Category: Alaska News

Palmer Project owners have announced a $13.7 million budget for 2026 operations at the Chilkat Valley’s lone major mining project — an increase after a year without new drilling. 

The Palmer Project is currently in the mineral exploration phase. Its managing company Constantine Metals was purchased last year by Vizsla Copper. 

Before extracting and selling ore, the company must demonstrate enough valuable ore in the ground to entice investors, and eventually get the mine permitted and into production. Much of that work centers around drilling and analyzing core samples from the deposit, located above the Little Jarvis Glacier, just north of Flower Mountain.

If the company’s planned 10,000 meters of drilling this year goes forward, it would be on the high end for recent Palmer Project exploration.

Constantine’s reports to the state list one year of comparable drilling in 2023, which saw 10,500 total meters of drilling. The company reported 6,036 meters of drilling in 2024 and 3,500 meters of drilling in 2022. No new drilling occurred last year. 

A 2025 regulatory filing estimated the company would need an additional 30,000 meters of drilling to produce an updated economic assessment — the expected next step in project development. Theoretically, this summer’s planned work gets them a third of the way to that mark. 

The company did not respond this week to questions about their plans or upcoming work.

The Palmer Deposit has seen years of similar work, with no certainty about whether the exploration project will ever result in a producing mine. Statistically, few do.

The mine, however, has completed a preliminary economic assessment, a key benchmark in mineral exploration, said Robert Loeffler, a professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage Institute of Social and Economic Research and former state mining regulator. 

Exploration generally follows a rough overall progression, from initial exploration, to more advanced exploration, to permitting, and eventually production. 

Along that progression, mining companies are subject to regulatory requirements to be publicly listed on major stock exchanges. In Canada, where Vizsla is traded, that includes standardized reports on the estimated economic value of exploration projects — the preliminary economic assessment being one such report. 

Those reports done by third-party geologists serve as “semi-independent assessments so that investors can feel companies’ claims are accurate,” Loeffler said.  

Reaching a preliminary economic assessment puts the Palmer Project in somewhat rarified air. 

According to a 2021 paper co-authored by Loeffler, of 110 major mines and exploration projects in the state that year, only 18 had advanced past a preliminary economic assessment.

Studies cited in Loeffler’s research show only a small fraction — potentially less than 1 percent — of all exploration projects ever make it into production. But for projects that have advanced to an economic assessment, some studies show three-quarters or more making it into production. 

The updated economic assessment recommended in the company’s 2025 filing would add new data to the 2022 preliminary economic assessment. That’s not an uncommon step for projects with new owners or major investors, Loeffler said.

Updating the economic assessment would still leave plenty of checkpoints before serious consideration of the mine going into production.

The company would likely have to complete a series of increasingly detailed updates of the economic assessment — a prefeasibility study and then a feasibility study — before beginning permitting. At each step, the new information would have to demonstrate economic viability.

Without comment from the company, it’s hard to say how far off those next steps might be, and what exactly it would take to get there. However, there’s been a recent spate of public relations spending from the mine and from opponents of the mine. 

Earlier this year, Vizsla paid a firm $600,00 to run a six-month marketing and public relations campaign. The firm, Machai Capital, has run public relations campaigns for a large number of mining firms. 

On the other side, the Chilkat Indian Village’s Chilkat Forever initiative has run a high-profile anti-Palmer Project campaign, including buying billboard ads at a Vancouver mining conference and large ads in the Anchorage Daily News, Vancouver Sun and Seattle Times. 

In recent months, some, including borough elected officials, have said the mine’s future hinges on its economic viability. 

But public opinion may yet have some role to play if the project moves forward. 

If shown to be economically viable, state and federal environmental permitting would still represent an avenue for public voices to come into play. 

According to Loeffler, those permits fall into two broad categories: criteria-based permits and balancing permits. In the first category, government regulators weigh the project against a strict set of criteria. If the criteria is met, the permit is granted. 

Balancing permits have slightly less definitive terms, where “an effect or risk to public resources is balanced against a company’s right to operate,” Loeffler said. 

