State loses challenge to special COVID-era hunt for Kake residents

A federal judge in Anchorage has ruled that U.S. government officials did not overstep the law when they allowed an emergency hunt near Kake during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The decision, published Nov. 3 by Judge Sharon Gleason, is the latest chapter in a long-running dispute between the state and federal officials over who has the authority to regulate subsistence hunting and fishing on public lands in Alaska.

Gleason is also overseeing a separate but unrelated lawsuit by the federal government against the state over management of Kuskokwim River subsistence salmon fishing, an...