BLM proposal raises concerns among subsistence hunters

[cleofus1]

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/6770354p-6659188c.html

"FAIRBANKS -- A proposal by a federal agency to transfer land along the Richardson Highway into state hands is raising concerns among federally qualified subsistence hunters in the Copper River basin.


The plan by the Bureau of Land Management would transfer management of more than 400,000 acres along the trans-Alaska oil pipeline between Thompson Pass and the Alaska Range to the state. The proposal says transferring the land to the state could have a "significant" impact on subsistence hunters in Game Management Unit 13.

The pipeline property along the Richardson Highway amounts to 63 percent of the federal hunting area in unit 13 that's administered by BLM, said Elijah Waters, subsistence coordinator for the Bureau of Land Management in Glennallen.

The area is popular with Copper Valley's federally qualified subsistence hunters because of the easy access to the highway. Nearly 80 percent of the subsistence harvest in game unit 13 occurs in the corridor."