Sponsor Statement for SB 16

Since statehood, Alaskan sportsmen and women have paid over $350 million dollars into Alaska’s Fish and Game Fund with the trust that those funds would be used for the enhancement of Alaska’s fish and wildlife populations to provide high levels of human harvest on a sustained yield basis as required by Alaska’s Constitution.

While other states routinely harvest 30-60% of their big game each year, harvest in Alaska has fallen to a point where currently Alaskans are harvesting less than 3% of the harvestable surplus of moose, caribou, and sheep. Though Alaskans universally desire increased wildlife populations and a return to abundance, legislative attempts to institute widespread programs of active wildlife management have been ignored.

Upon close examination of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, it seems clear that the department has adopted a philosophy which is now opposed to managing Alaska’s wildlife for a return to abundance. Unlike all other state agencies however, the Department of Fish and Game sportfish and game divisions are funded solely by license sales, user fees and self imposed taxes paid by consumptive and sport users. This legislation would recognize the public trust for the use of these funds and prohibit the use of these funds for any activity other than projects which directly increase wildlife and sport fish populations or directly benefit license purchasers.

No longer will Alaska’s sportsmen tolerate the usurpation and siphoning of their dollars for the management of non-game species, routine administration, or projects on lands where access to and/or consumptive uses have been restricted. This legislation is needed because of the documented misuse of these funds specifically appropriated by the legislature.

Alaska license holders are further outraged by the department’s adoption of a preservationist philosophy which opposes consumptive uses. At the fall 1995 Board of Game meeting, the department urged the board to close 236 square miles to Alaska’s hunters. The department’s biologists testified that there was no biological problem, no justification nor actual conflict among user groups in the area. The department’s director admitted that the only issue was one based solely on a misperception resulting from purposeful misinformation and disinformation promulgated by animal rights extremists.

The department’s unprecedented betrayal of Alaska’s consumptive and sport users, the previously mentioned misuse of restricted funds and the department’s violation of the public trust have negated any legitimacy it may have once had to decide how funds are expended.

This legislation would require that all license and tag fees deposited in the Fish and Game fund be prohibited from any use other than reintroduction, restocking, transplantation, habitat manipulation, intensive management, predator removal, public access and the restoration of sport fish and game resources or other project that directly benefits Alaska’s sport hunters and fishermen.