Traditional protection or

recreational entitlement?

By HOWARD DELO-For the Frontiersman

Scenario 1: Your grandfather came to the Matanuska-Susitna Valley as a teen-ager with his parents back in the 1930s. He helped his father clear the land and get the family farm established. Your grandfather is now in his late 80s, and while his health is still fairly good, he can no longer walk the fields hunting for moose, as he has done his whole life.

Under existing Alaska Department of Fish and Game regulations, you secure a "proxy hunting authorization" with your grandfather as beneficiary. This proxy hunting form allows you to harvest your own moose and a second one for your grandfather during your annual September hunt.

Scenario 2: You moved your family to Wasilla three years ago from Texas because of a great job opportunity on the Slope. Your father passed away a little over a year ago and you brought your mother up from Outside to live with you and be close to her grandchildren. She has never fished a day in her life, but you discovered king salmon fishing the second summer you were in Alaska.

Your mother completed her 12 consecutive months of residency in early May and you brought her down to Fish and Game to apply for her "senior license." Since she'll be 67 in a couple of months, you also picked up a validated proxy form, which allows you to fish for her. You can now catch two king salmon a day, one for you and a second for your mother, so you're not required to stop fishing once that first king salmon is hooked and landed. You've now figured a way to double your catch and extend your fishing time during your two weeks home between stints on that Slope job.

Both of these scenarios are plausible and both are perfectly legal under existing ADF&G regulations governing proxy hunting and fishing in Alaska.

What are the requirements necessary to obtain a validated proxy hunting or fishing form?

According to information posted on the Fish and Game Web site, "Alaska's proxy laws allow residents to harvest fish or game (deer, caribou and moose) for other residents who are either blind, or have a 70 percent or greater physical disability, or are 65 years of age or older. The person doing the fishing (or hunting) is called the 'proxy.' The person receiving the fish (or game) is called the 'beneficiary.'"

The proxy is required to have his or her own hunting or fishing license, the beneficiary's original hunting or fishing license, the validated proxy form, and any harvest records, permits or stamps required by that particular hunting or fishing opportunity, i.e., a dipnetting permit issued to the beneficiary, in his or her possession while hunting or fishing.

While you can hold several fishing proxies at the same time, you can only proxy fish for one beneficiary at a time. Once the fish has been delivered to the beneficiary, the proxy can go back out after another beneficiary's bag limit. Only one valid proxy-hunting permit is allowed at a time, according to ADF&G.

An individual may proxy fish for any species of fish legally sought under a sports fishing license. The proxy can do any type of fishing: dipnetting, clamming and rod and reel, including sports fishing, personal use fishing and subsistence fishing. Proxy hunting authorizations are only issued for deer, caribou and moose.

According to Gino Del Frate, the area management biologist for ADF&G's Wildlife Conservation Division in Palmer, the proxy system was originally "established by the Legislature as a means of addressing the practice of sharing food. It is closely related to subsistence and was geared toward a 'community harvest,' where others could go out and legally harvest fish and game for the elders in a village."

This system has changed somewhat from its original purpose, she said.

"What had started out as a rurally-oriented program to allow a few designated hunters of a community to legally harvest subsistence foods for the elders and others in that community unable to harvest their own fish and game has transitioned into the urban orientation of proxies legally harvesting fish and game for anyone who qualifies," Del Frate said.

Dave Rutz, the area management biologist for ADF&G's Sport Fish Division in Palmer added, "The proxy system is a great thing. It was designed to benefit those people who really can't get out to hunt or fish for themselves and who are dependent on wild fish and game to supplement their food supply. The problem is that, for those individuals looking to abuse the program to increase their harvest of fish and game, it is fairly easy to 'beat the system.'"

Rutz said the growing numbers of fishing proxies being issued each year are causing raised eyebrows among fisheries managers. He said, "In 1999, the Palmer office issued 244 fishing proxies for the entire fishing season. So far in 2003, with the season not quite half over, we have already issued 600 fishing proxies from this office."

These numbers do not include fishing proxies issued from other Fish and Game offices, like Anchorage, that usually issue twice the number of fishing proxies the Palmer office does, according to Rutz. Many of these additional proxies are used while fishing in the Valley's waters.

In years with "average" or better salmon returns, this increased demand on the fishery resource is generally not a problem, Rutz said. The concern arises when the salmon numbers are below normal and increased harvesting occurs in the name of people not physically present. Other wild fisheries stocks, like rainbow trout, can be similarly affected.

Del Frate said Fish and Game normally doesn't start issuing proxies for hunting until around Aug. 1, so no figures exist for this year yet. However, he said, the numbers of hunting proxies issued each year have been increasing as more people find out about the program.

He noted that more and more people who have never hunted before are acquiring licenses and tags so proxies can be issued in their names. These same people are also applying for permit hunts, like antlerless moose in unit 14, and this decreases the individual, non-proxy hunter's chances of being drawn for one of these coveted permits while doubling the odds a proxy hunter could hunt in one of these limited permit hunts.

This proxy structure, Del Frate said, is actually decreasing hunting opportunities, rather than increasing them. He said, "The guy who can take the entire moose hunting season off can kill his own moose and a second for his beneficiary. Once that moose is delivered, the hunter can acquire another proxy and kill a third moose and so on.

"There are only so many animals available for harvest and an individual taking several moose using the proxy system reduces the chances other hunters with less time available will get their winter's meat. This will impact the distribution of the harvest among the hunting public," Del Frate said.

