We tape at 5:30pm.  The address is 626 D Street, on the Northwest corner of 7th and D St.

MY GUESTS:

INTERVIEWEE

Jim Stratton is the Alaska Regional Director for the National Parks Conservation Association, a position he has held since December 2002.  Prior to joining NPCA, Jim spent 7.5 years as the director of the Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation for the State of Alaska and 11 years as the Program & Finance Director for Alaska Conservation Foundation.  He started his Alaska conservation career in 1981 as the Executive Director of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council.  He also volunteers his time for a couple conservation related organizations: Training Resources for the Environmental Community – or TREC – and The Great Land Trust, Southcentral Alaska’s local land trust.  When not working or volunteering for conservation efforts, he produces and hosts the Arctic Cactus Hour, a weekly public radio program (music, not talk) on Anchorage’s KNBA.  He also likes to fly fish, is into birding, and traveling to wild and exotic places, especially those that provide a stamp for his National Park Passport.   Jim holds a degree in Recreation and Parks Management from the University of Oregon and an MBA from Alaska Pacific University.

PANELISTS

Wade Willis is a former biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.  He is a lifelong hunter and fisherman and a 20 year Alaska resident.  Wade has owned and operated a rafting, sea kayaking and hiking business for the last decade.  He is currently developing a non-profit public education and public relations called the “Science Now Project!” Wade has a BS in zoology from Colorado State University.

Bob Bell is a former member of the Alaska Board of Game.  Bob was originally appointed by Frank Murkowski in 2004 and reappointed by Sarah Palin in 2007.  His 2^nd term expired on March 10.  He was replaced by Al Barrette who is awaiting confirmation by the legislature.  Bob was elected to the Anchorage Assembly and served from 1993-1999. He is the principal of F. Robert Bell & Associates, one of the largest engineering firms in Alaska.  Bob is a veteran and has lived in Alaska more than 40 years.

Dr. Vic Van Ballenberghe is a retired Alaska Department of Fish & Game wildlife biologist.  Vic has researched and studied moose and wolves across Alaska.  He served on the Alaska Board of Game under two governors. Vic is an author whose published works have been printed in National Geographic and include the book, “In the Company of Moose.”  In 2006, Vic was awarded the Olaus Murie Award for Outstanding Professional Contributions to Alaska Conservation by the Alaska Conservation Foundation.

from Nick Jans:

My Turn: Rossi simply isn’t qualified for wildlife director position

Nick Jans

By Nick Jans | Juneau Empire March 25, 2010

A recent Empire headline read, “Wildlife Director Leaving Juneau.” More to the point, scientific wildlife management seems to be leaving Alaska.

Last week, Alaska Department of Fish & Game commissioner Denby Lloyd asked Doug Larsen to step down as director of wildlife conservation, and named in his place assistant commissioner Corey Rossi. Though no official reason was given, the story is plain as a blood trail on snow: Larsen, a respected scientist with more than three decades of ADF&G experience, was summarily replaced by a man brought into the department by former Gov. Sarah Palin to direct part of ADF&G’s predator control program.

Predator control, properly informed by rigorous science, can be a valuable wildlife management tool. Unfortunately, that specific, study-driven approach has been fading steadily in the rear view mirror, under the pressure of special interest groups who are bent on shaping wildlife management to their own ends.

With the appointment of Rossi, it’s clear that science isn’t driving this bus anymore. When he was first named as assistant commissioner in December 2008, ADF&G’s own press release was conspicuously mum on the subject of his academic credentials. In fact, Rossi turns out to be a high school graduate who’s taken a string of college courses from the Berryman Institute in Utah. Rossi doesn’t even have a bachelor’s degree in biology, let alone the advanced scientific credentials that characterized past directors. In fact, Rossi’s school record wouldn’t qualify him to be hired as a junior field biologist.

The sum of Rossi’s bona fides (besides being a close friend of the Palin family) is that he worked for the USDA overseeing the control of undesired animals – as one ADF&G biologist put it, a “gopher choker.”

While his past employment history may qualify him to snare bears with a baited bucket, the Director of Wildlife Conservation position demands a far wider range of scientific knowledge and experience.

Rossi’s hire marks the point at which ADF&G has crossed a threshold that should alarm all Alaskans, as well as the scientific community. In this brave new world, a paralegal can head a law firm; a nurse can direct a team of surgeons, and a high school grad can direct a scientific agency. Though I’m sure some will come forward to defend Rossi, the point stands: he’s simply not qualified for the position to which he was appointed. Of course, Rossi did not appoint himself. Commissioner Lloyd is ultimately responsible for this decision, which can only cast serious doubt on his leadership, and upon the credibility of ADF&G.

