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The decisions for opening and closing hunting grounds and setting harvest limits are decided by the more than 100 Alaskans who sit on 10 regional advisory councils that inform the Federal Subsistence Board.
“They’re the ones that are on the ground and making these observations based upon a lifetime of experience,” said Jim Fall, who until recently was the state’s head of subsistence research.
He recently retired from the Alaska Department of Fish & Game after 39 years of service. And he’s been to a lot of these council meetings where a wide-ranging group from across a region have frank and full discussions about the state of wildlife populations, fish stocks and observations about what’s happening in their communities.