WESTERN INTERIOR ALASKA FEDERAL SUBSISTENCE REGIONAL … · 2018. 3. 12. · WESTERN INTERIOR FEDERAL SUBSISTENCE RAC 2/21/2018 2 WESTERN INTERIOR RAC MEETING Computer Matrix, LLC

WESTERN INTERIOR FEDERAL SUBSISTENCE RAC 2/21/2018 2

WESTERN INTERIOR RAC MEETING

Computer Matrix, LLC 135 Christensen Dr., Ste. 2., Anch. AK 99501

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WESTERN INTERIOR ALASKA FEDERAL SUBSISTENCE REGIONAL ADVISORY COUNCIL MEETING

PUBLIC MEETING

VOLUME II

Dimond Center Hotel Anchorage, Alaska February 21, 2018

9:00 a.m.

COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT:

Jack Reakoff, Chairman Shirley Clark Ray Collins Timothy Gervais Don Honea Tommy Kriska Jenny Pelkola Pollock Simon Dennis Thomas

Regional Council Coordinator, Zach Stevenson

Recorded and transcribed by:

Computer Matrix Court Reporters, LLC 135 Christensen Drive, Suite 2 Anchorage, AK 99501 907-243-0668/[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:907-243-0668/[email protected]





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1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 3 (Anchorage, Alaska - 2/21/2018) 4 5 6 (On record) 7 8 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Let's bring the 9 meeting to order. We've got Pollock Simon in. So it's

10 day two of Western Interior Regional Council Advisory 11 Committee meeting. We missed Pollock Simon's Council 12 comments at the beginning and I want to make sure we 13 get that in the record and then we're going to go -- if 14 Ray Collins shows up, we've got to get his Council 15 comments, then we're going to go the proposals WP18-46 16 and 47 reconsideration. That's where we're at this 17 morning. 18 19 I would like Pollock to give his 20 Council comments. 21 22 Go ahead, Pollock. 23 24 MR. SIMON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm 25 glad to be here. I couldn't -- I missed the first day 26 of meeting yesterday because the plane couldn't land in 27 Allakaket that morning, so I couldn't come yesterday. 28 But anyway I'm glad I'm here today. Glad to see all of 29 you board members. I can see that Don is not here, Don 30 Honea is staying home. He's missed a couple of them. 31 I see new board member Tommy. Welcome, Tommy. 32 33 MR. KRISKA: Thank you. 34 35 MR. SIMON: I live in Allakaket, upper 36 Koyukuk River. I just want to talk about the first 37 time we get some caribou in about 50 years. Some 38 caribou coming over from Kobuk Valley, so the peoples 39 are getting a little caribou. There was a bunch down 40 in Hughes, so they're getting caribous down there too. 41 42 We had wolf control down there around 43 Allakaket, 24B, a couple years ago, so they took some 44 wolves out and at that time 45 the moose population started stabilizing and we're 46 starting to see more moose. Hopefully it keeps 47 improving. 48 49 There's a lot of fish. Chum salmon is 50






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1 -- lots of chum salmon coming up. For some reason or 2 another we didn't get much king salmon. We're being 3 restricted to taking king salmon, so most peoples that 4 had the fish camp out they just stay in town. If they 5 can't -- not allowed to take king salmon, then they 6 just don't go out at all. That's the last time. The 7 ban has been lifted so we get some, but not too many. 8 I don't know how come they not come up Koyukuk River 9 that much.

10 11 People in Allakaket are always so 12 concerned about that Ambler Road. It's the proposed 13 road to the Ambler Mine. The proposed road is a little 14 bit north of Allakaket through prime hunting, fishing 15 and trapping areas and a lot of peoples are concerned 16 and opposed to that development because once the road 17 becomes public there will be lots of peoples coming up 18 the road not only to look at the mountains but they 19 might fish and hunt and trap in that same area where 20 our Allakaket peoples subsist. So that's one reason 21 that the peoples are afraid of the road and opposed to 22 that. I guess they might go ahead and put it in if the 23 funds become available. So that's a big concern. 24 25 I guess I'll stop there, Jack. 26 27 Thank you. 28 29 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Thanks so much, 30 Pollock. We always like to find out what's going on 31 around your country. I'm glad to hear you got caribou 32 down there this year. We haven't seen very many, but 33 some, a few. So I'm glad to hear that. 34 35 So trying to get a hold of Ray. I was 36 going to get his comment, but he's not available right 37 now. So we're going to go to these wildlife proposals 38 that OSM wanted reconsidered. It's WP18-46 and 18-47. 39 So we're going to have Lisa and Josh from OSM come to 40 address this issue. 41 42 I wanted to have for the Council's 43 understanding -- I want to have exactly the same 44 presentation or the same information for this Council 45 that the North Slope Council is going to get and 46 Northwest Arctic is going to get and Seward Peninsula 47 so that everybody is on the same sheet of music and 48 this Council can make an informed and defensible 49 position before the Federal Subsistence Board. 50






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1 So this morning we're trying to get 2 that all kind of together to make sure that this 3 happens exactly the right way because this is a highly 4 contentious issue with the State of Alaska and the 5 Federal Subsistence Management Program and this is a 6 hardball issue. This is not softball. This is 7 hardball issue, so I have to make sure the process 8 works exactly right so that the Federal Subsistence 9 Board can make an informed decision.

10 11 So go ahead, Lisa. 12 13 MS. MAAS: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 14 Members of the Council. For the record my name is Lisa 15 Maas and I'm a wildlife biologist in the Office of 16 Subsistence Management and I'm going to be reading to 17 you the exact same talking points that Josh read to the 18 North Slope Council and will read to the Northwest 19 Arctic and Seward Pen Council. 20 21 Since your Council met last fall new 22 information has emerged on the Western Arctic Caribou 23 Herd. I'm going to share this information with you and 24 present your Council with the opportunity to maintain 25 or change your recommendation on Wildlife Proposals 26 WP18-46 and WP18-47. 27 28 To review, Proposal WP18-46, submitted 29 by the Western Arctic Caribou Herd Working Group or 30 WACH Working Group and Proposal WP18-47, submitted by 31 Enoch Mitchell of Noatak, requests that Federal public 32 lands in Unit 23 be closed to caribou hunting except by 33 Federally qualified subsistence users. WP18-47 also 34 requests that the closure extend for two years only. 35 That would be July 1st, 2018 to June 30th, 2020. 36 37 New biological information provided by 38 the Alaska Department of Fish and Game as depicted in 39 Table 1 of your handout and includes the 2017 WACH 40 population estimate of 259,000. The WACH Working Group 41 also voted to change the status of the Western Arctic 42 Herd to conservative stable at their 2017 meeting. 43 44 While population numbers alone indicate 45 liberal management, the Working Group supported 46 maintaining conservative management due to the use of 47 new technology, specifically digital cameras, and 48 completing the 2017 population counts and because a 49 large proportion of the herd is currently young caribou 50






