Legislature(1997 - 1998)
02/23/1998 03:40 PM Senate RES
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
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= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
SB 262 - MANAGEMENT OF HUNTING
CHAIRMAN HALFORD called the Senate Resources Committee meeting to
order at 3:40 p.m. and announced SB 262 to be up for consideration.
MS. MEL KROGSENG, Staff to Senator Taylor, sponsor, said that SB
262 restricts the Department from curtailing traditional access for
hunting and trapping unless a specific means of access is causing
biological harm to a game population in the area where the
restriction is to apply and the recovery of the wildlife population
requires the access restriction. She stated that some Alaska
license holders are outraged by the Department's adoption of a
preservationist philosophy which opposes consumptive uses by
restricting access. At the fall 1995 Board of Game meeting, the
Department of Fish and Game urged the Board of Game to close 236
square miles to Alaska's hunters. The Department's own biologists
testified that there was no biological problem, no justification,
nor actual conflict among user groups in the area. The
Department's director admitted that the only issue was one based
solely on a misperception resulting from purposeful misinformation
and disinformation promulgated by animal rights extremists.
The Board of Game is now politically compromised and has developed
a pattern of establishing controlled use areas which deny user
group access without any biological justification. To get politics
out of wildlife management, the legislature must require that all
wildlife regulations be necessary and biologically justified. The
bill also defines sustained yield with a definition that is
consistent with the definition contained in SB 250 with one small
exception, that this one includes fish.
MS. KROGSENG added that there is a proposed amendment that deals
with four areas that were missed inadvertently in the bill.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD asked how they intend to deal with existing
controlled use areas.
MS. KROGSENG answered that nothing in the bill eliminates those and
there was a provision in it saying they would remain in effect.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD said he thought they were historically used as
methods and means restrictions long before we had the arguments
about access, but they may not be individually biologically
justified in terms of that particular area. They are tools of
allocating different types of use.
MS. KROGSENG said it seems that the Department uses access
restriction as a means of managing people rather than managing
animals which is their charge.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD said he thought the State could restrict access
involved in hunting on private land; however, when there haven't
always been snow machines and three wheelers. He thought they were
trying to target increased proliferation of accessed based
regulations without biological basis.
SENATOR GREEN asked who determines the criteria in the description
of a controlled use area.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD answered the Board of Game. He said to remember
that there were also aircraft restrictions. You can't hunt moose
with any aid of aircraft within the McGrath controlled use area.
MS. KROGSENG said the bill doesn't prohibit the Department from
curtailing access if it's biologically necessary. Mr. Reglin,
ADF&G told her there was so much controversy because of the McNeal
River Sanctuary over hunting bears in that area that the Board
chose to make their recommendation based on nothing that had to do
with biology.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD asked if allocation was biology.
MS. KROGSENG answered not to her way of thinking.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD said he thought the McGrath controlled use area
for aircraft was an allocation decision.
SENATOR LEMAN said he is concerned that the Board may be
considering adopting a policy on restricting the use of these
vehicles for hunting when there is a real possibility that
conflicts may exist because of other users of them. There is no
clear evidence that it was the hunters.
MS. KROGSENG agreed that there are many users of off-road vehicles
that are non-hunters and they could very well be what is causing
the controversy.
SENATOR SHARP thought that leaving the meat on the bone in certain
areas and transporting it was a problem, also.
Number 170
MR. KEN TAYLOR, Deputy Director, Division of Wildlife Conservation,
opposed SB 262 which is an act relating to regulation of hunting
and trapping and the definition of sustained yield. It would limit
the authority of the Board of Game to adopt regulations only when
necessary for the biological management of game and would prohibit
the Board from restricting the methods of access in any area, the
traditional means of access to take or transport game in that area,
and it would define the principal of sustained yield. Section one
essentially removes the Board's responsibility to allocate
resources by restricting their authority to adopt regulations only
when necessary for the biological management of game. Among the
regulations currently on the books that are not necessary for
biological management are methods and means restrictions,
accommodations for disabled persons, subsistence preference,
emergency openings to allow additional harvest, prohibiting live
capture, public safety, rescinding resident tag requirements,
classification of game, salvaging meat, defense of life and
property, sale of game, scientific and educational permits, and
more. Although regulations of this type are not necessary for
biological management, they insure a more equitable use of a common
resource, improve the quality of hunting, prevent waste and misuse
of game, and contribute to the safety and general welfare of
Alaskans.