Those permitting processes include statutory public-input processes, where in theory the public could provide both technical information, but also testimony regarding the effect on public resources. 

Many valley residents have raised concerns about the environmental impact of a potential mine. In a written statement this week, Chilkat Indian Village Tribal Council member Shawna Hotch pointed to a Chilkat Forever letter in late February signed by 245 Chilkat Valley residents opposing the mine. 

Chilkat Indian Village Tribal Council president Kimberley Strong, in her own written statement this week, said the Chilkat Indian Village has concerns with the impact of this year’s exploratory drilling, not just impacts down the road. 

“It’s very important for Chilkat Valley residents to be aware that the ‘exploration activity’ Vizsla is doing involves drilling into potentially acid-generating rock, yet their plan of operations fails to describe how they will address any acid-generating cuttings from the drill rigs,” Strong wrote. 

Others have pointed to potential jobs created by a producing mine. 

Constantine has advertised a range of job openings this spring, and the Palmer Project is projected to employ 94 people if ever in production, roughly a quarter of the employees at nearby currently-producing Kensington and Greens Creek mines. 

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When a wall of rock collapsed into Southeast Alaska’s Tracy Arm last August, it triggered one of the highest-reaching tsunamis ever recorded in the world. The event happened to be in a place heavily visited by cruise ships.

A study newly published in the journal Science describes its massive magnitude.

The landslide dumped 64 million cubic meters of debris into the water, triggering a megatsunami with an initial wave of 328 feet, or 100 meters, the study said. The tsunami pushed water as high as 1,580 feet, or 481 meters, up the slope on the opposite side of the fjord and, as it traveled to Tracy Arm’s mouth, stripped the surface of the mountain face to bare rock.

The tsunami had the second-highest slope run-up on record, with a height just below the record 1,730-foot run-up in Alaska’s Lituya Bay that was created in 1958 by an earthquake-generated slide.

Unlike the Lituya Bay event, the Tracy Arm slide had no connection to any earthquakes, even though it created its own seismic signal equivalent to a magnitude 5.4 quake.

Instead, the collapsed rock wall had been destabilized by the melt of the glacier that used to buttress it, coupled with rain. It is an example of a hazard that is becoming more prominent in coastal regions of Alaska that attract crowds of tourists.

“With fjord regions increasingly visited by cruise ships, and climate change making similar events more likely, this unanticipated, near-miss event highlights the growing risk from landslides and tsunamis in coastal environments,” said the study, which had coauthors from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

No one was hurt in the Tracy Arm landslide and tsunami, a contrast with the 1958 earthquake and tsunami, which resulted in five deaths.

The only casualties from last year’s event were some material goods. A kayak and some other equipment that campers about 25 miles away from the landslide site were lost when the huge waves washed on the island where they had set up their tent – fortuitously, in the woods rather than directly on the beach.

The campers saw the results of the tsunami, and some boaters even farther away felt it raise the water level even as the tide was falling.

Alaskans were lucky to be left unscathed by the event, considering that Tracy Arm has long been a popular tourist and recreational destination, said study coauthor Ezgi Karasözen, a seismologist at UAF’s Alaska Earthquake Center and a study coauthor.

“It was a close call. I think we dodged a bullet here, because there were multiple cruise ships in the area the day before,” she said.

It helped that the landslide resulting in the tsunami happened at 5:26 a.m. on a rainy morning, when visitors were not in the area, Karasözen said.

“It’s the timing of the event that saved us all,” she said.

In the landslide’s aftermath, tour companies that used to ferry people to Tracy Arm to watch the calving glaciers there are now skipping the area.

Large cruise lines that previously listed Tracy Arm as a stop now show Endicott Arm, a fjord farther south, on their itineraries. Allen Marine Tours, historically the largest tourism operator in Tracy Arm, isn’t sailing there this year. Instead, its boats are traveling from Juneau to Endicott Arm, farther away from the capital city.

“To my knowledge, there is no cruise-related tourism activity in Tracy Arm this year, and I’m not aware of any commercial local operators in Tracy Arm this year,” said Liz Perry, director of Travel Juneau, the city’s tourism bureau.