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1 that are still vulnerable to harsh winters. 2 3 The WACH Working Group also voted to 4 modify their own proposal WP18-46 at their 2017 5 meeting. The group voted to support the 2017-18 6 targeted closure area for two years only. This area is 7 depicted in Map 1 of your handout, which is on the 8 reverse side. 9

10 The Working Group supported the 2017-18 11 closure area as it was limited to Federal lands where 12 user conflicts have been greatest in past years while 13 maintaining access for non-Federally qualified users to 14 other Federal lands in Unit 23. 15 16 In conclusion, we just wanted to make 17 you aware of this new information and to provide the 18 Council with an opportunity to change or maintain its 19 recommendation for WP18-46 and 47 given this new 20 information. Recommendation options are listed at the 21 bottom of your handout. Any change to the Council's 22 recommendation requires a motion and a vote and will be 23 conveyed to the Federal Subsistence Board before the 24 Board deliberates on these proposals. 25 26 Thank you for the time and I'll be 27 happy to answer any questions. 28 29 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: So does the Council 30 understand the issue? Do you have the map for the 31 targeted closures on the back here? 32 33 MS. MAAS: Yes. 34 35 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Explain the 36 difference between Map 1 and Map 2. 37 38 MS. MAAS: So Map 1 is the targeted 39 closure area that was closed in this regulatory year 40 2017 and '18 that was a result of WSA17-03. So you can 41 see this map includes lands along the Noatak River, 42 five miles either side, up to the confluence with the 43 Cutler River. It also includes all the BLM lands in 44 the Squirrel River drainage and all the lands in the 45 Eli and Aggie River drainages. 46 47 Map 2 includes all the same areas as 48 Map 1 with the addition of that northwestern portion of 49 Noatak Preserve between the Kelly and Nimiuktuk River 50






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1 drainages. This area was recommended by the Unit 23 2 interagency group that the Federal Subsistence Board 3 directed OSM to create about a year ago in January. 4 5 This area is the current OSM conclusion 6 primarily because that Unit 23 interagency group 7 suggested this area. This is also what the Western 8 Interior Council recommended last fall because it was 9 the OSM modification. But, again, Map 1 is what the

10 WACH Working Group supported and is the 2017-18 11 targeted closure. 12 13 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. So Josh Ream 14 was at that North Slope Regional Advisory Council 15 meeting. For the edification of the Council, I would 16 like to understand what their deliberations evolved 17 around and which option they voted for. 18 19 MR. REAM: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 20 Again, my name is Joshua Ream. I'm an anthropologist 21 with the Office of Subsistence Management. Generally 22 my regions include the North Slope, the Northwest 23 Arctic and the Seward Peninsula. I was at the North 24 Slope last week in Utqiagvik. That Council did vote to 25 maintain their original recommendation, which is to 26 close indefinitely all Federal public lands in Unit 23. 27 28 They talked a lot about the WACH 29 Working Group's recommendation and how it's changed 30 over time, but they think they should take a more 31 conservative approach until we have more data points to 32 actually acknowledge a trend, an upward trend, in the 33 Western Arctic Caribou Herd population. They did have 34 concerns about the overflow or the changing of location 35 that non-Federally qualified hunters would use outside 36 of 23, perhaps spilling into Unit 26. So they did have 37 quite a bit of discussion about a proposal that they 38 had submitted to close Units 26A and 26B partially for 39 those reasons. 40 41 After extensive conversation amongst 42 the Council members, they decided that they would like 43 to take a more conservative approach and seek the full 44 closure in Unit 23 regardless of the outcome of 45 Proposal 57 to close 26A and 26B. 46 47 Thank you. 48 49 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: All right. So at 50






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1 this point this Council is requested to reconsider our 2 position. We took the position that we'd have the 3 targeted closure in Map 2 in our October meeting. So 4 Council discussion on the merits of this 5 reconsideration. Does anybody have comments on -- do 6 you understand this proposal, Tommy? You weren't at 7 that meeting. 8 9 MR. KRISKA: No, I was looking at it,

10 but I'm just going to sit and listen to everything here 11 first. 12 13 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: All right. So 14 basically the Federal Subsistence Board has closed last 15 -- is it two years now? 16 17 MS. MAAS: Through the Chair. This is 18 Lisa Maas. In the 2016-17 regulatory year all Federal 19 public lands in Unit 23 were closed and this year 2017- 20 18 it was a targeted closure, which is reflected in Map 21 1 of the handout. 22 23 MR. THOMAS: So Map 1 is where we're at 24 right now. 25 26 MS. MAAS: That's correct, but 27 it's..... 28 29 MR. THOMAS: Now that carries through 30 the rest of this year? 31 32 MS. MAAS: That's correct. Yeah, it's 33 a one year temporary closure. 34 35 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: So the Federal Board 36 has closed the area that looks like Map 1. Last year 37 OSM presented that map. Map 2 would be a modified or 38 suggested closure area which reduces in some areas and 39 expands in some areas what the current Board..... 40 41 MS. MAAS: Well, Map 2, the primary 42 difference between the targeted closure this year and 43 Map 2 is that northern portion north of the Noatak 44 River between the Kelly and Nimiuktuk River drainages. 45 46 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Right, but the 47 configuration is slightly different in the southern 48 part of Map 2. 49 50






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1 MS. MAAS: Oh, thank you, Mr. Chair. 2 Map 1, yeah, that is a 3 mistake. It should look -- the southern portion should 4 look the same as Map 2. Thank you for catching that. 5 6 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. So the map -- 7 the modified would look -- the main portion is that 8 upper, the northern portion. 9

