Alaska Fish & Wildlife News
January 2020

Hunter Access Program offers grant opportunities

By Lisa Delaney
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Kiosk and trail marker installation on the Jack River Trail

We have exciting news from the Hunter Access Program — as of the new year, we are opening our USFWS Wildlife Restoration (Pittman-Robertson) funding to the public! Our hope is to help fund diverse, community-driven Hunter Access projects — local projects that will meet local needs.

The application period officially opened on Dec. 23rd, 2019 and will remain open until April 20th, 2020. Detailed information on this timeline and our application process can be found here.

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New facilities at the Upper Chena Dome Trailhead

Until now, we’ve typically partnered with other state entities, and we’re looking forward to expanding our program by partnering with more regional public organizations.

The main requirements for this funding are:

  1. The project must improve public access to hunting or trapping areas
  2. The project must be located on public land in the State of Alaska
  3. The grant will pay up to 75% of project costs; the recipient must provide the remaining 25%
  4. The recipient must agree to long-term maintenance of all funded improvements for their duration of their usable life

If individuals have a project in mind, but don’t have the required 25% match, they can fill out our new, commitment-free survey to help us prioritize projects and areas of interest. This survey can be found on the ADF&G Hunter Access website or by clicking here.

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Volunteers make improvements to the Treadwell Ditch Trail on Douglas Island near Juneau.

ADF&G first launched the Hunter Access Program in 2015. Since that time we have funded 20 projects and, as of summer 2019, eleven are now complete. These projects — totaling about 12 million federal dollars — include building trails, parking areas, bridges, vault toilets, regrading roads, and adding signage to public access points. Click the links to learn more about our completed and in-progress projects.

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The new Byers Lake bridge

Going forward, we are looking to expand our geographic range to accommodate more hunters and trappers across the state.

For more background info on this program, our Program Manager, Katie Sechrist, wrote an article about us last May.

Lisa Delaney is the ADF&G Hunter Access Program Coordinator. She can be reached at

lisa.delaney@alaska.gov 907-267-2211

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