Supports hunting for food

To the editor:

The Anchorage Daily News headline of Jan. 18, 2012, reads, "Board delays decision on expansion of bear snaring." Don't believe it. The Board of Game has used this tactic before.

When I read that Alaska was moving toward legalized bear trapping Oct. 9, 2010, I decided to join the people who are against it. Then, on Oct. 13, 2010, the ADN wrote, "Game board defers bear snaring issue until 2012."

Not.

In January 2010, the board quietly reclassified bears as furbearers. They proceeded to implement the barbaric method anyway, on an "experimental basis" at the other side of Cook Inlet from Anchorage. The sale and resale of bear parts - including skulls, claws and fur - is legal for the purpose of incentives to harvest bears. Hunters are not required to keep the meat. Leaving piles of carcass a la carte will make it easier to nail more predators.

The Board of Game has its own agenda and has used many tactics to foil the resisting public. I have talked to many people who have spent time and money to get the board under control for years and have learned a few things.

In early February 2011 the BOG's website was revamped, apparently making it harder to navigate and get information.

The Board of Game is supposed to give a minimum of 30 days notice for meetings, but that is questionable. It can call "emergency" meetings without any notice. I know of one instance where the board called an emergency meeting to discuss the Nelchina herd, tabled the discussion due to a legal technicality, then proceeded to pass four proposals without any public input. I couldn't find out what those proposals were, but then I'm not computer savvy.

Another tactic is to have meetings in far-away places to deter public attendance. Case in point: the deferred snaring issue meeting, scheduled for March 2-11, is in Fairbanks.

I thought I had voted against aerial predator hunting, but because of how it was worded, I voted it in. I'm not the only one who was tricked in this manner.

They are so devious that the average resident needs watchdog agencies like the Alaska Wildlife Alliance and Defenders of Wildlife for their "wildlife alerts" just to keep up.

By now, everyone knows about Wildlife Conservation Director Corey Rossi being charged with hunting violations. His boss, Cora Campbell, was quoted in the ADN as saying, "I think there are some people who would like to make this about the department's programs, but it isn't."

I beg to differ. It is a matter of record that when the Alaska chapter of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife had controversial proposals before the board, Rossi, who is connected to them, was the ADF&G representative who testified on their behalf in March 2009. And he was the person who made the presentation for Prop. 77-B at the meeting in Anchorage March 26, 2011.

I understand killing for food, but to kill for fun is a mindset I don't get. If science determines predator control is necessary, the simple and humane solution is to issue more hunting licenses.

Mahatma Gandhi said, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

Della Dempsey

Wasilla