10 MS. MAAS: Yes. 11 12 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: So the Council has 13 requested reconsider this proposal with current data. 14 Is Alex on the phone from the State of Alaska? He was 15 going to present yesterday. Are you on the phone, 16 Alex? 17 18 MR. HANSEN: Yes, I'm on the phone, Mr. 19 Chair. 20 21 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: You have to speak up 22 significantly into your mic as we can barely hear you. 23 24 MR. HANSEN: All right. You let me 25 know if I'm not talking loud enough. 26 27 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: That's even weak. 28 I'm not sure how to turn -- can you turn that up. Talk 29 louder and she's going to turn you up too. 30 31 MR. HANSEN: All right. I just wanted 32 to share a little biological data from the Western 33 Arctic Herd, some trends that we've been seeing over 34 time and express the State position on this closure. 35 36 First of all, in the past couple years 37 we've been seeing adult female survival rates going up 38 with the average last year of 84 percent, which is 39 good, pretty normal. The previous year, 2016, our 40 adult female survival was 88 percent, which is very 41 good. Our parturition rates, this is our calving 42 rates, have been very high. The last couple of years, 43 2017 was 83 percent, 2016 was 85 percent. We haven't 44 seen those elevated numbers of parturition rates since 45 1992. 46 47 Our overwinter calf survival has been 48 very high. We started a calf survival study from the 49 fall of 2015 through the fall of 2016 and those 50






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1 survival rates were very high. 2016 was 90 percent and 2 2015 was 83 percent. Also we are seeing high calf 3 recruitment numbers. That is the number of calves that 4 are coming back into the herd. In 2016 we saw 23 5 calves to 100 adults and 2017 22 calves to 100 adults. 6 7 So my point here is that we've been 8 seeing a trend of good population metrics in the past 9 few years. We think that, based on what we saw from

10 our photo census this year, that we're starting to see 11 some reversal in this declining trend and starting to 12 see real growth. We're optimistic about the growth of 13 the Western Arctic Herd. 14 15 I would share that it's the position of 16 the State that we don't like to see these Federal land 17 closures. If it comes to it, we would certainly say 18 that the recommendation from the WACH Working Group 19 would be preferable to the OSM modification. 20 21 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: So the WACH Working 22 Group had a corridor along the Noatak River and that's 23 more acceptable than the OSM modification. I 24 understand that. These bull/cow ratios have increased 25 from 41 bulls to 54 bulls. What was the composition of 26 those bulls? Are there older bulls moving into that 27 upper portion? And your bull/cow ratio is, what, 40? 28 29 MR. HANSEN: Our bull/cow ratio is 30 54/100. That was..... 31 32 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Correction. I 33 misstated that. What I meant is your management 34 objective is 40 bulls per 100 cows? 35 36 MR. HANSEN: That's correct. As per 37 the Western Arctic Working Group management plan. 38 39 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: So the bull/cow 40 compo -- correction, I'm wanting a little more breakout 41 on the bull composition. Are there significant numbers 42 of large bulls, medium or small? 43 44 MR. HANSEN: Okay. That's a good 45 question. That's not actually something that we 46 classify, but I will share that when we did our fall 47 compositions this fall that we saw a lot of younger 48 bulls and that would be consistent with what we're 49 seeing with these high survival rates from the 2015 and 50






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1 2016 cohorts. So that 2015 cohort is coming into the 2 population strong and there will be three-year-olds 3 this year which will be productive animals, which bodes 4 well for the population. 5 6 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: The main question is 7 non-subsistence hunters typically target large bulls, 8 so I'm wanting to know what the composition or 9 proportion of large bulls in the population to

10 understand what the impact of that harvest would be to 11 the population. Because unlike the Alaska Department 12 of Fish and Game, I've talked to real reindeer herders 13 in Scandinavia and they have to have large eight-year- 14 old bulls for breeding cows. That's what they actually 15 breed for reindeer herding. 16 17 So whether the Department pays any 18 attention to large bulls and the Assistant Director 19 stated to the Federal Subsistence Board that large 20 bulls were for aesthetics, which I distinctly disagree 21 with. Large bulls are necessary for breeding, period. 22 We have to know if we have enough bulls to support 23 non-subsistence use of the large bull component. 24 That's what I would like to know about the large bull 25 component. 26 27 MR. HANSEN: Well, what I can offer is 28 we don't have figures to substantiate the numbers of 29 large bulls that we have out there. Anecdotally, there 30 are plenty out on the landscape when I looked at the 31 fall composition this fall. I certainly didn't see 32 that component lacking. We don't separate them when we 33 do the composition in the Western Arctic Herd. 34 35 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Well, you know the 36 way the breeding goes all these big bulls are going to 37 beat up all the little bulls and that's what's going to 38 be breeding. That's what's going to happen. So you 39 see my -- okay, I'll just ask, you answered you see 40 about eight large bulls per 100 cows? Eight to ten. 41 42 MR. HANSEN: Yeah, there's certainly 43 that many or more I would say. 44 45 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. That's what 46 I'm asking. That would be post hunt primarily. 47 Council questions or comments to the State on their 48 data presentation on OSM. That's the current data. 49 Does any Council member have questions on that or 50






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1 comments. 2 3 Tim. 4 5 MR. GERVAIS: Thank you, Mr. Chair. So 6 is the State supporting the closure area recommended by 7 the WACH Working Group or something reduced from that? 8 9 MR. HANSEN: You know, the official

10 State position would be to not support any closures. 11 We would certainly say that the WACH Working Group's 12 proposal is better to some of the other proposals that 13 are out there. 14 15 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Did you attend the 16 WACH Work Group meeting, Alex? 17 18 MR. HANSEN: I did, yes. I did. 19 20 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Did they discuss a 21 time closure for the non-subsistence users? 22 23 MR. HANSEN: I believe that was a..... 24 25 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Did they discuss 26 elimination of..... 27 28 MR. HANSEN: .....two-year closure. 29 30 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Say again. 31 32 MR. HANSEN: I believe that was a two- 33 year closure that they recommended. 34 35 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: But I mean did they 36 talk about discussing any time during the deliberations 37 a temporary closure for non-subsistence uses to allow 38 the caribou to migrate across the Kobuk River, 39 basically a closure through like September 15 or some 40 date. They didn't talk about that at all. 41 42 MS. MAAS: Through the Chair. No. 43 They just talked about the area and then for two years 44 versus an indefinite closure. 45 46 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: The reality is -- 47 the problem is with lots of hunters hunting in front of 48 a caribou migration, killing lead cows and deflecting 49 migrations. That's what everybody is talking about. 50