Similar adjustments have been made by tour companies operating in Prince William Sound, about 100 miles east of Anchorage. They have swapped out different destinations for Barry Arm, a fjord where a mountain slope is already moving and is in danger of a massive, tsunami-generating collapse.

Karasözen said it makes sense for visitors to avoid Tracy Arm for now, as there are still portions of rock face that may be in perilous shape and could collapse in new tsunami-producing landslides.

But Tracy Arm and Barry Arm are not the only coastal Alaska areas with landslide and tsunami dangers, she said.

“There are many fjords in Alaska that have steep slopes, retreating glaciers and similar conditions, so it can produce these kinds of landslides, probably, and a tsunami. So in that sense, the hazard is not confined to a single location,” she said.

How to keep safe is a “difficult question,” she said. Avoiding coastal areas entirely may be unrealistic, given that they are the areas where people want to live and visit, she said.

The Alaska Earthquake Center is working on establishing a landslide early warning system to keep people safe even as they move around coastal areas.

Already, the center has created a landslide-detection system developed by Karasözen and Mike West, Alaska’s state seismologist. The system enables scientists to identify slides and possible tsunamis within a few minutes. It expanded the monitoring program established at heavily instrumented Barry Arm, a site considered to pose tsunami risks to the community of Whittier and to the many users of western Prince William Sound. That area of the sound is heavily trafficked by vessels of different kinds, including cargo ships, tour boats, fishing boats and recreational watercraft.

The Alaska Earthquake Center scientists’ intention is to create a system to warn people about landslides before they happen, something that does not yet exist in the United States.

The Tracy Arm event provides some information that would help in that effort, according to the Science study. For several days before the big landslide, there was “microseismicity,” or movements of magnitudes too small to be felt by people, the study said. And the shrinking of Tracy Arm’s Sawyer Glacier, along with the heavy late-summer rainfall, could be seen as precursors to a slide, the study said.

James Brooks contributed to this story from Juneau.

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The first month of the American war against Iran caused crude oil prices to skyrocket around the world, and the price of Alaska’s oil has risen particularly far.

That rise is making extra millions of dollars available for state services and the Permanent Fund dividend, even as it squeezes the finances of individual Alaskans.

In figures newly compiled by the Alaska Department of Revenue, the average price of a barrel of Alaska North Slope crude was $111.17 in April. 

That’s $8.70 higher than the average price of a barrel of Brent crude, a standard based on oil extracted from Europe’s North Sea. It was also $13.11 per barrel higher than the average price of West Texas Intermediate, a standard based on oil from America’s second-largest state.

“The differential is the largest monthly value since the year 2000 and may be the highest value in history,” said the Department of Revenue, referring to the gap between Brent and North Slope crude.

“The large premium is due to a tightness in the Pacific basin oil market, where ANS is traded. “Most mid-east crude oil is supply constrained and cannot reach major importers like China, Japan, India, and South Korea,” the department said by email. “Uncertainty about shipping and delivery is incentivizing refiners to pay a premium for available crude that does not transit areas with substantial security risks. Crude grades from the Americas are the safest option. Brent primarily trades in the Atlantic basin, where the impacts from the Iran war are not quite as pronounced on a barrel for barrel basis.”

The premium now being paid for Alaska crude will have a significant impact if it continues for months. 

Each increase in the average annual price of a barrel of ANS crude is worth roughly $30 million. The exact value varies, because the state collects different amounts of money at different price levels.

While more than half of the state’s general-purpose revenue now comes from the Alaska Permanent Fund’s investments, oil is still the No. 2 source of flexible spending money for the state, and prices — combined with production — cause the amount of available money to flex up and down each year.

Legislative budgeters write the state’s budget with an average crude price in mind for an entire fiscal year, from July 1 through June 30 of the following year.

In the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, the Department of Revenue expects prices to average $75.26 per barrel. 

Thanks in part to the Alaska premium, the average through May 5 was $75.71. Every day that prices stay above that level, the more unexpected money the state will receive.

