Board of Game meeting is pleasantly laid-back

As time allowed this past week, I was either present at the Board of Game (BOG) meeting wrapping up today in Wasilla or listening to the discussion streaming on the BOG website. I’m planning to write an article for the Sunday edition of the Frontiersman detailing the major accomplishments and, perhaps, shortcomings of the meeting, but I’d like to offer some personal commentary on the meeting itself to date.

As many know, I spent one three-year term on the Board of Fisheries (BOF), so I have some experience with how these things tend to work. I haven’t had a lot of interaction with the BOG recently, until this meeting, so I was interested in observing how the BOG did business compared to the BOF. As expected, there were both subtle and obvious differences.

The BOF deals with proposals affecting fisheries worth billions of dollars each year. Money is the driving factor in these discussions. The BOG deals each year with proposals that can have a profound effect on folks’ recreational activities and food supplies and can involve sport hunting guide activities worth millions of dollars. However, the simplified statement that contentious BOG proposals usually involve science verses emotion would be accurate, in my opinion, as opposed to being money driven.

The meeting structure differences also involve a more casual dress code and, while still formal and according to Robert’s Rules-type process, a more relaxed meeting style for the BOG. They rely heavily on Fish and Game reports, public testimony, advisory committee (AC) recommendations and break-time lobbying of board members to flesh out proposal ramifications.

BOF meetings are a little “stuffed shirt” at times, with public testimony and town meeting-style committees, along with Fish and Game reports (if information is available) and AC comments used to develop proposal information. Lobbying is also done, but many BOF members try to minimize their public contact during meetings. However, the more rigid formality of BOF meetings is often the only thing that keeps order in addressing individual proposals worth millions of dollars and affecting people’s livelihoods.

I could go on, but you get the point — the process is similar but subtlety different in developing regulations governing game verses fish.

Some observations on specific items at this BOG meeting are in order. From department reports at the beginning of the meeting, I was concerned to hear that work with Dall sheep in GMUs 13D and 14C indicate generally poor body conditions in these populations compared to Interior sheep populations where the animals were considered healthy and in good condition, using the same criteria of measurement. The department plans to continue research to try and determine why.

Fish and Game also reported that, in spite of public bear predator control efforts that removed more bears that expected from GMU 16, the moose calf survival rates have not improved. This suggests that significantly more bears need to be removed to affect calf survivals than previously thought and that these bear populations appear able to withstand even higher harvest rates than previously considered feasible.

While we’re talking predator control management, a report from the National Park Service (NPS) was interesting to hear. The NPS objects to various state predator control programs and was asking that designated federal preserves be excluded from any proposals where predator control is being proposed. Under direct questioning from the BOG, the NPS representative stated that its opposition was based on federal policy directives rather than biological concerns. Who says outdoor politics are only found in fisheries?

On Wednesday afternoon, I listened to BOG deliberations on a couple of proposals that involved questions and discussion with Fish and Game on how the specific proposals would impact the health and viability of various animal populations. As I listened to the biologists present data on what has happened and why management needed to be done using certain approaches, I marveled at the professionalism of both: the biologists and their presentation of how their interpretation of the data affected their view of management strategies; and the questions and understanding shown by BOG members. That was, arguably, one of the most professional and scientifically documented management discussions I have ever heard.

I was remembering several BOF deliberations where we had been expected to make decisions with virtually no biological data presented by Fish and Game.

While there were several contentious topics deliberated, this was one of the most laid-back regulatory meetings I have even observed/attended. If only they all could be this way.

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. You can leave him a message by emailing sports@frontiersman.com.