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FAIRBANKS — Hunting for Fortymile caribou off the Steese and Taylor highways is now closed, but a third hunting area accessible only by plane or boat remains open.

The Department of Fish and Game closed the Steese Highway hunt last Thursday at midnight, and the Taylor Highway hunt was closed at midnight Saturday.

Hunters were expected to reach or approach the harvest quotas in both areas before the closures.

As of Monday, Tok area biologist Jeff Gross said hunters had reported taking about 170 caribou off the Steese Highway and about 270 off the Taylor Highway. The harvest quotas for the two areas is 190 and 290, respectively.

Caribou in both areas were less concentrated than they have been the last few years, but the animals present there were visible.

“There weren’t that many caribou on the Steese Highway, but the caribou that were there ... the hunters were able to find them in open habitat,” Gross said.

Gross expects the reported harvest to fall within 10 or 20 caribou — plus or minus — of the harvest quota for each hunt.

Hunting in the roadless area that remains open in the upper Salcha River, Middle Fork of the Chena River and the Charley River has been slow, Gross said. Only seven caribou had been reported taken as of Monday and boat hunters have not reported taking many caribou despite high water in the Salcha River that should provide good access.

“A lot of the harvest in that zone doesn’t occur until the last 10 days of August and the first couple weeks of September,” Gross said.

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Hunters have reported taking 14 caribou in the registration permit hunt for the Macomb Caribou Herd south of Delta Junction. The harvest has been spread around, said Delta area biologist Steve DuBois.

“We’ve had a couple taken up in the Robertson (River) by sheep hunters; another sheep hunter got one in the Granite (Mountains); we’ve had a number taken in the McCumber Basin by people going in on bicycles,” DuBois said.

The season is open through Aug. 27, and hunters will be allowed to use motorized vehicles on the final two days of the hunt.

“What I’m predicting is that we’ll get half the harvest through Aug. 25 and we’ll get that many again in those two days,” DuBois said.