Officials say thin ice during spring thaw likely caused the deaths
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (AKDFG) will cut the number of bison tags for the interior herd after dozens died due to thin ice on a “small, nameless pond” near Donnelly Dome. The area, which is surrounded by black spruce forest, is about 15 miles south of Delta Junction, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
“We don’t 100% know what happened, but it is very highly likely that they fell through the ice,” said Jason Caikoski, AKDFG’s management coordinator in Fairbanks, adding that wildlife officials responded to a GPS collar that stopped working a month earlier only to suddenly regain a signal. “We went to that collar and found a large number of bison with it that were right on the shore of a pond. Parts of them in water, parts on land. They were highly decomposed.”
Officials believe that they came too close to thin ice as spring breakup occurred, falling in and drowning. Once the pond thawed, “dozens of carcasses blew toward the shore” with current counts of dead bison “in the high 30s” though “the advanced state of decomposition made it difficult to get an exact number,” according to Caikoski. Further, there could still be some unaccounted for if their remains are at the bottom of the pond.
Prior to the gruesome pond discovery, wildlife officials had completed their bison count, finding only 336 adults in the herd along with 101 yearlings calves this year. Caikoski said the population was lower than expected, noting that “We thought there’d be about 80 more than we counted.”
Based on the unfortunate incident and the current bison count, officials will cut the number of permits. This fall, 56 hunters who drew permits won’t be able to hunt bison from the Delta herd wouldn’t be able to. Instead, only 79 permit holders will be able to hunt – and only be able to hunt bulls. This is hard news to swallow as permits are already incredibly hard to get, especially based on the number of people who apply and the number of permits available.
AKDFG will ask the Alaska Board of Game to transfer those who had canceled permits to a future hunting season – after the Delta herd has time to recover, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
