Mind you, this is MY (minority!) OPINION up here. Feel free to disagree.
New regs won't affect much of anything, except perhaps negatively from a biological viewpoint. IMO, they got it almost exactly bass-ackwards, instead enshrining questionable native mindset into regulations. Annoys the hell out of me tho. And admittedly puts a slight crimp on my preferred hunting practices, as the caribou don't cross the ice here in Kotzebue until early November. Sport hunting by non-locals/non-residents is unaffected, as are those Kotz residents with boats willing to run several hundred river miles for a half dozen caribou before freeze-up. I'd do it too, if I had the water-craft for it ......
NWACH is in decline. Has been for some years. The "Management Group", composed of local users from all the villages, proposed majority opinion local practice and the State Game Board rubber stamped it - for political reasons of course. Feel good, but totally ineffectual regulation if "preserving the herd" is the goal, or even achievable by human regulation. Might even be detrimental to some degree. Habitat, weather, insects, predators, and the fact that the herd was likely over-populated at its peak a few years ago are the causes of decline, not the "minority" and mostly non-existant hunting practices being "regulated".
Good thing I was asleep at the switch and missed the local meeting, or my mouth would have gotten me in dutch.....
Bulls - the least valuable reproductive animals in a herd (one mature bull will breed many cows) are now off limits from Oct 14 into February. October is rut, and responsible hunters don't shoot bulls once rut gets well established. I won't shoot a large bull after October 1, or a small bull after the first week or so. The chances of getting a stinker (I never have) - especially on the largest, most mature, actively rutting big bulls is too great, and all bulls lose whatever fat they have, and get a little chewy. I've killed a number of young bulls and even one large one (before I knew better) in early October, and the flavor was fine, tho steak meat was sometimes- not always -chewy... (stewed, burgered, or crock-potted is always tender). Mid October is when the rivers freeze over and the river rats can no longer run down swimming caribou in high speed boats and shoot them in the head from a few feet with .22 RF and up. Hence the October 14 date, I think.
Meat is again fine beginning in early November, but fat-less, and fat-less animals are not wanted or targetted by most locals. Personally, I don't eat the fat.... and prefer to take bulls at that time over the cows which are now pregnant - making them the MOST valuable herd members.
Calves are the second least valuable, in that there is little "investment" in them, 80% will not survive to be yearlings anyway, and 50% are bulls. See above. Calves too are now off the platter. If a female calf survives to 15 months, she is now nearly the most valuable animal with potentially 10-15 years of calf producing ahead of her. Experienced , young, adult cows who have successfully raised at least one calf are at the top of the heap, the younger the better for their reproductive value. If they aren't shot....
Cows retain their fat well into the winter, and are THE targeted animal by villagers all through the fall and early winter. Kill one, and one has killed two, perhaps three, and all future calves she may have had but only one will be used - the dead cow. The fetus is killed, and if she has a calf with her yet, the chances this calf will survive go way down without the protection and teaching of the mother for that first year. Calves often hang around alone for days or weeks in the area they lost their mother, thus being more subject to predation and harsh weather exposure. They don't know the migration route. They may still be nursing in November, even tho they are also on solid food. (I have found milk in cow udders into November). They MIGHT survive if they join up with other adult animals.
If I kill a cow and a calf shows up, I prefer to take the calf also, if legal. And have. Yeah, I'm a baby killer.....
The idea, of course, is to take a calf-less cow, but it doesn't always work out that way, especially in a large group. That calf may be off playing, or mixed in with others. And by the way, taking a cow accompanied by a calf is not off the table - so...... one sure way of being positive one is taking a legal cow is to shoot one with a calf.
Telling a cow from a young bull can be difficult in that fall time-frame, as both are about same-sized, antlered (caribou are the only antlered female deer in the world, IIRC). To be positive, one often needs to see the vulva patch or lack there-of (ass-shooting anyone?) or the penis sheath. Hard to do on swimming caribou, or those being run down by high speed snow machine (euphemistically called in the regs - another local custom enshrined in law - "positioning") , or at long range without spotting-scope observation (rare, by locals). I could be wrong- not having done either of the first two myself, but I'm guessing there will be a number of young bulls mistakenly shot, then left abandoned.
The new regs cannot be effectively enforced, due to a lack of LE boots on the ground and politics. And I'm betting few hunters who butcher their kill in the field will leave proof of sex attached, as required. Or be called on it if stopped. Depending on ...... well, you know.
As long as I am on a rant here, many locals are largely blaming guided and non-guided transported "sport-hunting" up on the Squirrel River and elsewhere for any changes in migration routes. They will tell you that those "thousands" (200 to 500, actual annual figures over the last decade, or so) of "sports" are responsible . NR "Sports" (the bulk of the Cabela's Army) are restricted to 2 animals per season - and most take only bulls, by - for lack of a better term - "herd-non-exciting- spot and stalk methods. I perhaps erroneously have it in mind that "Sports" take 400-500 animals annually. Residents are - or have been- allowed 5 per day on non-Federal Lands, and 15/day on Fed lands. The 5 day state regs are still a go for 2015/2016. Feds are unlikely to change anything also.
Those Fall high-speed boat races, and all-winter snow machine pursuits have nothing to do with it changing migration routes occasionally.....
Caribou are dumb as sticks, but even they will eventually intuit bad things happen if they go over that way....
Now I feel better.....
