I would like to comment on the Letter to the Editor on Tuesday from Joel Bennett asking for the state to protect wolves crossing the boundary from Denali National Park to adjacent state lands. He laments that there is no buffer protecting park wolves that leave the park.
First, I would like to establish my credentials in this debate. I worked for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game for 23 years as a wildlife biologist and served as the regional supervisor for the Southcentral region, which includes part of Denali National Park. I also served on former Gov. Jay Hammond’s task force dealing with ANCSA d-2 withdrawals and the eventual creation of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). That act withdrew over 130 million acres in Alaska as National Parks and National Wildlife Refuges in addition to millions of acres of national forest and BLM lands as wilderness and recreation areas. During some of the debate to which Bennett referred, I served on the Board of Game which considered this controversy of a buffer zone on state lands to protect Denali Park wolves.
What Bennett fails to mention is that this issue came up consistently during the ANILCA debates in Congress. The National Park advocates wanted buffers for “their” wildlife even though they only temporarily occupied park lands. Congress responded to that demand by creating parks with adjacent national preserves to provide some semblance of a buffer. In addition, many of us tried to convince the Department of the Interior to agree to boundaries that followed hydrological lines rather than straight township lines. Except for the Wrangell St. Elias National Park, they refused to consider that option. Thus, the conservation community and the state were stuck with straight lines cutting across fast areas of the state. However, the conservation community was ecstatic with the results.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that the resulting land withdrawals by the federal government were going to create huge wildlife and fisheries management problems for species that tend to migrate or wander. The National Park Service consistently complains about the state or its residents taking “their” wolves that wander off park lands onto adjacent state or private lands and are subject to normal hunting and trapping seasons or state sponsored predator management programs. I guarantee you that these types of conflicts between the Department of the Interior and the state are only going to get worse as the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service attempt to expand their philosophy of limited resource management to adjacent private and state lands. To buckle under to the NPS and the environmental community over this one conflict would be a terrible precedent and a disservice to the vast majority of Alaskans.
My last comment is that this specific conflict might be dealt with differently if the Department of the Interior (especially the NPS and the Fish and Wildlife Service) established a more cooperative relationship with the state and the Board of Game. However, the federal government has created a volatile adversarial relationship with the state over fish and wildlife management policies and issues. Recently, NPS has adopted and the Fish and Wildlife Service is about to adopt regulations preempting state management in direct violation of the intent of Congress that Alaska be responsible for managing its resident fish and wildlife populations. The new regulations are contrary to one of the primary purposes of the federal withdrawals which was to provide subsistence for rural Alaskan residents.
This is not a hunting or anti-hunting issue as Bennett has explained. It is, as he indicated, a “balance” issue. Frankly, I consider the federal government setting aside over half of the state (64 percent) in federal ownership — of which most of that is dedicated to national interest preservation principles — a balance heavily favoring the national interest. Alaska is left with the option of using state and private lands to provide the maximum benefit to Alaskans as required by the state constitution. If fish and wildlife cross boundaries voluntarily established by Congress with concurrence of the environmental community and are subject to the legally adopted regulations and statutes of the state, so be it. To voluntarily expand the protectionist principles of the federal agencies and the environmental community to the detriment of the citizens of Alaska would be a travesty.
• Ron Somerville is a lifelong Alaskan who grew up in Craig. He received his master degree in wildlife management from the University of Montana and worked for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game as a wildlife biologist for 23 years. He was the Department of Fish and Game’s representative on the state’s task force, under Gov. Jay Hammond, helping the Alaska delegation participate in the construction of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act which passed in 1980. He also served for six years on the Board of Game during Gov. Frank Murkowski’s administration.