The state Senate already has a plan for that extra money. The first $96 million would go to an “energy relief” payment that increases the amount of the 2026 Permanent Fund dividend. The next $111 million would be distributed to public schools, and anything above that would go into the state’s principal savings account, the Constitutional Budget Reserve.

While Alaska’s state treasury is receiving a boon from the high prices, legislators don’t expect it to last. In the fiscal year that starts July 1, they’re anticipating significantly lower average North Slope oil prices.

“The Senate operating budget, when combined with spending agreements for the capital budget, balances the budget on $73/barrel oil, with some money left over,” said Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel and co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, speaking about the Senate’s budget proposal on Wednesday.

“The (House’s draft) budget, when combined with spending agreements for the capital budget, has close to a $320 million deficit at $75 a barrel oil,” Hoffman said.

Staff for Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage and co-chair of the  HouseFinance Committee, said they believe that estimate is accurate. The House’s draft budget includes a Permanent Fund dividend of $1,500. The Senate’s proposed dividend is $1,150, including a $150 energy rebate.

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This article has been updated to better explain the fiscal impact of ANS price increases.

A group of Juneau residents linked arms around a small fire pit outside Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall on Tuesday evening, concluding a ceremony to honor lost loved ones and hold space for grief and healing. At the center, the fire burned cedar chips with dozens of names of those lost. 

May 5 is recognized as the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples, recognizing the disproportionate rates of violence, murder and disappearance among Alaska Native and American Indian communities nationwide and globally.

The day highlights Alaska’s high rates of missing and murdered Indigenous people, particularly Alaska Native women and girls, the ongoing efforts and gaps in law enforcement response, and efforts to address violence prevention and justice for families. 

Marches and events were held in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Bethel, Nome, Juneau and across the country on Tuesday. 

In Juneau, the day was marked with dozens gathering for a rally and march through downtown, a dinner and panel discussion with community leaders, and a space for grieving for those who’ve lost loved ones or are still seeking answers from law enforcement on open investigations. 

A mother and daughter, Lyric and Melody Ashenfelter of Juneau, took a moment to rest on the curb after the march. They said it felt empowering to be a part of the demonstration, and want to see more events and public attention paid to the crisis of violence and missing Alaska Native people, especially Alaska Native women. 

“It was good to see the amount of people that showed up. It was powerful,” Melody Ashenfelter said. They both said they are always thinking of Lyric, who is 20, and her safety. “It’s on my mind, always being careful,” she said. 

During the march, demonstrators held signs to commemorate missing or murdered people, including Tracy Day, who went missing in 2019 in Juneau whose family is still searching for answers, and Benjamin “Benny” Stepetin, who went missing last June. At a dinner and panel discussion at Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall, a table displayed photos of more than a dozen people killed or missing going back to 1993.  

According to new FBI data released Tuesday, rates of Alaska Native or American Indian people reported missing declined slightly to 9,687 people nationwide in 2025. The majority were minors. Roughly 55% of the total were women, and 45% were men. 

In Alaska, the Department of Public Safety releases quarterly reports of missing people, but not annual reports. Numbers fluctuate as cases are resolved and people are found, officials said, but approximately one third of cases in 2025 involved Alaska Native people missing, while Alaska Native people represent roughly 16% of the state’s population.  

The non-profit Data for Indigenous Justice has established an independent database to provide updated case numbers and resources for family members. In 2025, the group reported adding 170 new names and counted the total number of documented MMIP cases in Alaska at more than 1,250 people. 

Alaska ranks fourth in the nation with the highest number of cases, and Anchorage has the third highest of all cities in the nation, according to a 2018 report. 

Paulette M. Moreno, vice president of the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, which helped organize the Juneau event, said each data point represents a life and someone’s family and community affected.

“These are relatives, our sisters, our daughters, our aunties and our family members. So this issue is not abstract. It’s not something that’s happening elsewhere, it’s something that’s happening in Alaska, in our communities,” she said. 

Alaska Native and American Indian women and girls experience disproportionately higher rates of violence, and are murdered at rates ten times the national average, according to federal data. 

