September 18, 2017
From KTUU.com
ANCHORAGE (KTUU) – Healy lawmaker Rep. Dave Talerico and his son were cited for using an ATV to hunt moose in an area where ATVs are not allowed.
Talerico and his son, also named David, were cited on Friday, Sept. 15 for using an ATV in the Wood River Controlled Use area, which is an area located generally east of the Parks Highway north of Healy. The citation came near Dexter Creek, of which the east bank forms one of the boundaries of the unit within hunting unit 20A.
Reached by phone Monday, Talerico said he, his son and his young grandson were hunting near Dexter Creek, when he turned his ATV around near that eastern bank of the creek – the same spot he’s turned around for about 20 years or so.
“I always stop at that point and come back, because I always felt that everything beyond that (point) was the Wood River Controlled Use area,” Talerico said Monday. He said ATV tracks in the area show he’s not the only one with that interpretation of where motorized vehicles are allowed.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game regulations state that the Wood River Controlled Use Area is “closed to the use of any motorized vehicle, except aircraft for big game hunting including the transportation of any big hunters, their hunting gear, and/or parts of big game, Aug. 1 – Sept. 30.”
Talerico said he believed the “bank” of the river to begin above the high-water line, as demarcated by the vegetation change from creek to forest, and not necessarily where the water is, or where the bank has been cut. Under that understanding, he would have been in the creek, and outside of the Wood River Controlled Use Area.
The Talericos are scheduled to be in court for the misdemeanor charge on Monday, Sept. 25. They did not take any moose on Saturday’s hunting trip.
“I’ve been to court a few times, but not for anything of my own – ever,” Rep. Talerico said. “So there’s definitely a level of embarrassment that comes along with this. I can’t remember ever having a traffic ticket.”
Talerico says if he is found to have violated the law, “I’ll take whatever lumps I have coming to me, but not only will I know, but everyone else will know exactly where that boundary is as well, and that’s probably not a bad thing either.”