Of course laying out a year or two never hurt a population that I'm aware of.
rost:
Not hunting the herd for a year might help the herd. But this is not a closure of all hunting on the herd. It just applies to non-subsistence hunters, who kill a few hundred bulls each year. It does not apply to subsistence hunters who kill 13,000 to 15,000 each year.
Besides biologists think that the factors that determine caribou herd size are very complicated including; predation, food sources weather, etc. They say that hunting (specially non-subsistence hunters) has little effect on the herd size.
Elimination of nonresident caribou hunting in unit 23 could put several bush pilots out of business. They make their profits off of fat cat nonresidents. But they provide a break-even but valuable service to isolated residents during the winter. If they leave, how will those people get supplies?
Also those visiting nonresidents funnel a lot of money into the economies of Kotzebue restaurants, hotels, B&Bs, stores, etc.
The real problem is that lots of nonresidents submitted deposits to bush pilots before the closure was announced. Even if they get their deposits back, it's too late to book with other pilots because they are full up by this time of year. Some of those nonresidents may lose their deposits.