This credibility only becomes more strained when we come to the matter of Mr. Rossi’s connection to the special interest group, Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife/Habitat. Following his initial appointment to ADF&G, the programs for which he lobbied at the behest of SFW/H (notably the wide-scale, virtually limitless killing of black bears in Unit 16B) quickly became ADF&G policy-a startling development, considering that SFW/H is not a scientific organization.

Founded by Utah businessman Don Peay, SFW/H makes no secret of its goals to re-shape wildlife management departments in lower 48 and Alaska through political pressure, in order to promote what they call “abundance-based management”-basically a euphemism for Maximum Sustained Yield, a wildlife Ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud. According to SFW/H’s philosophy, producing the greatest possible number of meat animals for human hunters is all that matters. All other wildlife issues and other user groups, consumptive or non, are subservient at best.

Though SFW/H claims to adhere to science, they mean only the science that supports their viewpoints and ends. As illustration of the very real pressure they bring to bear on the department, consider an email SFW/H spokesman Dane Crowley sent to Denby Lloyd (and cc’d to Rossi) on July 14, 2009, identifying career biologists by name that he wanted disciplined or fired-basically telling ADF&G its business in a very specific and vehement manner.

Lloyd’s surprisingly cordial response (obtained through a public documents request) concludes with, “I look forward to continued cooperation between ADF&G and groups such as yours in meeting … wildlife management objectives for Alaska.”

When the lines between an extremist special interest group and a state agency become this blurred, something’s deeply wrong. It’s time for concerned Alaskans to demand a full official inquiry.

• Nick Jans is an Alaska writer and photographer.

And from Mark Richards:

Mark Richards

Wildlife conservation director brings questionable history
COMPASS: Other points of view

By MARK RICHARDS Anchorage Daily News March 25 2010

In late February of 2009, in Anchorage, Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Denby Lloyd, as promised, explained to me face to face how Palin family friend Corey Rossi came to hold a brand- new leadership position at Fish and Game. Lloyd had told me a month earlier that he couldn’t go into an explanation via e-mail.

Gov. Palin, he told me, wanted Rossi — who at the time was a spokesman and board member of the new Alaska chapter of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, a predator-control advocacy group headed by former state Sens. Ralph Seekins and Scott Ogan — put in the vacant deputy commissioner slot. But Lloyd strongly refused.

Finally a compromise was reached with Palin in which Patrick Valkenburg — a former biologist with Fish and Game, Alaska Outdoor Council board member and advocate of legalized snaring of bears by the public — would be appointed deputy commissioner. And a brand-new “assistant commissioner” position would be created for Mr. Rossi.

This was the real version of events, I was told, but not the public version. Not surprising, but what came next was a shocker.

A couple of days later Assistant Commissioner Rossi represented Fish and Game before the Board of Game in support of the very same controversial proposals Rossi had helped draft and promote as an SFW-AK board member (submitted under the name of the SFW sister organization, Sportsmen for Habitat) just prior to going to work for the department, to legalize the snaring of bears and helicopter transport of hunters who participate in the Unit 16 bear control efforts west of Anchorage.

It was a clear conflict of interest, and a 180-degree position shift by the department that a year ago had stated in writing to the Board of Game:

“The department does not support the taking of any grizzly bear by trapping, snaring, or same-day-airborne, or the sale of tanned bear hides, even in brown bear predator-control areas.”

But it was allowed to happen, and because it was Assistant Fish and Game Commissioner Rossi supporting those proposals, not SFW-AK spokesman and board member Rossi, the proposals passed.

During the ensuing year, Deputy Commissioner Valkenburg and Assistant Commissioner Rossi began a top-down approach to “change the culture” of Fish and Game and get staff to support new methods and means of bear reductions.

But apparently not all managers and staff were pleased to see the department radically shift positions regarding bears, because SFW-AK began a campaign to have various Region II Fish and Game staff removed or replaced, complaining that certain staffers were hampering “abundance management” efforts and that Doug Larsen, Division of Wildlife Conservation director, was protecting them.

During this time, highly experienced and respected Region II Supervisor Grant Hildebrand voluntarily left the department (and still has not been replaced).

Fast forward to the 2010 spring Board of Game meeting in Fairbanks and the bombshell announcement by Deputy Commissioner Valkenburg that the department would be advocating to legalize the snaring of both black and grizzly bears in the Interior, outside of any formal bear control plans.