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1 That's all anecdotal. That's traditional ecological 2 knowledge, period. This is the way these caribou work. 3 You get in front of them and start shooting a bunch of 4 cow caribou, that's what happened. 5 6 The Board gave the hunters a five 7 caribou limit and they could shoot five cow caribou. 8 Oh, I'll just shoot some of these caribou that show up 9 here and I'll shoot these cows. Yeah, those are the

10 leaders and you deflect the migration. That's what the 11 problem is. That's what the whole thing is revolving 12 around is this deflection of these migrations. 13 14 So a time closure should have been 15 considered in the WACH Group to allow the cows to get 16 -- and cows lead migrations. Bulls have nothing to do 17 with migrations. They don't have range affinity. 18 They've got cow affinity. They follow cows around. So 19 if they had closed it until the cows started -- the 20 lead cow has got to cross the Kobuk River. You can't 21 stop them then. The trail is there. The scent trail 22 is there. The caribou will keep coming. 23 24 So if they had considered a time 25 closure to allow the caribou to get across the Kobuk 26 River and start the migration moving, then they could 27 open it up to anybody. They've got lots of caribou to 28 shoot. But it's the deflection of these migrations. 29 That's what people keep talking about and whether the 30 managers can get it through their head that this is how 31 caribou work. 32 33 Oh, we don't have data for that. Yeah, 34 because you never put collars on any lead caribou ever. 35 You were randomly catching cow caribou. You don't get 36 a hold of lead caribou. They're specific unique 37 animals. They're Type A personalities in their little 38 social world and they lead migrations and they have a 39 dominant scent. They've got an interdigital gland in 40 their back hoof that's really large and they lay down a 41 scent trail. You can smell it. 42 43 I've been hunting caribou since I was a 44 little kid and real biologists say, nah, there's 45 nothing to do with lead cow caribou. No, there is too. 46 So traditional ecological knowledge says that we don't 47 want to deflect these caribou migrations. That's what 48 these closures are really all about is the deflection 49 of caribou migrations. 50






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1 There should have been a whole 2 discussion about time closures. Once the caribou have 3 migrated, then non-subsistence hunters, everybody can 4 take caribou. 5 6 Lisa. 7 8 MS. MAAS: Through the Chair. This is 9 Lisa Maas. I'm sure you're aware, but for the record

10 there are control use areas that are time closures, 11 like the Noatak Controlled Use Area and the National 12 Park Service Delayed Entry Zone and the National Park 13 Service did delay the entry zone for an additional week 14 this year. 15 16 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: When are their time 17 closures. 18 19 MS. MAAS: One moment. It was until 20 September 15th, but this year they extended it to one 21 week to September 22nd. 22 23 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I feel that the 24 current data reflects a reconsideration of the 25 proposal. This is pertinent information. 26 27 Tommy. 28 29 MR. KRISKA: Yeah, that was one of the 30 things I was trying to say yesterday as well as the -- 31 I mean to let the front leaders go because I do talk to 32 a lot of our subsistence users throughout the state or 33 people that subsist off of caribou and that's what 34 they're talking about is why don't the State or Federal 35 or who they may be try to let the first ones -- what 36 they mean is the leaders go down and then after that is 37 kind of -- you know, once the trail is down, like Jack 38 was saying, then the rest will follow, but if you 39 deflect them on anything, they're not going to go in 40 the same direction. 41 42 I wish someone, whoever has got the 43 authority to stop this from happening do something 44 about it because otherwise it's not going to stop and 45 we're going to be here another 10 years from now 46 talking about the same thing. We can hopefully do 47 something about it. 48 49 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Pollock. 50






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1 MR. SIMON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I 2 also sit on the Western Arctic Caribou Working Group 3 and we had a meeting in December. The residents has 4 concerns about the low population of caribou the last 5 four years. Like peoples that live around that area 6 caribou is their main meat diet and that's declined and 7 some sport hunters in the area. That's why they did 8 the closure. 9

10 Those peoples are concerned about the 11 caribou and this closure is only for two years. After 12 that they can change the regulation if they want to, 13 but that's really important when you don't have no meat 14 and you depend on caribou and you also get 100 fish 15 from other places. That's what I think led to the 16 closure. 17 18 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 19 20 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Thank you, Pollock, 21 from that perspective. I have a question for OSM. 22 23 Oh, go ahead, Josh. 24 25 MR. REAM: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I 26 just wanted to add that the North Slope frequently 27 acknowledges a need to establish and protect a village 28 area of influence and they speak to this fairly 29 frequently. They suggested that the targeted closure 30 reflects what they believe would look like a Noatak 31 area of influence and they also acknowledge that there 32 have been positive indications that some of the user 33 conflicts that pose a threat to continuation of 34 subsistence uses may have been alleviated from the 35 closure. So that was part of their discussion. 36 37 Thank you. 38 39 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Thank you. So I'm 40 going to ask OSM if the Western Interior modifies to a 41 recommendation to use the Map 1 with a caveat to the 42 Federal Subsistence Board that the closure be 43 implemented through September 21 after the cows, the 44 majority of the lead cows have moved through. Not the 45 herd, but the lead cows have started the migration. Is 46 that possible to -- can this Council modify that -- 47 whichever proposal that may be, between 46 and 47. Can 48 this Council modify that with that time closure for Map 49 1? 50






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1 MS. MAAS: Through the Chair. I mean 2 as far as I know, yeah, you guys can recommend whatever 3 you would like to recommend. As far as OSM goes, that 4 might be considered beyond the scope for OSM to 5 recommend, but the Council is free to recommend 6 whatever they might like to. 7 8 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Well, my position is 9 that the Department of Fish and Game's -- this

