around the state at the Mulchatna herd, Nelchina herd, Fortymile herd… all way down, and in some cases critically. Really a few years ago the harvest quota for the Fortymile herd was 10,000 but this year is well below 1,000. Are we to believe this is all the work of bears and wolves?

Game department are the same every where I think.
Back in the 70-80s fl said the gator were all most gone. The wma and private lease i was on as a kid
Had a gator in every mud puddle.
They say now there no panthers in part of the state
There in the panhandle.

 

[AZDAVE]

Having spent time helping a buddy get ready for some hunts in the interior, and a solid understanding of logistics and getting things into very remote parts of the world. One universal truth comes out today and much as it did in 400BC. Logistics wins wars. when applied to hunting in remote parts of the world logistics put kritter in the salt. I don't begrudge a outfitter the money to hunt big brown bears on the peninsula. But I booked a European brown bear hunt at SCI. Will my bear be smaller yes; more like a interior grizzly but I am Ok with that.

 

[Altitude sickness]

Man Dave, I’m jealous

 

[Scott CWO]

An update if anyone cares.

The Alaska Board of Game approved and extension to the brown bear season dates on the Alaska Peninsula. The spring season is now May 10-31 in the even years - 2026, 2028, etc... This is a great change from May 10-25 and gives the registered guide-outfitters and hunters more days to hunt, fly and deal with the weather. It also goes deeper into the rut. Registered guide-outfitters can now do two different 10-day hunts with flying days in between.

The fall season was also lengthened from October 7-21 to October 1-21. The salmon runs diminish more and more each day so adding another six days on the front side helps with bears still looking for salmon.

 

[Scott CWO]

the bears on Kamtchatka and Kodiak and their neighbors will not differ in size.
The hunting tourism in Alaska is of course much bigger than in Kamtchatka (especially at the moment), so there are more pictures of big Alaskan bears there, but they don't give each other anything.
@Tundra Tiger
Parts of Europe have many bears, some countries have too many, and as always when you don't take the rural population with you politically, the people are often forced to help themselves.
Sometimes they are discreetly poisoned, which is easier for many farmers in the Carpathian Arc than taking up arms.
But some European bears are often as strong as your good inland grizzlies.
Here in the pic below is a bear from Sweden weighing 347 kg.
From 300kg it is really a lot of Grizzly bear
But no chance for foreigners to hunt Swedish bears there.

View attachment 661543
Romania has reopened the hunt for bears, but at the moment not more than 400 points.
That's around 200-250 kg. I guess what Ive seen there.

The bears on Kamtchatka, Kodiak and the AK Peninsula actually do differ in size. Parts of each area have bigger bears on average but there are always some exceptions. The middle and lower parts of the AK Peninsula produce more 10' bears than the upper peninsula. Comparing bears of the same age, AK Peninsula bears tend to be a bit longer than Kodiak bears. Kodiak bears tend to be a bit more compact. Same for skulls. Peninsula bears tend to have slightly longer skulls while Kodiak bears tend to have slightly wider skulls. Western and southwestern Kodiak Island areas also tend to produce bigger bears than eastern parts of the island.