I couldn’t believe it. And from the looks and sounds of it, neither could some Fish and Game managers and staff.

A week later, Doug Larsen was asked to step down from the director’s position. Corey Rossi was announced as the new director of the Division of Wildlife Conservation, as of March 16, 2010.

SFW-AK released a statement crowing about how they’d influenced Commissioner Lloyd to remove Larsen and put their man Rossi in, calling it a “bold move”

Director Corey Rossi Sarah Palin Crony "Gopher Choker"

that was “due in large part to the process and participation of SFW. …”

I say “their man” Rossi because from the time Rossi was appointed assistant commissioner, and up until March 13, he was still listed on the SFW web site as a voting board member of SFW-AK.

Lloyd denies he was influenced. But it seems obvious partisan politics and monied special interests have compromised the integrity and reputation of Fish and Game, and the future of science-based wildlife management in Alaska.

Mark Richards is an avid longtime hunter and trapper and co-chair of the Alaska chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, www.alaskabackcountryhunters.org.

Vitamin Democracy!

This weekend in Juneau, there is a presentation and a rally to support science-based wildlife management.  SHOW UP! Here are the details:

Friday, March 26, at 7:00 pm, at the Juneau Arts & Humanities Council: Managing Wildlife in Alaska: Predators, Prey & Politics – The Event

6:00 to 7:00 pm Before the Presentations:  Book signings/sales by Nick Jans, Vic Van Ballenberghe, and Bob Armstrong – featuring the release of Bob’s newest book, Photographing Nature in Alaska; Wildlife Slide Show by Jos Bakker

Host:  Dr. Alexander Simon, Assistant Professor of Sociology at UAS

Speakers:  John Toppenberg – Director of the Alaska Wildlife Alliance

Vic Van Ballenberghe – Wildlife Biologist

Nick Jans – Author and Wildlife Photographer:  Alaska’s Wolves: The Essence of Wilderness, talk and slide show

Greg Brown – Retired CEO of Major International Corporations, Juneau Whale Watching Captain – Want to Run a Billion Dollar Business?  Look at Wildlife!

Senator Hollis French

Bonus:  World premiere trailer of the upcoming PBS film Alaska’s Tongass Rainforest, introduced via tape by international wildlife spokesperson Jim Fowler and in person by film maker Jim Valentine

Donations gratefully accepted.

*******************************************************************************************************************************************************

Saturday, March 27, at Noon, in Front of the Capitol: Managing Wildlife in Alaska: Predators, Prey & Politics – The Rally

Blessing of the Animals by Reverend Kim Poole, Northern Light United Church

Speakers:  Joel Bennett

Greg Brown

Andrea Doll

Senator Hollis French

Representative Beth Kerttula

Alex Simon

John Toppenberg

Vic Van Ballenberghe

Bonuses: Free hot dogs for the first 100 people at the rally!
Singing with Juneau’s own Kit Petersen!

Howling!

Free door prizes!

Feel free to wear masks, wear costumes, and bring signs!

For more information: info@akwildlife.org or call Tina at 907.523.5402.

The smell of fresh snow and the burning fuel of a Ski-Doo Olympic Snowmachine are part of my vivid childhood memories. I would hang on to my pop’s snowsuit, as we rode through Alaskan muskegs, down river banks, and up power line trails. Checking our trap line was dirty work. Bait consisted of freezer burnt salmon and road kill rabbit retrieval missions. I grew up with the smell of skinned mink, beaver, muskrats, coyotes, and wolves in my garage. We took the hides to the Fur Rendezvous in Anchorage and sold them. Staying in a hotel with plumbing and television was our decadent reward. I learned more about nature from trapping and hunting than I did from any biology class. Habits, tracking, instincts; I was in awe of the Nature around me and then I helped kill it. It wasn’t easy. Mink are smart as white collar thieves. They could get bait out of a trap nine times out of ten, and defecate before departing, a not-so-subtle message to Pop and I.

I don’t write these things to brag, just as fact. You may be revolted by this lifestyle, and I won’t argue. I share this to provide you the reference of my horror of aerial wolf hunting. Shooting wolves from planes is to hunting, what hiring a prostitute is to dating.