Section two prevents the Board from closing any area to a
particular means of access until after significant biological harm
has occurred to a game population and the recovery is unlikely
without a restriction and active management measures have been
implemented to aid the recovery of the population. Waiting until
after significant harm has occurred prevents the Board from
managing wildlife on a sustained yield basis. Sustained yield
management attempts to prevent significant harm from occurring by
anticipating population declines and acting to stop them.
Repressing the Board until after harm has occurred would result in
long term loss of hunting opportunity, because harvest would have
to be curtailed to allow populations to recover.
Number 260
SENATOR LEMAN asked if he would change his position on section 2 if
the finding would not only find that it resulted in significant
biological harm, but that it could result in imminent biological
harm. He agreed with him that we don't want to create a problem,
then say oh, we have a problem, and then fix it.
MR. TAYLOR said if they could anticipate it, it would be more
palatable. There are three things in this bill that are bad for
wildlife management - limiting it to biological management, because
that is really a Department function. The Board's function is
allocative; they manage people. Limiting regulations to only
biological management, you're pretty well defeating the purpose of
regulations to begin with. Trying to define sustained yield is
another issue.
SENATOR LEMAN asked what he thought about the access issue.
MR. TAYLOR said that every place the Board restricts methods of
access are either in a controlled use area or in a defined
management area. There are a few in refuges and critical habitat
areas, as well. These are established by regulation and aren't
normally subjected to legislative scrutiny. If that were a
condition of this legislation, all of those that were developed
would have to go before the legislature before they could be
established. The Board does not establish very many, but they do
consider a number of them. It's the Department's position that
that would be cumbersome for the legislature and not be in the
overall interests of doing it in an efficient manner.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD asked if the controlled use areas are mostly by
statute or regulation.
MR. TAYLOR answered that the controlled use areas are mostly by
regulation. The areas done by statute are game sanctuaries,
refuges, and critical habitat areas. For example, there are areas
just south of Fairbanks where subunit 28 was divided up into a
number of controlled use and management areas to address the
various types of uses and access people wanted to have, like the
Wood River Controlled Use Area for flying and horses only; the
Ferry Trail management area for ATV access; the Healy controlled
use area which protects the Healy lignite communities from people
discharging fire arms in their immediate vicinity (as it's a bow
hunting only area). There are about three dozen of those types of
areas around the State. Three of them are pretty controversial.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD asked if this bill repeals all those that were
established by regulation in the past.
MR. TAYLOR said as he reads it, it does, although he needs to check
with the Attorney General's office. It says, "The Board of Game
and the Department may not restrict a means of access." Those
controlled use and management areas that are on the books right now
do restrict access and there are no grandfather clauses in this
bill. He explained that the way these things have changed in the
past is that as we go from one administration to the next, all the
players change, the Boards change, areas get revisited. Ones that
don't work very well come up again. They are all on a schedule to
be reconsidered every two years. Some of the latest ones that have
sparked controversy haven't been up for reconsideration yet.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD asked what the Board did after discussion on Unit
13 ATV access.
MR. TAYLOR said they established a subcommittee to study the
situation more closely.
Number 372
SENATOR SHARP asked if the Board had ever rescinded any restricted
use areas that they had established in the past.
MR. TAYLOR said he thought they had and he would look for him. He
knows they have renamed a number of them and modified boundaries
and have changed some of the restrictions.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD said he could think of one off hand. The Clear
Water controlled use area north of the Denali Highway and east of
the Susitna River was a closed area. It was later changed to a
controlled use area open to hunting, but only by non-motorized
means.
He said at some point the concern for what technology is doing is
legitimate. Now, if you can get across the water bodies, you can
drive a Honda four-wheeler from Anchorage to Nome. If there's not
very many of them, it doesn't matter, but at some point there is a
legitimate concern about how many there are. It doesn't seem to
hurt things that snow machines do it all the time. He said they
would keep this bill in the committee. He thought it was not the
intent of the sponsor to repeal all the existing ones.
MS. KROGSENG said there is no provision in the bill relating to
existing controlled use areas. She said there are 26 controlled
use areas in the State. The first was established in 1971; 13 were
established prior to 1979, and nine have been established in the
last eight years.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD closed the hearing on SB 262.
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