I'm considering taking a job in Alaka what is required to establish residency.

Check page 9 of the Hunting Regulations...
http://www.wildlife.alaska.gov/regulations/pdfs/general.pdf

In simple terms. 12 consecutive months of living here with intent to stay.

I always thought that these residecy requirments would make a intersting court challage.

The courts rule years back that states could not impose residecy requirements to collect welfare ect. That they said restricted a persons rights of free travel and resicecy. Once you declare you were a resident that what you were.

Does one have to wait a year to vote, to pay taxs, register your vehicles, get a drivers lic. for those purposes one is a resident when one moves.

Is one a resident or is one not. If one is then he should enjoy the same rules as any resident.

P-dog....never looked at the laws that way...you make a valid point!

I think a year is fair for hunting and fishing residency.

Moving to Alaska, getting a post office box, and buying a hunting liscense based on your 7 days of residency is bullshit, so you can pack you stuff up 2 weeks later, and drive back to Arkansas or Wisconsin.

And still claim residency? They are in place for a reason, to keep people from doing exactly that.

Thank god for states rights.

that is interesting. In the state where I live one need only have a state driver's license in order to purchase a resident hunting license. And one only needs to have an address and relinquish their driver's license from another state in order to get a driver's license.

Residency requirement is in place for most states. The different thing about Alaska is that each Alaskan Resident is entitled to the participate in the Permanent Fund Dividend Distribution. This may be one reason for the year residency and long term commitment. Thus, to be an Alaskan resident and qualify for Resident status with ADF&G, it echoes the Permanent Fund requirement.

D99,
Don't get your tits in a bind, I understand why the laws are in place, I just think p-dog made some good points. Seems like states are quick to take your tax revenue but slow to give you any benefits. In Arkansas for example, you have 30 days to register your vehicle or you face heavy fines....reason why is they get to charge you personal property tax once you register.

There is no state income tax in Alaska, so becoming a resident only bequeths benefits to the recipient, ie hunting/fishing licencse and PFD. The PFD is a bit more stringent, it requires you to be a resident for the entire calender year, whereas the license starts from the day one becomes a resident.

If you have a job and an address, that will qualify you for residancy, actually an address and state drivers licencse is really all you need.

Roscoe,

Put out or shut up, if you want to move out west and receive resident hunters rights then do so.

I have never paid state income tax, and my car taxes are under $175 a year. That and if I could get home twice a year (instead of this little engagement with the Iraqis) I would be collecting a dividend check.

You choose to live in Arkansas, until you choose to live someplace with more exciting hunting then don't bitch about what it takes to establish hunting residency there.

D99,
In any of my commets above am I bitching about the residency requirements? Read my initial post on this topic....my statement is I agree, "residecy requirments would make a intersting court challage". This applies not only to the great state of Alaska but many others a well. I then made the comment the many states are quick to tax an incomming resident, but slow to offer any benefits. Good luck on a quick return to your home state!

Regards,

Roscoe

so suprise - no matter where you live, it all comes down to how the government can get the most money out of you

The point is if I am a resident then I should be treated like any other resident.

Not a 2nd class one.

You are a resident or your not a resident.

If it will ease your mine p shooter, your not, and you won't be for a year. Everyone happy now?

However, I would like to point out it has been a one year requirment to live here long before we started to collect dividends. It has been a 1 year requirement since I first arrived in the mid 70's.

No, I don't want to move to Alaska, but I am just curious, how much money do you folks get from this fund each year for being a resident?

Varies on the stock market and oil revenues. Last year was pretty low. I forget the exact amount but it was around $800. Once it hit almost $2,000.
Fund presently is valued at over 30 billion. Projections now are it will increase each year for the next five or so, at least. Would like to mention also than every resident, including children receive it. Parents even have the option to "pre buy" college credits for there children using the dividends. Its a really nice plan devised by a fantastic govenor we had in the 70's who wanted every resident to benefit from our oil and not just businesses. The politicians have been trying for years to get there hands in the pot but the voters have to approve it, and that simply isnt going to happen. You can read more about it on the State of Alaska's web page.

I want to point out that active duty Alaska resident military have to spend at least 6 days every 6 months to receive the dividend.

I have never got it, the flight home from Europe since I came back on active duty wouldn't make it worth it, and I have no family in Alaska to stay with.

OK guys, The reason for the one year continous, requirement is that so many people come here just to work for the summer. They come here in April and May, work all summer, then want to claim residency so they can go hunting before they leave for the winter. If a person does not spend the winter here then he does not deserve to claim residency. During the summer more than half the construction workers here come up from the lower 48. The only reason they come here is for the good paying jobs. And at the end of the season most want to go hunting. Then leave and never return.