Federal and state officials say addressing MMIP is a top priority

Also on Tuesday in Anchorage, federal officials and advocates gathered for a roundtable focused on MMIP hosted by Cook Inlet Tribal Council. Participants represented tribes, law enforcement agencies and the state and federal government. U.S. Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, as well as two Department of the Interior officials, Bryan Mercier, director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Billy Kirkland, assistant secretary for Indian Affairs, attended.

“We can’t lose momentum,” Murkowski said, and applauded the announcement of a new national Task Force to Combat Violent Crime in Indian Country. 

“We are here to work with the administration, hand in glove, on these initiatives to ensure that women in this state, women across the country, do not fear in their own homes,” Murkowski said. “So we have work to do, but we have many, many good and willing partners.”

Alaska Department of Public Safety Commissioner James Cockrell said the biggest barrier for state law enforcement response is timing, particularly in rural Alaska. “Getting to a place in time to either save the person or be able to do a good investigation, to hold the person accountable for their actions,” he said.

“So we need to continue to focus on prevention and really timing investigation, and we need people to help us,” he added. “We need people to step up and say, ‘this is what happened.’

Cockrell said growing the Village Public Safety Officer program has been an ongoing priority of the department, and he sees those officers as essential to be on the frontlines in responding to incidents. “Our goal is to have a VPSO in any village that wants a VPSO. Currently, we have VPSOs in 57 villages, and again, they’re the boots on the ground,” he said.  

Cockrell emphasized that investigations for missing people are most successful when launched quickly. “If you know somebody’s missing, tell somebody right away. Don’t wait 24 hours. Don’t wait 48 hours. We have to have information as quickly as possible. The more information we get, the better chances are we’ll find this person.”

Austin McDaniel, communications director with the department, said in an interview Wednesday that the department responds to missing persons investigations as homicides until they are proven otherwise. “So that’s certainly our priority, is aggressively and quickly investigating new homicides that come in regardless of the area of the state or the race or gender of the person involved,” he said. 

McDaniel said the state is focused on investigating both new cases and unresolved cases, or cold cases. He said the state has five investigators, including four focused on MMIP cases. He said those investigations include new uses of forensic science, like DNA testing, and also rely on new information or witnesses coming forward.

Following legislative action in 2025, Alaska established a new nine-member MMIP Review Commission to review unsolved cases and submit a report to the Legislature every three years with its recommendations and findings. McDaniel said the commission began meeting last year and is continuing to prioritize cases to review. 

But the state does not respond to cases in local law enforcement jurisdictions, unless called upon to assist, McDaniel said. 

Advocates, families and supporters have raised concerns and criticisms at local police departments they say have failed to respond in a timely manner, lack communication with families and lack transparency in the process of investigations. 

McDaniel said families can’t petition the state directly, but can urge their local police department to request assistance with investigations. “We recognize and understand that some, especially small police departments, don’t have the resources, training or equipment to do highly complex technical investigations, and we always will come in, and whether it’s providing maybe some crime scene response or specialized forensics or digital forensics, we do that,” he said. 

Isolation, lack of trust and support services driving factors

Moreno echoed the issue of isolation as one of the biggest driving forces behind the extent of missing and murdered people in Alaska, which she called a human rights crisis. 

“I think that one of the things that really, really makes this such a high number in Alaska is that there are patterns that then have been able to develop. And these patterns have set up systems, unhealthy systems, to allow there to be the ongoing cases, the ongoing people and families that go missing,” she said. 

She said the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes is working with community partners and other tribal governments and organizations to raise awareness and support for resources and community support services for people experiencing violence, or for situations that may make them vulnerable to going missing, as well as for grieving families. 

“And some of the reason for that, may be that there hasn’t been an establishment of trust or awareness that these services exist,” she said. 

Moreno said that more public awareness, law enforcement and media attention is important. “A lot of times they either go undetected, unreported or unresolved, and the treatment of that has caused, I think, a higher number of cases,” she said.

“Our people, Alaska Native people from all the different tribes, are the original inhabitants of this land, and we need to be treated with the respect that that brings forward on our own ancestral homeland,” she added. 

