Southeast Alaska subsistence users who want current information on sockeye escapement numbers, deer seasons and detailed maps now have a single website providing all the information.
The U.S. Forest Service on Sept. 2 went live with its new subsistence dashboard.
"This tool was created in response to feedback and requests by tribal organizations and subsistence users throughout Southeast Alaska," Tongass Subsistence Program Manager Robert Cross said in a prepared statement. "We heard how difficult it was to find subsistence data and understand regulatory boundaries, so we got to work on a solution."
The website includes up-to-date sockeye escapement numbers, downloadable maps of regulatory areas, deer harvest rules and any special wildlife notices.
"The goal of the subsistence dashboard is to provide all the already publicly available data in a single, convenient location online, rather than spread throughout reports and papers published by a variety of state and federal agencies," the Forest Service said.
The website is at bit.ly/4edh13g.
Staff have been working more than a year to create the dashboard, Cross said in an interview last week. It was clear the agency needed a better way to provide information to the public, he said.
All of the Tongass National Forest is considered a fishing and hunting subsistence area, he explained, with areas closed or restricted as needed to preserve the resource. Such as the Stikine River, which was closed - for the eighth year in a row - to subsistence fishing for king salmon May 15 through June 20 to help preserve weak returns of the fish.
Though the Tongass is a subsistence area, Ketchikan and Juneau residents are excluded from subsistence hunting and fishing under the federal definition of rural users.
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