Also forgot to mention all the Cannery Workers, Loggers, Boat Operators, Commercial Fishermen, Miners, Assistant Fishing Guides, and most of the people that work in the tourist industry, ie (Bus Drivers, Luggage Handlers, Hotel Staff, Gift Shop Workers, Restaurant Workers, A large number of the people working in the Parks are summer contractors, only here for the summer).

And the Dividend has nothing to do with the hunting residency requirement. The requirement for hunting was in place when I got here in the late 60s. The dividend did not come into being till 1981. And too many military living out of state get the dividend that have no intention of ever coming back here to live. When I was on active duty, and after retiring I reported many military members that were fraudiantly recieving dividends and they ended up owing a lot of money back to the state. All the money they, their wife, and all their kids ever recieved.

Oaky, here is what I don't get. I absolutely agree that a person shouldn't get a piece of the pie unless one is a resident, and it seems like a year is a good place to determine whether a person is a resident or not. No problem with that.

So, a person should not receive the dividend until they are a resident for a year, and a person should have to purchase a nonresident hunting license until they have lived in Alaska for a year.

What I don't understand is how that translates into having to hire a guide to hunt sheep and goats and bears if one is a nonresident. I mean, as a nonresident, I could come up to Alakska, head out to the sheep mountains, camp up there, hike up there, do basically anything I wanted to up there, except actually shoot a sheep, and nobody requires me to hire anybody. But if I am willing to pay the State of Alaska the nonresident license fee to shoot that sheep I have to hire a guide.

Having to meet residency requirements makes sense as far as licensing and receiving the dividend go. Doesn't make sense with regard to having to hire a guide, and especially if the land is Federal land and I am a U.S. Citizen.

I wasn't here when the quiding requirement was instated, but the supposed reason behind it was that many non-residents were way over their heads on wilderness hunts, were shooting animals that they were illegal, ie non full curl rams, sows with cubs or shooting bears and not tracking them down and finishing them off when wounded, and otherwise getting in trouble in the woods and violating game laws.

The reality of the requirement is that it was guranteed employment for guides for certain spcies. Interesting is the fact that the species that require guides are the species that are the most desireable and have the smallest populations.

Honestly there are many non residents that come up and are way more capable in the woods than the average resident hunter. Still, there are others that shouldn't venture out of a tourbus let alone be wandering in the woods with a gun.

If anything hunting will become more expensive and more restrictive in the future, so if you want to hunt any of the species that don't require a guide as a non-res, I'd highly recommend you save pennies and make the trip sooner than later. Spend the time you're saving to familiarize yourself with the hunting regs, as they are complex and confusing. Being confused won't get you any leniancy from ADF&G or the courts, sometimes I think they have it out for the average Joe, and ignorance is very, very expensive.

quote:

The reality of the requirement is that it was guranteed employment for guides for certain spcies. Interesting is the fact that the species that require guides are the species that are the most desireable and have the smallest populations.

And now the truth has been told!!!

It's never been a secret, and many folks have made the comment in the past.

I think if wanton waste was the real issue, moose would be the primary species that should require quides. Folks simply underestimate how much meat they yield, and how difficult it is to move that even 100 yds, let alone a 1/2 mile of muskeg.

I could also see Dall sheep, as one year of bozos popping all 7/8 curl rams thinking they were full curls wouldn't be a good thing.

The bear populations seem pretty healthy, too healthy in some areas and getting more folks out to the more accessible areas to take grizzlies would be a win win, more folks getting rugs, and more moose calfs growing into bulls. Then again, if they dropped the guide requirement in the units that need help, they'd have a hard time justifying the requirement at all.

But trying to get sensible fish and game regs is a dream, too many competing interests involved in writing the rules, as well as those commenting on them. The average Joe doesn't have the time and motivation to be beating down doors and standing up to be heard for reasonable regs.

I would agree w/PaulH....but the non-res guide requirement is nothing new and was in effect by 1910 on the Kenai Peninsula by the territorial governor's decree due to the findings in 1908 that trophy hunting(leaving the meat to rot), along w/wildfires had all but made caribou on the KP extinct. To fund this program, non-res. were required to buy a hunting license. In 1917-18, a hunting license in AK was $50.00US for a US citizen...$100.00US for a non-res. alien...big bucks in those days. By the mid to late 1920s, there were air taxis flying out of Anchorage...with the access available today,along w/the disposable income of many, imagine what would happen to game populations today if the guide requirement for non-res. was removed....in the future, I wouldn't be surprised to see it include all big game animals....