Alaska has a long history of bounties and hunting-much of it controversial. Aerial wolf hunting began in 1948. In 1972, Congress passed a law that prohibited aerial wolf hunting. Problem solved? No, under the guise of “wolf control,” permits were issued to “pilot gunner” teams in 1979. In 1992, under Governor Walter Hickel’s Administration, the Alaska Board of Game initiated a wolf control program with the goal of reducing numbers by 80%. Under threat of a massive tourist boycott, the “land and shoot” policy was reintroduced. During Democrat Governor Tony Knowles Administration, only non-lethal measures were used against wolves. The Wolf Management Reform Coalition collected 33,000 signatures to put an aerial wolf hunting ban on the November 1996 ballot; 59% of Alaskans voted for it, with the exception being a biological emergency. A Republican Legislature introduced SB74. This bill eliminated the need for a biological emergency to justify aerial wolf control and usurped the will of the people. Governor Knowles vetoed the bill and the Republican majority overrode it. In March of 2000, SB267 was passed which allowed hunters other than the state biologists to aerially shoot wolves. That same year, Alaskans voted on another ballot initiative to ban aerial wolf hunting by a 53% majority. In 2004, then Governor Frank Murkowski reinstated aerial wolf hunting to private hunters. He opened up 60,000 square miles of Alaska for the flying cowboys. All you needed was a plane and a permit.

With all of this history, we should have been prepared to deal with a Palin Administration hell bent on killing wolves. She and I were “raised by the same wolves”, and she wants to shoot them out of planes. She stacked the Alaska Board of Game with pro-aerial wolf hunters. She was successful at merging faulty science, Safari Club International interests and state funded propaganda; spinning a web of lies to masquerade as conservation. I’m not sure where it started; maybe a spam email promising penis enlargement from shooting mammals out of planes went viral. Running our policy on “Faith Based Science” hasn’t worked; animals you believe are here for you to rule, and exist because Noah got two of them on a boat and they managed not to eat each other is one thing. But if you refuse to use the brain God gave you for observation and noticing patterns of science, well, how good of a steward of the Earth are you? Years of classic, scientific studies by Adolph Murie and Vic Van Ballenberghe have been mocked or ignored. Their studies were in the field, observing the balance between wolves and ungulate populations. They proved what common sense verifies; wolves take the weak and the sick thereby strengthening the herds. The Alaska Board of Game lacks common sense and ignores science. The Board is loaded with Viagra starved, trigger-happy Alaska Outdoor Council and Safari Club International agenda driven thugs.

Because of declining hunter success throughout the 1990s, residents of McGrath were vocal about the need for aerial wolf control. They complained loudly and constantly that there weren’t enough legal moose to hunt. The most comprehensive moose population survey to date was done in the fall of 2001. Alaska Department of Fish & Game Biologists documented moose numbers and the bull/cow ratios within a 520 square mile area around McGrath known as the Experimental Micro Management Area or EMMA, as well as the rest of Game Management Unit (GMU) 19D East. 520 square miles is a relatively small area. It is in fact, just under 12 miles north, south, east and west of McGrath. The target ratio for a sustainable hunted population is 30 bulls/100 cows. Within the EMMA, that ratio fell to an unhealthy 6 bulls/100 cows. Outside EMMA and basically outside the range of lazy 4-wheeler hunters, that ratio was 44 bulls/100 cows-well above the healthy target. Here’s the kicker direct from the Alaska Department of Fish & Games official report:

“The low bull:cow ratio in this area (EMMA) results from an imbalance between hunting and recruitment. The bull:cow ratio in the remainder of GMU 19D East remains relatively high.”

In other words, the science from ADF&G’s own biologists contradicted the need for any predator control. Studies conducted for the McGrath Adaptive Management Team proved that over-hunting was the reason for the lack of moose in the area, not wolves. That data was buried and wolf control was implemented.

Right before the 2006 Election, Alaskans for Wildlife submitted 57,000 signatures to get another aerial wolf hunting ban in place. Newly elected Governor Palin and the ADF&G issued even more wolf kill permits and put up a $150 bounty per wolf. A state judge ruled Palin exceeded her authority and the bounty was scrapped. At the end of the 2007 legislative session, Palin flooded the legislature with bills to ease up on wolf hunting restrictions, but the bills were held up in committee. In the spring of 2008, Palin tried to declare wildlife an “asset” of the State to make their management off limits to ballot initiatives. She covertly tried to tack a wolf hunting bill on to an animal cruelty bill, SB 273, introduced by Senator Bill Wielechowski. Pun intended: she got shot down.

