Delta Junction— The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G), in partnership with the Salcha-Delta Soil and Water Conservation District (SDSWCD) is initiating an Environmental Assessment (EA) process for proposed improvements to bison habitat and forage on the Delta Junction Bison Range (DJBR).
The DJBR, located east of Delta Junction and south of the Alaska Highway, was established in 1979 with primary purposes of perpetuating free-ranging bison, providing winter habitat, and altering seasonal movements of bison to diminish damage done to agricultural lands. In the 1980s, approximately 3,000 acres of land was cleared, tilled, and planted to bison forage. The DJBR has since been managed by ADF&G to provide forage attractive to bison by fertilizing, tilling, planting crops, prescribed burns, and other management actions with goals of delaying bison migration onto agricultural lands as late into the fall as possible and to provide opportunity for hunters to hunt bison on state land.
Over time, some of the fields have experienced reduced productivity of bison forage. The purpose of this project is to improve bison habitat and increase forage available to bison on the DJBR. Proposed activities include improvement and ongoing maintenance of existing bison range fields as well as clearing, tilling, and planting bison forage on new ground that is currently forested. Activities proposed on existing fields include tilling, planting, fertilizing, burning, and herbicide use. We propose to drill wells and install additional water sources for bison. Finally, we propose clearing approximately 1,000 acres of forested land within the DJBR for conversion to new fields.
This project is being funded with Wildlife Restoration Act grant funds that are apportioned to eligible states through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and matched by State of Alaska legislatively appropriated funds. Due to the use of federal funds for the proposed project, the USFWS has determined an EA is required to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
We are in the early stages of preparing the EA where we determine the scope of issues for analysis, including identifying substantive issues that will meaningfully inform the consideration of effects on the human environment and the resulting decision.
We encourage you to provide information and assist in identifying substantive issues for analysis. For more information on the project, please contact Clint Cooper, ADF&G Wildlife Biologist, at telephone (907) 459-7223 or email [email protected]. To provide written input related to the scope of analysis of issues for the proposed project, please email the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Office of Conservation Investment at [email protected] by July 15, 2026.
Press release provided by Alaska Department of Fish and Game Division of Wildlife Conservation.
