Weighing wants vs.needs

If you hunt or fish in Alaska you are aware of the subsistence controversy.

Federal and state regulations exist for most subsistence hunts or fisheries and the rules, bag limits and season dates don’t always agree between the two regulating government entities. To my knowledge, Alaska is only state “blessed” with this complicated scenario of controlling who can harvest what at any given time in any given location.

I want to narrow this discussion down to only the state level and only regarding subsistence fisheries. The upcoming Alaska Board of Fisheries (BOF) meeting in Valdez in December will address 25 proposals regarding the subsistence question, and this is just for the Prince William Sound and Upper Copper/Upper Susitna Rivers Finfish meeting. These proposals range from reclassifying the Chitina personal-use (PU) dipnet fishery to a subsistence fishery to eliminating subsistence whitefish netting in the Lake Louise system.

Exactly what constitutes a subsistence need in a fishery? If that definition existed in regulation, life for BOF members would become a whole lot easier. I was a member of the BOF in March 2010 when the board addressed a court order to define the phrase “a subsistence way of life,” as that phrase is used in the eighth criteria of what is commonly referred to as the eight criteria for subsistence. These criteria were developed and placed in regulation to help both boards (fisheries and game) in identifying fish and wildlife populations that are customarily and traditionally used by Alaska residents for subsistence.

Semantics is a funny thing. Your definition of a subsistence way of life might differ greatly from mine. That’s why the BOF developed a specific definition for board members to use when addressing these subsistence proposals. That definition reads: “A subsistence way of life means a way of life that is consistent with the long-term reliance upon fish and game resources for the basic necessities of life.” Even that wording could be subject to individual interpretation, and I see it as a fairly strict definition. How so?

Virtually all of us who hunt and fish do so to bring home something to eat. Most of us also enjoy the experience of pitting our skills against those of the prey we seek. The vast majority of us could still survive if our hunting and fishing efforts were a total bust for any given season. Sure, it would cost more to buy protein in the form of meat and fish we otherwise would have harvested in the field, but the overwhelming majority also have some sort of income flow that provides the funding to do so.

There are some folks who truly don’t have the financial resources to buy all their needed or preferred foods. These people supplement their store-bought groceries with fish, game, berries, gardening and a wide range of other resources they invest the time and effort in procuring, usually with as minimal an outlay of cash as possible. They have developed a culture and long-term reliance on these hunting, fishing and gathering practices and have passed these traditions on through the generations with a reverence for the natural resources. They have an intimate understanding of how important these resources are to their continued well-being. This reverence and understanding tends to lead to a stewardship of those resources such that the resource itself is not overharvested or wasted and generally remains in a healthy status.

While there are a few folks who fit this description living in our more urban areas, this description tends to fit more rural communities with limited connection to the rest of the world. Yet, by law, all Alaskans are eligible to participate in subsistence hunts or fisheries. Because of the very natural of a subsistence fishery — providing food — these subsistence activities also have preference in law. All other harvesting of that particular fishery (commercial, sport fishing and personal use) can be stopped and a subsistence harvest will continue. This makes for potential regulatory and management nightmares in certain fisheries or under certain fish run strengths.

Compounding the issue is the fact that most people from today’s modern world, when given the opportunity to harvest a significant amount of fish or game under a subsistence permit, often tend to actually take more than they really need for their own use. In the true spirit of subsistence, this extra harvest would be shared with others who have none, but how often does that really happen? Be honest, almost all of us have some of last year’s fish in our freezers, yet we have to go get more this next season. A true subsistence user wouldn’t be hauling those old fish to the dump to make room for the next batch.

If we have a true reliance on those resources for the basic necessities of life, would we go get our subsistence harvest permit and then not even go fishing? I wouldn’t think so, yet that very scenario is playing out in several subsistence-classified fisheries around the state. In most of these areas, a subsistence fishery made sense at one time, but times have changed. The basic necessities of life are available through other options like grocery stores or the ability to keep some of your commercial fisheries catch for your own personal use (homepack). The ability to devote blocks of time toward securing food for our own personal use is not an option for many anymore — they have jobs and other obligations.

The classic example of Alaska subsistence has all but disappeared from this modern age. Perhaps it’s time to look at the subsistence practices around the state and reclassify those that have become more of a want than a true need.

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.