Moreno said the Central Council is planning to hold future events to support grieving families of those missing or murdered. 

“Space where families can come together and talk with each other and have that safe space that’s uniquely created, even though it’s your tragedy, that’s created to help each other, the person right next to you, with healing.”

Yereth Rosen contributed reporting to this story from Anchorage. 

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A commercial fisherman in Kodiak will plead guilty to stealing 16 yellow cedar trees from the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska.

Mitchell Keplinger, charged with theft of government property in April, was scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska on Wednesday for his formal arraignment.

Keplinger signed a plea deal the day after he was charged. Under the terms of the deal, he will avoid jail time but will pay $85,682.17 in restitution and be on probation for three years, a term that may later be reduced to no less than 18 months.

That would be significantly lower than the maximum penalty for theft of government property, which can be punished by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

Keplinger’s attorney did not return a phone call seeking comment on Wednesday.

According to the text of the plea deal, Keplinger and his boat, the 54-foot seiner Alinchak, were working in the Sitka herring seine fishery in late March and early April 2024. After the fishery closed, Keplinger used his boat and crew “to harvest Alaska yellow cedar trees on U.S. Forest Service lands near Sawmill Creek, Sugarloaf Mountain and in and around Sitka Sound.”

The plea deal states that Keplinger knew that a permit was required to cut the trees and knew that he did not have that permit.

“Keplinger’s crew, who were cutting the trees at his direction, had covered one of the stumps with moss to conceal the theft,” the plea deal states.

Paul Robbins, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service in the Tongass, said by email that yellow cedar “is important culturally, ecologically, and economically. Its strength is seen in durable wood products from canoe paddles to engineered timber frames and the unique rot-resistant chemistry of its heartwood allows it to live for over 1000 years and to persist long after death as sequestered carbon.”

The 16 trees allegedly taken by Keplinger yielded 22 logs, “belonging to the United States, with a market value of $4,476.25,” according to the plea deal.

Keplinger then used his boat to take the logs to Kodiak, the plea deal states. The restitution required under the plea deal includes the cost of transporting the logs back to Sitka and the Forest Service.

“Timber theft by individuals is not common on the Tongass National Forest,” Robbins said.

Court documents do not state why Keplinger took the trees or how the theft was discovered. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alaska declined to talk about anything not covered by public court documents, as did Robbins with the Forest Service.

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An Alaska Superior Court judge in Anchorage has given the state of Alaska permission to shoot bears in Southwest Alaska as part of a plan to boost a local caribou herd.

In a 22-page order, Judge Adolf Zeman said a cull planned for this month may take place while attorneys proceed with arguments about the constitutionality of the state’s action.

With the order, Zeman declined to issue a preliminary injunction requested by the Alaska Wildlife Alliance shortly before the cull was expected to start. The Alliance has filed suit against the state and sought to stop the cull.

“We’re happy with the ruling. We’re happy that science prevails, and we can continue the program,” said Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang of the Alaska Department of Fish & Game.

May is calving season for caribou in the area, and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is planning to kill bears before they can kill caribou calves.

Alaska’s predator control program, which involves killing specific animals in order to boost the number of prey animals like caribou and moose, has been controversial for decades. 

The decision to extend the program from wolves to bears, an act the state says is needed to protect the Mulchatna Caribou herd, prompted a lengthy series of legal challenges starting in 2023, a year after the state killed 180 black bears in the area.

Opponents said the culls violated the Alaska Constitution and did not follow scientific principles. Before Wednesday, two other Superior Court judges had ruled in favor of opponents, halting the program and keeping it halted despite two revisions of a plan authored by the Board of Game and Alaska Department of Fish and Game. 

Now, after a third rewrite last year, the state appears to have the permission it needs to resume the cull.

“Our program is based on more than a decade of research that identifies bear predation on calves during calving season as the most significant factor inhibiting the recovery of the caribou herd,” Lang said in a prepared statement.

“Our bear control program is designed to improve calf survival while not impacting the sustainability of the bears. The program has demonstrated significant success through the highest calf-to-cow ratios since 1999 and a population growth of 30% since bear removal began in 2023. Our program is supported by the Alaska Federation of Natives and many locals in the 48 communities who have depended on caribou for generations. We stand by our science.”