10 composition of this herd warrants a reconsideration. 11 Under 815 of ANILCA subsistence is not an exclusive 12 use, but subsistence is a priority use. So this 13 current data drives a reconsideration of our fall 14 recommendation for OSM's modified map to go to at least 15 a map to map. 16 17 But I also feel that there's enough 18 resource that once the herd has migrated that the other 19 users, non-subsistence users should have an opportunity 20 also. So I feel that this closure should be only 21 through September 21 and then it could go wide open. 22 The leaders have gone through. Everybody can shoot 23 caribou. 24 25 The Chair will entertain a motion to 26 recommend a reconsideration to the Federal Subsistence 27 Board for Map 1 with a time closure through September 28 21. 29 30 MS. PELKOLA: So moved. 31 32 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Moved by Jenny. 33 34 MR. KRISKA: Second. 35 36 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Seconded by Tommy. 37 Lisa. 38 39 MS. MAAS: Just clarifying. This would 40 be an indefinite closure. 41 42 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: This is for the two- 43 year timeframe. 44 45 MS. MAAS: Oh, just for two years. 46 47 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Two year timeframe 48 with WACH. Is that acceptable to the motion? 49 50






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1 MS. PELKOLA: (Nods affirmatively) 2 3 MR. KRISKA: (Nods affirmatively) 4 5 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Two year closure 6 according to the WACH Work Group. Tim. 7 8 MR. GERVAIS: Alex, I have a question. 9 What's the number of non-Federally qualified users that

10 would be affected by the closure and what kind of 11 harvest numbers or harvest potential would they have. 12 And if you would know, the third part is do you know 13 where these hunters would go if they weren't allowed to 14 hunt in these areas? What's their most likely 15 spillover areas that they would go to? 16 17 MR. HANSEN: Yes, Tim. What we saw 18 following the 2016 closure was when the bulk of the 19 Federal lands were closed to non-Federally qualified 20 users the non-local hunters were spilled over into 21 State lands, which caused some concern as they put 22 additional pressure in different areas. 23 24 Going back to the other part of your 25 question. It's changed a little bit. I think before 26 the closures I want to say 2014-2015, the total 27 non-local hunters hunting in Unit 23 was about 600. 28 That includes non-residents and non-local State of 29 Alaska residents. I know that's gone down quite a bit 30 since the closures. I don't have those numbers in 31 front of me, but I want to say it was less than 200. 32 33 So harvest is pretty insignificant on a 34 population level. These are primarily bulls that are 35 being harvested, which has pretty much no effect on the 36 population level. 37 38 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: What is the State 39 current regulation for resident and non-resident and 40 bag limit for Unit 23? 41 42 MR. HANSEN: The State regulation for 43 non-resident, and I'm glad you asked this, is one bull 44 caribou and that is August 1st through September 30th. 45 So with that proposal that you're considering the 46 closure through September 21st that gives non-resident 47 hunters approximately nine days to hunt within that 48 area. So that may cause some concern for those folks. 49 State residents five caribou per day. The State makes 50






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1 no distinction between local and non-local residents. 2 3 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. So I still 4 feel that non-resident hunters can pay the burden of 5 transport to other areas that would be open to them, 6 but they would not be eligible to hunt in the closure 7 area until after September 21. They could still hunt 8 there after September 21. There's plenty of hunters 9 that still come at that time of the year because that's

10 when caribou are migrating. 11 12 So I don't feel that it would be -- 13 eliminates non-resident participation in Unit 23, it 14 just eliminates them from certain areas. So I don't 15 feel that it's burdensome to the non-resident hunters 16 that fly all the way there and they're going to charter 17 out. They can get dropped off somewhere else. 18 19 I want that noted on the record that 20 we've considered non-resident participation. Resident 21 hunters would have more opportunity to hunt caribou 22 than the non-residents and so I feel that resident 23 hunters are considered under this proposal to protect 24 the migration and also allow non-subsistence use 25 participation after September 21. 26 27 I would like Neil from the Anchorage AC 28 and Wasilla AC and he spent a lot of time at this 29 meeting, but for this reason I'd like him to come to 30 the mic and give a statement as to this modified 31 proposal of the Western Interior Regional Advisory 32 Council. 33 34 MR. DEWITT: Thank you. This is Neil 35 DeWitt for the record. I sit on the Western Arctic 36 Caribou Herd and I wanted to make a couple of things 37 clear because during our meeting we had both 46 and 47 38 we were talking about at the same time and there was a 39 lot of confusion. When we finally got it all separated 40 out, the closure's already been for one year. You only 41 have one year left on the closure. It is two years 42 like you heard. 43 44 The other thing that was confusing was 45 the two different maps that you see here. The OSM map 46 or Map 2 nobody liked it. In fact, even Enoch, which 47 wrote 47, said that he doesn't know where that came 48 from. So he was, along with the -- I don't remember if 49 it was last year or two years ago when the Board of 50






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1 Game actually extended the area of closure along the 2 river there, which you see in Map 1 now, and everybody 3 was happy about that. 4 5 Pollock might be able to say a little 6 bit more on that. He was at the meeting also. But I 7 think at least with your proposal that you just had you 8 are giving the rest of the State of Alaska and anybody 9 in the Lower 48 that's rich enough to come up here to

10 hunt you are giving them nine days. At least that's an 11 opportunity to hunt in that area. It's not a lot, but 12 it's a start. 13 14 I'll say thank you at that. 15 16 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. Further 17 Council discussion on the motion for reconsideration. 18 19 (No comments) 20 21 MS. PELKOLA: Question. 22 23 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: The question is 24 called. Those in favor of the reconsideration to be 25 submitted to the Federal Subsistence Board that would 26 be Map 1 with a closure through September 21 and then 27 elimination of the closure for a two year period. 28 Those in favor of the modified language signify by 29 saying aye. 30 31 IN UNISON: Aye. 32 33 MR. HONEA: Aye. 34 35 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Opposed same sign. 36 37 (No opposing votes) 38 39 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Are you there, Don? 40 Don Honea, are you there? 41 42 MR. HONEA: Yeah. 43 44 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. You've got an 45 affirmative on that? 46 47 MR. HONEA: Yes. 48 49 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. Unanimous 50






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1 approval of that. Thank you very much. 2 3 Lisa, you've got a final comment. 4 5 MS. MAAS: Yeah, just clarifying the 6 closure through September 21. So that would be, 7 without looking at all the regulations, basically 8 whenever the hunting season opens through September 21 9 and then open it to whenever the hunting season closes.

