Alaska wildlife managers will allow a short, residents-only, late-winter moose hunt on the North Slope after surveys showed the herd has grown beyond the state’s management goal.
NORTH SLOPE , Alaska - State wildlife managers will allow a short, residents-only, late-winter moose hunt on Alaska ’s North Slope after surveys showed the herd has grown beyond the state’s management goal.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game said an emergency order will open a general season harvest ticket hunt April 1–14, 2026. The bag limit will be one bull in Unit 26B, excluding the Canning River drainage. Biologists estimate the Unit 26B population reached about 390 moose in 2024, continuing a steady increase since a downturn that led to the hunt’s closure in 2014. The department’s management objective for the unit is 200 moose. The history behind the hunt closures goes back decades: Moose expanded into Arctic Alaska’s river corridors in the 1950s and peaked at roughly 1,400 animals in the 1980s, state managers said. Numbers later fell below management targets, prompting hunting closures in the 1990s. The season reopened in 2006 before another decline led to the 2014 shutdown. Managers reinstated a similar structure in 2023, using a fall drawing permit hunt and a 14-day late-winter harvest ticket season. The Unit 26B hunt area includes two restricted zones. The Prudhoe Bay Closed Area remains off-limits to hunting. In the Dalton Highway Corridor Management Area within the unit, moose may be taken only by bow and arrow, and hunters must have bowhunter education certification. Hunters must have a valid 2026 Alaska hunting license and a general season harvest ticket. The hunt is limited to Alaska residents, and anyone who has already harvested a moose during the current regulatory year, after July 1, 2025, is not eligible, the department said. Successful hunters must report within 15 days of taking a bull. Those who do not hunt or do not take an animal must also report within 15 days after the season closes.Plane en route to Bethel loses door during flight‘Like a jet blasted you in the face’: 85 mph Arctic storm winds trap 150 people at Alaska basketball tournamentEmergency order reopens North Slope moose hunt closed since 2014’Biggest event of the winter:’ Fourth Avenue business sees spike in foot traffic amid Fur Rondy
Moose Hunt Closure Anchorage North Slope KTUU News Interior Alaska Emergency Order
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