In his order, Judge Zeman said a plan by the Board of Game, known as Proposition 1, may eventually be ruled unconstitutional, but “the court is not in the position, nor does it have the authority, to make that determination at this point in the proceedings. The court simply does not possess the technical and specialized skills to do so.”

The Alaska Constitution states that natural resources are supposed to be managed for “sustained yield,” a principle of management for long-term health. The Alaska Wildlife Alliance had argued that the cull violated that principle.

But Zeman, echoing arguments made by a state attorney, said the principle was “designed to be flexible,” and opponents were viewing it as more strict than intended.

Zeman cited a 3-2 decision by the Alaska Supreme Court in 2022, saying that decision “precludes the court from instructing the state on how it satisfies the constitutional mandate.”

Nicole Schmitt, executive director of Alaska Wildlife Alliance, said her organization is “deeply disappointed by the court’s decision to allow the gunning program to move forward today.”

“The state already killed close to 200 bears under a program which was later found unlawful,” she wrote by email. “We can’t undo the slaughter of those bears, which includes dozens of cubs, and I fear history will repeat itself until these issues can be resolved, again, in court.”

Yereth Rosen contributed reporting for this article from Anchorage.

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Kudos to the Southeast Road Builders’ fire brigade along with the all the others who responded to the fiery demise of my beloved SueBeeSue#6 along the highway just south of Klukwan. Thanks to the unknown driver of the blue pickup who I flagged down and dispatched to alert the SERB crew nearby. Thus, all the onboard fire extinguishers carried by SERB vehicles were promptly emptied topped off by the magical powers of Matty and his big hose knocking the flames down before the gas tank blew. Extra shout out to queen of the day, Helena Muench, who possessed the uncanny ability to drop her stop sign, enter the only phone booth south of the border clad as a fluorescent north-end flagger and appear on the other side donned in full fire turn-out gear driving a fire engine! 

Appreciation for the arrival of both fire departments who then followed with mop up, Dakota Strong for the ride home, and all the others who radio relayed and helped with the efforts. It’s always heartwarming to see neighbors taking care of neighbors and this response could not have had a better ending. Many thanks to you all.

Robin Beaudry

The post Thank you to those who helped extinguish car fire on the highway appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Wednesday, April 22

A caller in Haines reported a scam on social media. They were given the information for the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. 

A driver on Beach Road was given a verbal warning for not meeting requirements to display a license plate. 

An officer put a 72-hour notice on an abandoned vehicle on Beach Road. 

A caller in the 100 block of Dalton Street reported a suspicious phone call. An officer responded and performed a welfare check. 

An officer checked a license plate during a vehicle stop. 

Thursday, April 23

A caller reported a moose on Fifth Avenue. A Nixle alert was sent out. 

An officer issued a trespass notice in the 800 block of Spruce Grove Road. 

Friday, April 24

A caller reported a parking violation on Main Street. An officer contacted the vehicle’s owner. 

A caller in Klukwan reported a vehicle fire. The Haines Volunteer Fire Department and state park ranger responded and extinguished the fire. 

A caller reported a boulder obstructing traffic on Lutak Road. The state’s Department of Transportation and an officer responded. A Nixle alert was sent out. 

A caller on Small Tracts Road was given a verbal warning for not meeting taillight requirements. 

An officer was advised of an abandoned trailer on the side of Mud Bay Road.

Saturday, April 25

A caller reported a person driving a motorcycle on the mud flats near Pyramid Island. An officer took the call. 

Officers were advised of a disabled vehicle on the side of Raven Road. It was not obstructing traffic and the vehicle was later retrieved by the owner. 

A caller reported the door of a public building in the 600 block of the Haines Highway was open after hours. Officers responded. 

Officers performed a tag check on an abandoned vehicle on Second Avenue. 

There were three 911 hangup calls, one canine call, nine EMS calls, and 38 burn permits issued during the April 20-24 reporting period reporting period. 

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