10 11 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Right. 12 13 MS. MAAS: Okay. Thank you. 14 15 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Exactly. So that 16 covers that issue. Now we're back to -- we've got Ray 17 back again. I want you to give your Council comments 18 and then we're going to go to the North Pacific 19 Fisheries Management Council. 20 21 MR. COLLINS: Locally, we've seen a 22 real turnaround since we had the control program there 23 that we've got a healthy population of young bulls and 24 cows that are entering into the stream there. Most of 25 that is non-Federal land though however. Everybody 26 pretty well got the meat that they needed. 27 28 We're really pleased with the bump in 29 the number of salmon returning to the Salmon river over 30 on the Pitka Fork jumped like threefold, from around 31 2,000 to 6,000, is really significant. Those are on 32 low returns I think as I mentioned before. So this 33 next year the four-year-olds from that first run will 34 be coming back and it will be interesting to see if we 35 get a further bump in the numbers over the next couple 36 years if we keep that closure in place. 37 38 So that's our main concern down there 39 of the whole river on the fisheries is to keep that 40 closure in place. They allowed the people up in our 41 area to fish. They don't take that many king salmon 42 anymore. A lot of them are -- they've eliminated the 43 fishwheels because they don't need the dog food 44 anymore. So it's hook and line and then setnet. 45 46 Even in McGrath, the ones heading up 47 there don't get caught in the McGrath area. They just 48 go right up the river and they arrive up there before 49 we start catching some in the McGrath area that are 50






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1 turning into the Takotna or something down there. So 2 that is really positive to see that happening. 3 4 I think that's probably the most 5 pertinent there. The predator control we had with a 6 total closure of hunting really turned that population 7 around. 8 9 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: And it's maintaining

10 even with returned bear and wolf predation? 11 12 MR. COLLINS: Yes. It's able to 13 sustain that although the number of bears are coming up 14 again, but there's a bigger food base there. So far we 15 have been. And there's still some wolf suppression 16 because they hunt year around. Fortunately we've had 17 fairly light snows the last couple years, which have 18 really helped in moose survival too. If we had a deep 19 snow winter, we may see it change. 20 21 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Wolves eat each 22 other in shallow snow years. They kill each other. 23 Wolves kill each other in shallow snow years. They 24 stress out and start killing each other. The shallower 25 the snow the better. If it's under 14 inches, it's a 26 dog-eat-dog world out there. 27 28 MR. COLLINS: Yeah. 29 30 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Appreciate your 31 comments there, Ray. Any further? 32 33 MR. COLLINS: No, I think that's all. 34 35 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. So we're 36 going to go to the North Pacific Fishery Management 37 Council presentation. 38 39 Oh, go ahead, Zach. 40 41 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 42 I just wanted to mention briefly the presentation this 43 morning from the North Pacific Fishery Management 44 Council is a response to a request that came in fall of 45 2017 from Member Gervais for an update on the Bering 46 Sea/Aleutian Islands bycatch issue. 47 48 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 49 50






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1 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Thank you. Go 2 ahead, Steve. 3 4 MR. MACLEAN: Good morning, Mr. 5 Chairman. Members of the Council. Thank you for the 6 invitation to be here. My name is Steve MacLean and 7 with me is Dr. Diana Stram. We're both analyst with 8 the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. We are 9 here at request to provide an update on efforts to

10 reduce bycatch in the Bering Sea fisheries and report 11 on those last numbers. 12 13 We do have a presentation that I 14 imagine will be coming up on screen shortly. I will go 15 ahead and start the presentation and then Dr. Stram 16 will lead you through the bulk of the data. I'll be 17 describing the Council and it's process. Please feel 18 free to ask questions at any time should they come up. 19 20 (Pause) 21 22 MR. MACLEAN: I'll go ahead and get 23 started. Again, my name is Steve MacLean. This is Dr. 24 Diana Stram. We were asked to provide an update on 25 salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands 26 groundfish fisheries. I'll be giving a brief overview 27 of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and 28 then Dr. Stram will take over with some of the recent 29 data. 30 31 Next slide, please. We'll start off, 32 like I said, with just the overview of the Council, 33 getting into some of the data and some of the 34 amendments that have come through the Council process 35 to address salmon bycatch. We will hit on a prohibited 36 species donation program and then give information 37 about items that are coming up at our Council and how 38 your Council and you individually can provide 39 information to our Council to help with our process. 40 41 Slide, please. So the Magnuson/Stevens 42 Fishery Conservation Management Act established 43 councils around the country to manage fisheries in 44 Federal waters. The North Pacific Fishery Management 45 Council and the National Marine Fisheries Service 46 jointly manage fisheries in Alaska's Federal waters. 47 That's three to 200 miles offshore. 48 49 The Council is a policy organization 50






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1 that makes recommendations to the National Marine 2 Fisheries Service or NMFS for a modification to fishery 3 regulations. NMFS then approve, implement and it has 4 enforcement responsibility for those regulations. In 5 many cases, management of our fisheries are coordinated 6 with the State of Alaska for fisheries in their waters 7 and in some cases these are generally managed and in 8 others the Council has delegated management to the 9 State.

10 11 Next slide, please. There are 15 total 12 members sitting on the Council. Eleven of those are 13 voting members. We have designated seats for the 14 National Marine Fisheries Service, the Alaska 15 Department of Fish and Game Commissioner, and then 16 seats for both the Washington and Oregon Departments of 17 Fish and Wildlife. 18 19 There are then also seven seats that 20 are appointed by the governors of Alaska, five seats, 21 and two seats for the governor of Washington. There 22 are also four non-voting advisory members; the U.S. 23 Coast Guard, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. 24 Fish and Wildlife Service and the Pacific States Marine 25 Fisheries Commission. 26 27 This is an overview of the process that 28 our Council takes in order to take something from a 29 proposal into regulation and implementation in the 30 water. Each of these steps involves significant public 31 input and review. There's opportunity to modify some 32 of the alternatives, add to the alternatives in the 33 early stages through the normal NEPA process that the 34 Federal agencies go through. The Council will select 35 initially a preferred alternative often with committee 36 input and always with a large amount of public input. 37 38 After analysis the Council will choose 39 their preferred alternative and which point the 40 proposal and the review process goes to the National 41 Marine Fisheries Service. They will write a proposed 42 rule, which is again open for public comment. Then the 43 agency will respond to public comment as they make a 44 final rule. That is then sent to the Secretary of 45 Commerce for the last stage of review. If it meets 46 Secretary review, it is implemented in regulation in 47 the water. 48 49 Also important in the Magnuson/Stevens 50






