North Unit 4 Deer Working Group August 2024 Meeting

In Attendance: Natasha (Hoonah), Cal Casipit (Gustavus, SERAC Member), Steve Bethune (Area management biologist for Unit 4),Cathy Needham (Kai Environmental), Colin Shanley (NW GIS), Dean Houchen (State Biologist for NRCS), Jackson Combs (Hoonah), Jeromy Grant (Hoonah), Jason Roberts (Anthropologist  with OSM, Anchroage), Kevin Maier (Chair of AC Juneau, Lisa Gredigan (Wildlife division supervisor, supports SERAC), Neal Schoenfelder (USFS Biologist), Bethany Robichaud (Gustavus), Rob Cross (OSM), Bob Koenitzer (Hoonah), Andy Savland (Hoonah), Julian Narvaez (Hoonah)

The Chichagof Deer working group met in December 2024 after a long stretch of not meeting ( https://www.hia-env.org/2023/06/27/north-unit-4-deer-working-group-may-2023-meeting/). The goal of this group is to increase the connectivity and conversations between communities/agencies, and communities/communities around the issues of deer and deer management.

Agency Report Outs

The agency report outs are a chance for any State for Federal Entities to report on monitoring, data collection, reports, or anything else deer related.

State of Alaska

1. Transitioning to game cameras for deer monitoring- there was the first year of card collections. There are 25 cameras around Baranof and Chichagof. There aren’t results on that yet. They added more cameras have 39 cameras now.
   1. Cameras were added further East into Hoonah sound. Green lake south of Sitka.
   2. Got a new boat that could expand range of where they can go with that.
   3. AI image detector “Mega Detector” is working. But there’s manual effort still needed once the animal is classified to species.
   4. Question : Can you individually identify deer?
      1. No, but maybe bucks only. The model is time in front of the camera and only within 5 meters
2. Spring beach surveys – last year was a mild winter. Overall score was 3.7 which was higher than previous years. Buck doe rations : 29 bucks per 100 does. Fawn ratios were high. There was a high amount of twinage
3. Talking to hunters – lots of small young bucks available
4. Mortality surveys – 17 miles of beach surveyed. Found 3 mortalities total. 0.1 dead deer/mile walk. Compared to 2007 there were 4 mortalities per mile.
5. Deer population seems stable or increasing in southern Unit 4.
6. Did aerial survey on Yakobi. Came up with 98 deer/survey hour. That’s up from 80/hour in 2023. Didn’t do survey on NECH
7. Harvest – 2022 the harvest was 3750 deer for all of unit of 4. We are about 1500 deer lower than the 10 year average. Effort is similar for deer/days. Seems to be fewer hunters in the field. There are 700 hunters fewer than in the last decade. # of days has remained static, but the total # of deer and total # of hunters is down
8. Hunting success seems to be good this year. Rut seemed to be strong.
9. There seems to be an expanding population on West side of Chichagof to determine where. In Westport
10. Do we have anything going on on Pleasant Island to look at deer recover there? Status of wolves?
    1. There’s nothing going on there right  now. It got moved to Unit 1 at the BOG a few years ago. He recommended that they do deer pellet surveys, but that hasn’t taken place on a consistent basis
    2. Koch is the Unit one AB

US Forest Service

1. Working on thinning in a few watersheds for deer habitat in young growth stands
   1. All of these are on the Hoonah Ranger District Roads. Gypsum Creek, Game Creek, Salt Lake Bay
2. Working on thinning in Wukuklook for a few years now
3. Continuing the partnership with HNFP

Office of Subsistence Management

1. Federal board approved the 10 days closures around Hoonah, Angoon, Pelican
2. Call for proposals for widlilfe proposals will be open this winter
3. Does OSM or USFS have plans or strategies for how to measure the effect of the closure?
   1. Rob Cross – Does HIA have funding for that? Yes we do, open book for surveys. Closures were based on testimonies and TEK. Seeking data on this. Community survey is an important pieces of this.
   2. Fish and Game will continue to use harvest rates and statistics.

Research Report Outs

The next section of the meeting was dedicated to ongoing research projects and data collection projects involving deer.

PNW Deer Pellet Work

1. Have been doing deer pellet work for diet analysis
2. Who will be publishing this? PNW or OSU
3. What’s timeframe? Analyzing
4. Update on deer forage project: This project is a large-scale, collaborative effort between USFS, ADF&G, HIA and OSU to assess diet variation of Sitka black-tailed deer across the Tongass NF. To do this, we’re using DNA metabarcoding of deer pellets collected across different seasons and stand types to identify plant species in the pellets. To date, we have analyzed 695 of our target of 1000 samples, spanning 22 different islands and capturing deer use of old-growth, young-growth, and precommercial thinned young-growth habitat across the Tongass. We have identified 76 unique plants in deer diets, including 16 species and 10 genera which have not previously been documented in the diets of this species. We have also noted distinctive signals of spatiotemporal variation for a subset of seasonally important diet items including bunchberry dogwood, Vaccinium, and skunk cabbage. These new data will ultimately contribute to a spatiotemporally explicit foraging model for deer throughout Southeast Alaska, refining our understanding of the effects of forest management on deer population dynamics throughout the region.