Joe

quote:

Originally posted by ovis:
I would agree w/PaulH....but the non-res guide requirement is nothing new and was in effect by 1910 on the Kenai Peninsula by the territorial governor's decree due to the findings in 1908 that trophy hunting(leaving the meat to rot), along w/wildfires had all but made caribou on the KP extinct. To fund this program, non-res. were required to buy a hunting license. In 1917-18, a hunting license in AK was $50.00US for a US citizen...$100.00US for a non-res. alien...big bucks in those days. By the mid to late 1920s, there were air taxis flying out of Anchorage...with the access available today,along w/the disposable income of many, imagine what would happen to game populations today if the guide requirement for non-res. was removed....in the future, I wouldn't be surprised to see it include all big game animals....

Joe

Pardon my ignorance, but I just do not see the logic of your statement. I would think that with the efficiency of the guides there would be more game taken when guides are involved than when they are not involved. And although I do not agree with wasting game, I do not see how leaving game out in the field to rot caused Cariboo to disappear. I would rather think shooting too many of them caused them to disappear.

What is the difference between hiring a guide for $15000 to take you to a dall sheep and then haul it out as opposed to going yourself to that Dall Sheep, shooting it, and hiring a fellow with a horse to haul it out for you for a couple thousand bucks? I would say the difference would be about $13,000.00.

In the instance of Dall sheep, I'd expect a guide to be 10-100 times better than the client at judging full curl vs 7/8 curl. When the non res shoots a 7/8 curl, is he going to turn himself in for taking an illegal animal? Honestly it doesn't matter if he turns himself in or leaves it to rot, because it's dead either way. If all the 7/8's are shot out one year, how many years will it take for there to be full curls?

This goes into the further question about whether ADF&G's means of selecting which animals can be harvested is the best practical way to manage the heards and prevent the unintentional harvest of illegal game, but that is a whole other ball of wax.

I guess I don't see the significance of the size of the curl. I would be thrilled to take an sheep regardless of how big it was. I have a feeling that the size of the curl has something to do with luring the larger sized pocketbooks.

The point is that the regs in most area require the ram to be a full curl before you can shoot it. There are only so many full curls in a given area, as it takes a good 8-10 years for a ram to develop a full curl, and closer to 10 years. There is also the dynamics of breeding.

F&G has to balance how many permits they issue based with what percentage of folks they figure will be successful, and how many critters they want taken from a given area. Let's say they issue 100 permits expecting 10% success on full curls, but 40 guys go oops and pop 7/8's. Whereas if they figure 50% success on 3/4 curl on up, they'll issue 20 permits. So now instead of 100 guys getting to go out in the area, only 20 do.

The point is, if all the fulls and most of the 7/8's are shot out in a year, it'll take a long time for that heard/area to recover. It is also very difficult to judge a full and 7/8's curl from a distance, something that takes years in the field to develop.

So in the example of Dall Sheep, I think guides are a good extension of ADF&G as someone to make sure only the amount of rams an area can handle are shot.

I'm not a guide and have no desire to be one. That said, the general hunting populace has absolutely no concept of the expense and difficulty of opperating in an environment where everything is deliverd via small plane, weather permitting. Lots of folks figure there getting fleeced having to pay a guide $12k, but you look at what he has to pay to own, maintain and insure a plane, et all, and you realize those folks have to pay alot of bills before they see a penny.

Sheep curl size has to with the health of the sheep herds. Without older rams around the sheep population gets unstable. The smaller rams are too stupid to lead.
If 7/8 is legal then most of the big rams will be 3/4 and they are not old enough to lead the herd. The regs changed to full curl and it in turn leaves more 7/8 rams which are old enough to lead the herd.

This is the idea of the full curl regs. This is my attemp at explaining it. No sheep do not run around it herds like caribou or something. They do gather in larger social groups in the winter though.

22WRF,

They left them to lay, took only the rack, and continued to kill until they left, trying to better the size of the trophies they already had. The governor was trying to use the requirement as a management tool....Alaska has a lot of land, but not many animals in comparison.

A person has to have a lot of field experience to judge sheep....most don't have it....we understand that what we have up here is very special.....unfortunately a lot of folks from outside don't.

Joe

residency regs do have some reasoning behind them but the only real reason for rules like the guided only species has to do with buisness, the state government has the job of trying to promote and help commercial interests and also they must try to satisfy the other residents, thats their job and it is what they should do. Thats fine that exists in many other situations also. But the argument that it is somehow because of a concern that nonresidents are less capable than residents is a weak one at best, just gets trotted out to defend the practice. Ive spent much of my life in alaska and there is no higher percentage of woods wise people there than anywhere. The people that spend time outside( in the woods not the lower 48) and wish to learn or are taught the ropes know what their doing . the others dont. In fact if anything I think there are a lot more people who live in alaska that THINK they know all about it just because they live there, even when the only time they go outside is the trip from the bar to their car. Not bashing alaskans in paticular. The logging town I live near has always been full of guys (even guys who logged all their life) who think they know the woods just cause they see them when they look out the window. If safety had anything to do with it then there would be some heavy duty training or proof of competency requirments for residents. Now there's a thought a rigorous training/ exam process on the federal level to gain a license that lets you hunt at resident $s.Something on the order of a african ph lic. It would kill the gripe about fed land and insure some level of competency. It would never fly but I think I like the idea

It's not rocket science. There are to many hunters for certain species in certain places than there are animals that can be killed.