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1 Act are 10 national standards. Important for this 2 presentation are the standards to minimize bycatch to 3 the extent practicable, to prevent overfishing while 4 achieving on a continuing basis the optimum yield from 5 each fishery, and to consider the importance of the 6 resource for fishing communities and to minimize the 7 economic impacts to the extent practicable. 8 9 DR. STRAM: Thank you. I'm Diana

10 Stram. I'll take over from here to talk specifically 11 about salmon bycatch. As you know, the Alaska 12 Department of Fish and Game manages the returns and the 13 runs for salmon. What was manage then is when salmon 14 is caught offshore in groundfish fisheries. So three 15 to 200 miles offshore. Salmon as well as halibut, crab 16 and herring are all bycatch that is defined 17 specifically as prohibited species. 18 19 By defining them as prohibited species 20 in groundfish fisheries it means that the fish must be 21 avoided and they cannot be sold or retained. Then we 22 will go into a little bit afterwards that some of the 23 salmon and halibut is donated to food banks through the 24 Prohibited Species Donation Program. But by law it 25 cannot be sold or retained on groundfish vessels. 26 27 We've implemented additional measures 28 to reduce bycatch over the last decade. The Council 29 will go into the bycatch caps that we've put into place 30 since 2009 and modified in 2016. Prior to that we 31 tried to manage salmon bycatch through time and area 32 closures. These were large-scale time and area 33 closures. There are time and area closures that are 34 called hotspots that are put in place by the industry 35 to try to move people off of aggregations of salmon 36 when they do run into them while fishing. 37 38 The Council has also encouraged the 39 industry to reduce their bycatch through additional 40 gear modifications, which we'll show a schematic of a 41 salmon excluder. There are also halibut excluders that 42 are also being used on trawl nets. There's also a lot 43 of industry communication, which is a really important 44 tool that the industry has been using so that they're 45 constantly in communication with each other on a real 46 time basis in order to prevent running into salmon as 47 bycatch when they run into certain areas. 48 49 I'll go through the current management 50






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1 and the Bering Sea pollock fishery for both chinook and 2 chum. This shows you on the left the winter season, 3 the A season, and on the right the B season. This is 4 just showing you the aggregations of pollock and where 5 the actual fishery is operating. 6 7 So in the winter season, which begins 8 January 20th and usually is all wrapped up around the 9 middle of April, the fishery is further south, just a

10 little north of Unimak Island is where a lot of the 11 specifically catcher vessels are operating. We have 12 catcher vessels and catcher processors. 13 14 So catcher processors are the large 15 ships where they process the pollock on board. Catcher 16 vessels then have a certain part of the quota and the 17 catcher vessels will deliver to shoreside processors in 18 the Aleutian Islands. 19 20 Also another part of the fleet called 21 mother ships and the mother ships then are large 22 processing vessels that have catcher vessels that 23 deliver to them. That's important because the actual 24 fishery catch quota and the bycatch caps are all 25 divided out by each of these different sectors. 26 Different sectors have different bycatch rates for 27 salmon. 28 29 So in the B season then they're not 30 restricted by the ice cover and then the fishery tends 31 to go all the way up to the Russian line at the 200 32 mile. So where you see the yellow going up along the 33 shelf break that's where the catcher processors are 34 able to prosecute and fish for pollock way up by the 35 200 mile line. 36 37 This just gives you the trends then. 38 Here, because we put them on the same chart, blue is 39 the chinook numbers, and again these are in numbers of 40 fish since 1990, which is when we started having our 41 current observer program that was able to count the 42 fish. In purple then are the chum numbers. What you 43 can see is right around the middle of the graph is when 44 we had these large bycatch spikes in both chinook and 45 in chum. Prior to that time the Council was managing 46 with large-scale area closures and caps that triggered 47 them. 48 49 Around the middle of the 2000's we then 50






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1 switched to a different program because clearly the 2 large-scale closures weren't working. I'll go through 3 what that program is. The new program was put into 4 place in 2009. Then what you can see if you look at 5 the trends after that, the first year of the program 6 that was approved by the Council in 2009 and went into 7 place in 2011. What we found was that in 2011 while the 8 salmon bycatch is well below the cap levels, we did see 9 that it spiked up.

10 11 So in response to that the Council then 12 went back to try to see if we could get specific 13 measures put into place in addition to the current 14 program in order to encourage the industry -- the idea 15 of the program is to encourage the industry to reduce 16 bycatch at all levels of abundance. So not just to 17 stable other caps, but to constantly be putting 18 stringent measures in place in order to reduce bycatch 19 at all levels. 20 21 We went back and looked at an analysis 22 of individual vessel bycatch and behavior to try to see 23 if this new program has encouraged all vessels across 24 all sectors to change their behavior and what we found 25 was that there were some vessels that hadn't changed 26 their behavior and so the Council went back and we 27 implemented additional measures that went into place in 28 2016. I'll get into that in a little bit. 29 30 Recently you can see that both numbers 31 have been trending up. They did catch quite a lot of 32 chum in this last B season. We won't have the genetics 33 back on those until next year to find out if most of 34 those were still of Asian origin, which is usually what 35 happens when the pollock fishery runs into a lot of 36 chum. They tend not to be western Alaska chum. 37 38 We're also, I would note, working with 39 the geneticist with the National Marine Fisheries 40 Service to look at spacial aggregations of genetics to 41 try to help inform the fleet as to where western Alaska 42 chum and chinook are more concentrated in the offshore 43 so that they can work with the pollock industry to help 44 them avoid those areas that are specifically western 45 Alaska fish during their time that they're fishing. 46 47 Additionally, the fleet uses salmon 48 excluders so this is basically a hole in the net that 49 pollock and salmon both come into the net and then 50






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1 salmon, specifically the chinook, are much stronger 2 swimmers than the pollock, so it creates a rest area 3 basically where the current is less and it allows the 4 salmon to be able to swim out of the net so that they 5 don't get caught. 6 7 One of the additional measures that we 8 put into place in 2016 was to mandate that all the 9 incentive programs use salmon excluders at certain