Both Rutz and Del Frate expressed concern over the abuses they have seen with the proxy system. Rutz tells of a beneficiary who had a proxy fish halibut for him in Kachemak Bay. The regulations state that a proxy cannot receive any remuneration for proxy fishing. When the beneficiary was to receive his fish, the proxy wanted to charge him $100 for the cost of packaging the fish, and to add insult to injury, gave the man the previous year's frozen fish. This case was referred to the Fish and Wildlife Protection Division for investigation.

Del Frate tells of a proxy hunter who killed a smaller moose for himself early in the season and spent the rest of the season looking for a "trophy" bull for his beneficiary. The hunter did kill a large bull late in the season and entered the rack, under his own name, in his company's "big buck" contest.

Del Frate also tells about a person who lines up all his proxies to fish for him during the summer while he is Outside, traveling in his motorhome. When he returns in the fall, his freezer is well stocked. He was able to "do his own thing" and still enjoy that summer's fish without any effort of his own.

Both biologists have heard of incidents where individuals visited senior centers and retirement homes on recruiting trips, looking to "sign up" beneficiaries, thus increasing the proxy holder's potential to harvest more fish and game than otherwise would be legal. This recruiting practice also occurs at work among co-workers, at social gatherings and community meetings, with friends who have older relatives, neighborhood visits, and so on.

Del Frate said they see a very high number of people coming into the Fish and Game office to get both their senior license or ADF&G Permanent Identification Card (PID) and their proxy fishing or hunting forms on the same day. Since an individual is eligible for the PID card at age 60, but has to be 65 to qualify on age for the proxy, this same-day application strongly suggests the individual has not previously held a hunting or fishing license.

They are taking advantage of qualifying for the proxy system and are putting extra pressure on the resources by allowing another person to harvest their bag limit for them, Del Frate said. Without the proxy system, this individual, with no previous history of consumptive use of the resource, would not be placing any extra demands on the limited numbers of fish and game available for harvest.

Rutz said in his own personal situation, he can adequately provide for his family and in-laws without the need for proxy hunting or fishing by taking advantage of the personal use fisheries and generous sports fishing season limits (only king salmon, of the five species of salmon present in Alaska, has a season bag limit) and by sharing moose and other game meat he harvests.

He said each family's circumstances are different, however, and this ability to simply utilize existing sports fishing and personal use fisheries might not be beneficial for everyone.

The "very Alaskan activity" of sharing wild fish and game with one's neighbor, Del Frate said, which was the original intent of the proxy system, has somehow transformed into the "recreational entitlement" system many now view the proxy system to be.

Can any of these shortcomings of the proxy system be corrected? That's a question the courts might eventually have to decide. For instance, establishing the requirement that an individual, in order to have a proxy issued in their name, has to demonstrate a history of use of the resource, one method being by having obtained at least one resident Alaskan hunting or fishing license, is probably unconstitutional under the "equal access" provisions of the state constitution.

One obvious correction would be the elimination of the proxy system. This approach could seriously impact the seniors who were originally intended to benefit from the system. An example would be a widow who has a long history of use of the resource through her husband's hunting and fishing efforts but has never hunted or fished herself and is still dependent on that wild fish and game to supplement her diet.

Another correction would be requiring that a proxy holder can only hunt or fish for either his own or his beneficiary's bag limit within a 24 hour period, but not both, as is currently allowed. Another loophole closure would mandate that the proxy couldn't keep any part of the fish or game harvested for the beneficiary.

While these suggestions might sound good, some serious legal issues and/or enforceability problems exist if they were implemented.

Sergeant Tory Oleck of the Palmer office of the Fish and Wildlife Protection Division said the existing proxy regulations are written loosely enough that things that could be perceived as abuses are currently legal.

He continued, "Say a person with no history of use of the fish and game resource and who has no intention of using the resource, but qualifies as a beneficiary, signs up for the proxy program simply to allow his younger friend to kill a second moose. As long as the meat is delivered to the beneficiary, who can then legally give it away, everything is within the law."

Oleck agreed with the two biologists that the original intent of the proxy system was to allow individuals no longer able to hunt and fish for themselves and with a dependence on the fish and game resources for their sustenance to have the ability to get that meat through the efforts of a second individual.

He said that under current law, a person could give away any amount of legally taken fish and game. "Under the existing personal use and regular sports fishing bag limits, the ability for one good angler to supply his own family with a year's worth of fish is fairly easily done. Once their freezer is stocked, the virtually unlimited regular sports fishing bag limits allow ample fish to be caught and shared with friends and extended family members," Oleck said.

This being said, he questioned the practical need for a proxy sports fishing program. If people were more willing to share their regular sports fishing bag limits, the proxy sports fishing system would be unnecessary. Oleck said his father used to say, "Where there is a lot, people tend to take a lot; where there is a little, people tend to take it all."

Oleck also talked about supply and demand, and the current allocations used.

"Conservation means the wise use of the resource. When a resource is limited, as the numbers of harvestable fish and game are, then at some point, the current users of the resource have to drop out to allow the new users of the resource to begin. This brings up an allocation question," Oleck said. "At what point do we stop allocating for a particular user group or accommodating a special class of user without impacting other users and the resource itself?"

Oleck said the questions of allocation of the resource and the abuses of the proxy system are currently being addressed by the the two bodies responsible for writing the regulations that are the tools available for enforcement, the Board of Fish and the Board of Game.