HIA Deer Camera Work

• HIA has deployed 32 cameras, however, imagery on many of the caemras may not be usable. We found that out after pulling the first year of Data. Working with the State’s biometricians on that.
• Steve wants to learn – we do aerial alpine surveys. How do we link the results of those to the overall population?
• Should we work on getting cameras on Pleasant Island?
• State will on classifying the deer – buck doe ratios

HIA Interview Work

• Goal : analyze the effect of the closure
  1. There will be a standard review of the closure.
     1. Should the closure be changed?
     2. Have the conditions that warranted the closure change?
     3. Are people using the closure?
  2. NEPA – Abundance and Distribution, look at competition, look at access. It looks like ppns are healthy, habitat
  3. If we don’t address access in the next 4 years we’ll be back in the same shoes
     1. Are there access issues with USFS that could be addressed in this survey?
  4. How do people report their effort? Want to learn more about that issue.
     1. When are people reporting? What do they do when they report?
  5. Effort – What is missing is people are out doing other activities? If you harvest a deer on  day you didn’t mean to, how do you count the other days you didn’t mean to? It’s a complex question, how do you categorize that?
  6. Focus group – refine and develop the questions of what is effort.

Community Report Outs

The community report out section is a time for any community members to share their observations about deer, deer hunting, or any other programming they have ongoing about deer.

A question from OSM for the community report out section : How did the closure from Nov 1 to 10 go?

• Hoonah Resident – Had a bridge closure and road closure at the same time. There was a ton of pressure to the left. May have seen non-local users during the closure period time in Game Creek. Have heard rumors that it wouldn’t be enforced by State. Messaging around the closure was not clear. Lot of out of town people coming off the ferry during that time.
  1. That happened to have road closure outside of tourism season
• Hoonah Resident – Saw higher concentration after the closure
• Gustavus Resident – Road the ferry on Nov 11. And there were a lot of people that boarded that had been hunting. There were a lot of people. What efforts on enforcement occurred?
  1. Lisa – Its a federal closure on federal lands. The USFS would be enforcing this.
  2. Rob – LEOs were on assignment for Washington office. There wasn’t much LEO on the ground for this closure. There’s a subsistence dashboard for closure data. Can see landmarks where the closure is and if its been published. Ramping up outreach on that.
  3. Did Corporation lands apply? No, those are under state regulation.
  4. How do you know if they are federally qualified or not? Also can hunt below Mean High Tide
• Hoonah Resident – Subsistence usage surveys are difficult, saw lots of deer, closure didn’t make a lot of sense because Juneau hunters just came on the days they were legally,

Hoonah Using Designated Hunters Program

Jeromy Grant – Designated harvester program. We are promoting as many hunters as we can to get to elders. Have 67 tags, 13 deer have been provided so far to elders, and the school. Trying to make reporting easier for those who have harvested. Doing an exit survey or interview? Get the reporting done – how many days did you hunt? How many days did you provide? Have 12 hunters currently. Connecting elders to the people who are willing to hunt.

1. Jason – happy to help with design on that or the cos
2. Designated hunter is the federal program? Yes, this is the federal program
3. Rob Cross – OSM is remodeling the Federal Subsistence Database, there will be online portion soon, and for permits and reporting. Hoping to get more people. Playing catchup with State. There needs to be state report and Federal report.
4. Jeromy – Helping elders with computer access is key
5. Rob – could help streamline the signup process. Can do bulk permits. This is important because it helps us quantify how much this is happening.

• Gustavus Resident – Wolves on Chichagof? Saw big canine tracks, could have been dog but they were large.
  1. Steve – there was some scat from Althrop that could have been wolf scat. They are waiting for results on that.

Next Steps and Closing

For the last part of the meeting we discussed upcoming regulatory cycles and topics for monthly, focused meetings for members who want

• Upcoming Federal and State Regulatory Meetings
• Icy Straits AC meeting Dec 17th and 30th,
• Federal Subistence Board – Fisheries regulatory meeting Feb 4 – 7 ANC, the only wildlife is deferred proposal for sale of Brown Bear Hides
• SERAC – March 18 – 20th in Sitka

Winter Meeting Agenda – Monthly Meeting Topics/Potential Guest Speakers

1. Focus group January, Monitoring and regular surveys, OSM has staff members who can assist in this
2. Deer Pellets and FRESH Deer Modeling
3. State Household Survey Results
4. Defining “effort”