Administration of Wildlife Resources— Elkins 275 

 III. Problems Relating to the Human Population 



It has been said that America needs not so much game man- 

 agement but more hunter management. This is almost as true 

 of Alaska as it is in the states. 



One of the most important of stateside problems we do not 

 have in Alaska, the problem of getting on the land to hunt. 

 Most of Alaska is public land and the Alaska hunter is seldom 

 confronted with "No Trespassing" signs. Near some of the 

 towns there are exceptions to this condition and the amount 

 of land in private ownership is increasing. In the foreseeable 

 future, however, there will be no shortage of places to hunt, 

 our problem will be to maintain a game population on these 

 public lands. Of a gross acreage of 365,481,000 some 486,000 

 acres were in private ownership in 1947 (7) and some 7,000,000 

 acres in National parks and monuments. These private areas 

 can be closed to hunting at the owner's discretion and the park 

 lands are closed to hunting and trapping but open to fishing. 

 There are some restrictions on hunting in the military reserva- 

 tions and Indian reservations and in the Aleutian Island Na- 

 tional Wildlife Refuge but considerable hunting is possible in 

 these reservations and the two large wildlife areas, Kenai and 

 Kodiak are open to hunting. The nearly 21,000,000 acres in the 

 National Forests are open to all. Thus approximately 358 

 million acres are open to some form of hunting. This amounts 

 to 98 percent of the land area of Alaska and is a reassuring 

 guarantee that the American system of free hunting ranges will 

 be with us for some time. 



The first great problem relating to human use is caused by 

 the transient population. Alaska's population in 1940 was 

 72,000 (4); while preliminary estimates for the 1950 census are 

 about 131,000. About 35,000 comprise the native population 

 which has shown no marked increase. The increase then has 

 been largely in the white population, an increase of 156 per- 

 cent. Many of these people are transients, construction workers 

 as well as civilian government employees whose tour of duty in 

 Alaska is frequently less than two years. Others, including the 



