SENATE RESOURCES COMMITTEE February 23, 1998 3:40 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT Senator Rick Halford, Chairman Senator Lyda Green, Vice Chairman Senator Loren Leman Senator Bert Sharp MEMBERS ABSENT Senator John Torgerson Senator Robin Taylor Senator Georgianna Lincoln COMMITTEE CALENDAR SENATE BILL NO. 262 "An Act relating to regulation of hunting and trapping and to the definition of sustained yield.'" - HEARD AND HELD SENATE BILL NO. 180 "An Act relating to state rights-of-way." - PASSED CSSB180(RES) FROM COMMITTEE PREVIOUS SENATE COMMITTEE ACTION SB 262 - No previous action to record. SB 180 - See Resources minutes dated 2/9/98. WITNESS REGISTER Ms. Mel Krogseng, Staff Senator Robin Taylor State Capitol Bldg. Juneau, AK 99811-1182 POSITION STATEMENT: Opposed SB 262. Mr. Ken Taylor, Deputy Director Division of Wildlife Conservation Department of Fish and Game P.O. Box 25526 Juneau, AK 99802-5526 POSITION STATEMENT: Opposed SB 262. Mr. Brett Huber, Staff Senator Rick Halford State Capitol Bldg. Juneau, AK 99811-1182 POSITION STATEMENT: Commented on SB 180. ACTION NARRATIVE TAPE 98-13, SIDE A Number 001 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. SB 180 - STATE RIGHTS-OF-WAY: R.S. 2477 CHAIRMAN HALFORD announced SB 180 to be up for consideration. He noted a proposed committee substitute that deals with a number of concerns brought up in the first hearing. One is a new Section One which is findings and intent dealing with how R.S. 2477s are managed and what happens in terms of location. A dog sled trail has a lot less impact than a highway, for instance. He reviewed a number of other corrections and changes. SENATOR LEMAN asked if they had decided to not insert "or a municipal corporation with transportation powers" into section two on page 2, line 6. MR. BRETT HUBER, Staff to Senator Halford, said he understands that these R.S. 2477s are the State's rights-of-way. That's why they are only dealing with the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities. It's in the DNR until they decide to bring it into a part of the State highway system. SENATOR LEMAN said there was another question about the "public" having a right-of-way instead of the "State" on page 2, line 17. SENATOR GREEN moved to adopt the committee substitute, Luckhaupt 2/19/98 0817\F, to SB 180. There were no objections and it was so ordered. SENATOR LEMAN moved to adopt amendment #1 which would delete the word "State" and insert "public" on page 2, line 17. There were no objections and it was so ordered. SENATOR LEMAN asked staff to check the spelling of some of the place names. MR. HUBER said that he had checked the spelling with the RST g atlas. CHAIRMAN HALFORD announced a two minute at-ease at 4:20 p.m. SENATOR SHARP moved to pass CSSB 180(RES) from committee with individual recommendations. There were no objections and it was so ordered. CHAIRMAN HALFORD noted that they did not include the limitation on conservation easements that was discussed because there wasn't any language from the Department of Transportaion and Public Facilities or the Department of Law that worked. He had no objection to adding the correct language. CHAIRMAN HALFORD adjourned the meeting at 4:25 p.m.