Last month Alaskans voted once again on Aerial Predator Control. The intent of the ballot initiative was simple enough; to prohibit the shooting of wolves and grizzly bears from aircraft. Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell, overseer of elections, did his part to insure the proposition language was confusing enough to guarantee failure:

Ballot Measure 2

Bill Amending Same Day Airborne Shooting

BALLOT LANGUAGE

This bill amends current law banning same-day

airborne shooting to include grizzly bears. The

bill permits the Board of Game to allow a predator

program for wolves and grizzly bears if the

Commissioner of Fish and Game finds an emergency,

where wolves or grizzly bears in an area

are causing a decline in prey. Only employees of

the Department of Fish and Game could take

part in the program. Only the minimum number

of wolves or grizzly bears needed to stop the

emergency could be removed.

Should this initiative become law?

___Yes

___No

Parnell was dragged into court several times for misrepresenting the intent of the initiative on the ballot. Many Alaskans were confused by the ballot language. My neighbor is a retired state engineer. He is a bright man and a conservationist. He voted no despite being an outspoken opponent of aerial wolf killing. Had I not known to vote yes, I would have voted no too. Now, aerial predator control proponents can disingenuously claim that Alaskans favor killing wolves and bears from planes as evidenced by the 2008 vote on Ballot Prop 2.

Governor Palin did her part to defeat the initiative as well. She approved the use of public money and ordered the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to publish a 26-page full color pamphlet called “Understanding Intensive Management and Predator Control in Alaska.” It circulated through newspapers statewide and was mailed to tens of thousands of Alaskans just days before the election. The pamphlet emphasized “how well the current system is working.” Jim Marcotte, Director of Support for the Board of Game, said the pamphlet was not meant to influence voters-Really? Spending public money to tell Alaskans that the Aerial Wolf Control Program is necessary to protect our moose and caribou populations just before a statewide election wasn’t an attempt to influence the outcome? The fear machine was in full force. The message was clear: wolves threaten hunters’ ability to put food on the table. But the truth was more about putting pelts on a wall.

In addition to the pamphlet and mailers, the state paid for Board of Game members to fly all over Alaska to “educate” the public on the benefits of predator control-again just before the election. This entire predator control program is about turning Alaska into a wild game farm. In response to the allegation that she signed off on a “propaganda campaign to justify the state’s barbaric wolf slaughter from the skies,” Palin said, “My understanding is this program was funded by the Legislature to factually explain game management practices to Alaskans, and I don’t have a problem with that.” The total bill for the “education” was $400,000. Nearly the same amount of money she vetoed for high school drop out prevention.

It’s shameful she spent almost half a million dollars on pamphlets to compensate for Alaska’s prohibition on Cialis. Hey, if you’ve been shooting wolves out of planes, and you have an erection lasting for more than four hours, check the Boone & Crocket stats, you may have a trophy!

In June of this year, the ADF&G broke their own predator control regulations with the slaughter of 14 wolf pups near Point Moeller. Under the ADF&G Wolf Control Regulations (5AAC 92.110(i)), “Denning, the killing of wolf young in the den, is prohibited.” On site at the scene of the crime were Deputy ADF&G Commissioner for Wildlife, Ken Taylor, and The Director of ADF&G’s Division of Wildlife Conservation, Doug Larsen. Why were suits from Juneau involved in a routine field operation? Why do we pay them salaries to enforce laws they are either unaware of, or choose to break? Perhaps they knew they were breaking their own law and were there to support the cover-up and clean up crew.

ADF&G Biologists want to “maintain” caribou herd numbers between 3,000-4,000 animals on the Alaska Peninsula near Port Moeller. According to former ADF&G Commissioner Ron Skoog, the caribou populations on the Alaska Peninsula have fluctuated many times over the last several decades. Indeed, the caribou population on the Alaska Peninsula has dropped to 500 or fewer at least 3 times over 132 years. ADF&G Biologists obtained emergency permission to kill wolves by misleading the Board of Game and Alaskans to think the current decline is unprecedented. This is clearly NOT the case.

Sarah Palin has been in a position to do the right thing for the wildlife of Alaska. Independent Alaskan Biologists have been begging for her ear. Faith based science is not science, yet it is what she has used in her policy making; mocking legitimate studies, and embracing big game hunters. The Rapture is not an environmental policy nor is it a game management policy.

It’s been a long time since I set or checked a trap. I’ve spent hours behind a camera, camping in bear refuges, in awe of the nature of Alaska. When I was a child, I had no idea how big the world was, or how tamed parts had become. Looking at the world, I know Alaska is precious in its wildness. Why can’t we just let Nature run wild?

If you want to do something to help, please click here.

Photos courtesy of Florian Schulz; Special thanks to Leo and Dorothy Keeler.