We all know there are many many ways to regulate. States do it differently. Alaska chooses the Guide law as one tool to regulate. Some states only allow resident hunters in certain hunts while other choose the draw method with very few (to none) non-res being able to draw.

As for safety concern that was part of the discussion in 88/89 when Goats were added back on the list. It had been on the list in the past. At that time the Goat kill #'s were at a steady increase, mainly with the non-res hunter group and there was also a steady increase in non-res medi-vacs (in Ketchikan area) mostly for the non-res Goat hunter and there was a steady increase in Goat hunting violations and problems (like killing Goats that could not be retrieved; illeagle guiding and swap hunts by local chater plane companies; to name a few). All this involved the non-res hunter.

Actually Goat hunting is not that popular and local hunter harvest is minimum. Same with the Brown and Black Bear.

As with the recent Kuiu Island Black bear closure it only affects the non-res hunter not the AK resident. The Kuiu resident kill is (was) just 10% to 20% of the kill. The same will come down on Prince of Wales as we reach the max harvest level. The POW Island Black bear killed by AK residents is only at 10% to 20% level as well. The non-res will be restricted.

Trapper Bob .... if you think that FED regualtion is a good answer you have not paid attention to what is coming down. Since the Fed took over the management of F&G from the state on Fed lands, there has been nothing but restrictions to non-lacal-area residents. It's total management by zip-code. Even AK residents are restricted or not even allowed to hunt. The Fed laws are in conflict with state law.

Jonnie laird: Oh no dont misunderstand me, I was not making a bid for any federal involvement at all. Actually I dreamed that last bit up as I was typing, just another take on the old nonres/ res + fed land debate. I have to deal with the feds way too much to want them involved unless we have no other choice. I havent kept up with what they have done lately. The last time I was up there the feds were just about to take over on the subsistance deal and I could see it would be silly buisness as usual.

22WRF:

quote:

Originally posted by 22WRF:
Oaky, here is what I don't get. I absolutely agree that a person shouldn't get a piece of the pie unless one is a resident, and it seems like a year is a good place to determine whether a person is a resident or not. No problem with that.

So, a person should not receive the dividend until they are a resident for a year, and a person should have to purchase a nonresident hunting license until they have lived in Alaska for a year.

What I don't understand is how that translates into having to hire a guide to hunt sheep and goats and bears if one is a nonresident. I mean, as a nonresident, I could come up to Alakska, head out to the sheep mountains, camp up there, hike up there, do basically anything I wanted to up there, except actually shoot a sheep, and nobody requires me to hire anybody. But if I am willing to pay the State of Alaska the nonresident license fee to shoot that sheep I have to hire a guide.

Having to meet residency requirements makes sense as far as licensing and receiving the dividend go. Doesn't make sense with regard to having to hire a guide, and especially if the land is Federal land and I am a U.S. Citizen.

Ok, let's take this from another angle. I've hunted elk on Afognak Island a number of times and had encounters with bears each time. I've hunted the Brooks Range for sheep and here in the interior for moose each year. Oftentimes we encounter bears. When we go on a trip, it's for an extended period of time so we need to be self reliant.
My point in all of this is that I think I'm fully qualified to hunt elk in Wyoming. Yet there are numerous locations there in which I would have to hire a guide. What gives? The regs in Wyoming are such that I can either hire a guide or not hunt those areas. It's the same principle here in Alaska. Go with the regs or don't participate.
Bear in Fairbanks

Bear

There is no doubt in my mind that I will hunt sheep in Alaska as a nonresident without a guide. No doubt whatsoever. I just won't carry a gun. I actually did it a few years ago in Wyoming and found that I liked looking at the sheep so much that I didn't feel the need to shoot one.

So, there is a way to get around the regulations.

The dividend will get you two loafs of bread and a chicken these days.I wish we had cheaper gas instead of the dividend.I think $1 a gallon gas would help the state alot better than the dividend that everyone spends in 15 mintues at Fred Myers

The problem with $1/gallon gas is that the state would have a $1+ billion shortfall for the budget, and I'm thinking there'd be alot more griping about all the stuff that got cut with that, though I kinda would like to see the state gov cut way back, and the only way to cut back government is to stop giving them $$$.