Alaska Fish & Wildlife News
December 2017
Goat Horns Sought for Traditional Art
Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI), an Alaska Native nonprofit, is reaching out to hunters to help revitalize the endangered art of Tlingit mountain goat horn spoon carving.
Davina Cole is the art project coordinator at Sealaska Heritage Institute, based in Juneau. She’s hoping to find mountain goat hunters that can provide goat horns for traditional carving.
“It’s a very endangered art form, and before it’s completely gone we are trying to stabilize it,” ... Goat Horns Sought Article Continued
Moose Skin Blanket Toss
The Most Efficient Way to Stretch a Hide
Note: Please refer to my previous AFWN article “Turning a Moose Hide Into Buckskin: Brain-Tanning Alaska Big-Game Animal Skins at Home” to better understand the details of what occurs in the story told here[i].
Fleshing, de-hairing, graining, stretching—these are the main tasks involved with tanning large-game skins that are generally so time consuming and exhausting that they keep many folks who have tried home skin tanning once from ever trying ... Moose Skin Blanket Article Continued
How Old is That Crab?
In the quest for sustainable fisheries management, determining the age of commercial species is an important piece of the puzzle. Rough age estimates are often drawn from animal size; however, as with humans, size can only say so much about an individual. Consider LeBron James and Danny DeVito: LeBron is about 20 inches taller yet 40 years younger than Danny.
Alaska’s largest and most valuable crab and shrimp fisheries estimate age using size measurements, because it is the best method ... How Old is That Crab Article Continued
Abandoned and Derelict Vessels in Alaska
Abandoned and derelict vessels (ADV) are an increasing problem in Alaska’s waters and tidelands and we need a solution. Due to an aging fleet and the expense of properly disposing of a boat that has outlived its useful life, ADV are becoming all too common and our state has limited infrastructure to correct this growing problem. ADV create environmental and navigation hazards, as well as potentially interfering with commercial, recreational, subsistence, and personal use fisheries by introducing ... Abandoned Vessels Article Continued