10 times of the year. So that has also gone into place. 11 12 So the new program that was put in 13 place in 2011 is called Amendment 91 because it's an 14 amendment to our fishery management plan and now it's 15 just been called the Amendment 91 Program. What it did 16 for the first time was establish hard caps on the 17 bycatch as well as an industry incentive program. A 18 hard camp means that the -- if the portion of the fleet 19 to which that cap applies hits it, they are shut down. 20 21 Previously the caps that we managed 22 closed areas. Now it closes if the fishery reaches 23 their section of the cap. The cap again is divided out 24 both by season as well as by sector. So the upper cap 25 is 60,000. The fishery is managed to a lower cap, 26 which is called an incentive, as part of the incentive 27 program, and it's called a performance standard. So 28 that's the overall number. Again, it's divided out by 29 individual sectors of the fishery and they are 30 encouraged to reduce their bycatch below that level. 31 32 What we found is that, as you'll see in 33 the recent years' trends, the fishery is nowhere near 34 any of their performance measures, but the Council also 35 put into place a lower cap in 2016 in times of low 36 chinook abundance. So the design of the incentive 37 programs, because the bycatch is well below the caps, 38 it's really the design of the inventive programs that's 39 critical to improving bycatch reduction. 40 41 Some additional provisions that went 42 into place in 2011. One hundred percent observer 43 coverage on all vessels in the pollock industry. We 44 did have 100 percent observer coverage on most of them, 45 but we had to increase observer coverage so that we 46 could census all the salmon and that there's 100 47 percent at all times. So we had very high observer 48 coverage on the fleet prior to 2011, but as a mandate 49 of this program we now have 100 percent observer 50






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1 coverage throughout the entire fleet. 2 3 We previously were counting salmon not 4 by complete census and so now another mandate of this 5 program is that all pollock tows are completely 6 censussed for salmon so that every -- and that counts 7 for both chinook and for chum. So that's both when 8 they're brought on board at the vessel as well as when 9 they're processed at the processing plant.

10 11 As a result of the genetic sampling for 12 the stock of origin, and this applies both in the 13 Bering Sea as well as in the Gulf of Alaska. I know 14 that this presentation is on the Bering Sea. We have 15 different fleets in the Gulf of Alaska, so the genetic 16 sampling in the Gulf of Alaska is not as extensive as 17 the genetic sampling in the Bering Sea, but they are 18 trying to work with the way the fleet operates there to 19 increase their sampling in the Gulf as well. 20 21 Annually, the geneticists report to the 22 Council on the stock of origin results from the 23 fishery. We are always lagged one year, so 24 unfortunately, because of the timing and getting the 25 genetic sampling in the year that they report to the 26 Council in April it's always a lag of a year for the 27 genetics from the recent year. So it would be really 28 great if this April we got the report back from the 29 2017 B season chum to find out where the chum are, but 30 unfortunately it's not possible at this point for them 31 to process it that quickly, so we have to wait an 32 additional year. 33 34 The program revisions then that were 35 put into place in 2016. We were still managing chum 36 differently and managing it with time area closures. 37 We've now folded chum into the mandatory incentive 38 programs that the industry is doing. So they're moving 39 off of aggregations of chum and communicating with each 40 other and putting their own closures in place when they 41 run into them. 42 43 Some of the incentive plan requirements 44 we made more stringent so there's more stringent 45 requirements in September and October. Again, this 46 goes back to the analyses that we put together showing 47 that not all vessels were changing their behavior. 48 49 So some vessels were still fishing into 50






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1 October and we know that historically chinook bycatch 2 levels rise in October. So we were trying to put 3 measures in place on the fleet that would discourage 4 their ability to fish into late September and October. 5 Again, required that all vessels use salmon excluders 6 as well. 7 8 One of the really important changes as 9 well is the Council has established a mechanism whereby

10 we can have lower bycatch caps in years of low chinook 11 abundance. Annually ADF&G reports to the Council on 12 what's called a three river index. So it's an 13 aggregation. It's combining the Unalakleet, the 14 Kuskokwim and the Upper Yukon into one assessment of 15 basically the number of those fish. 16 17 If the number of those fish that is 18 reported to the Council is below 250,000 based on the 19 Kuskokwim run reconstruction as well as the Unalakleet 20 and the Upper Yukon. If it's below 250,000, then the 21 fishery in that year will kick into a lower cap system 22 and that means that all of those cap levels are then 23 reduced. The lower cap is 45,000 with a performance 24 standard at 33,000. 25 26 So far we have been just over that 27 benchmark of 250,000, so we haven't kicked into the 28 lower abundance years, but it's come down to really 29 being extremely close to that level in recent years and 30 we do have an expectation that we are highly likely to 31 drop below it within the next three to five years. 32 That's what some of the geneticists that work on the 33 Upper Yukon have indicated that and it will likely 34 result in our dropping below that, in which case the 35 whole fishery will go into a lower cap system. 36 37 One other thing that went into place in 38 2016. We increased the pollock fishery's flexibility 39 to avoid chinook by allowing them to harvest an 40 additional 5 percent of the pollock quota in the winter 41 season. So the quota was previously split with 40 42 percent of it is caught in the winter and 60 percent is 43 caught in the summer. We increased that to 45 percent 44 in the winter and 55 in the summer. That's solely 45 because near the end of the run they're able to catch 46 fish cleanly in the winter. They could get more of 47 their quota at that point as opposed to trying to get 48 more of their at the end of the B season when we know 49 that they run into chinook more often. 50






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1 There is a Prohibited Species Donation 2 Program. It's called SeaShare. The pollock fleet as 3 well as other groundfish fisheries in the Bering Sea 4 and Gulf of Alaska donate their bycatch. They're 5 allowed through a provision that while they cannot 6 retain their bycatch, they can donate it to the 7 Prohibited Species Donation Program. 8 9 It's a company called SeaShare. They

10 have been working on this since 1993 and they work with 11 the fishermen, the processors and NMFS to establish the 12 program. The fishing fleet and the processors solely 13 pay for this, so this is all paid for by them in order 14 to provide some of these by-caught fish to the 15 SeaShare. They are the only organization that's 16 authorized by National Marine Fisheries Service to 17 retain and distribute PSC fish, which is prohibited 18 species catch fish, for hunger relief. 19 20 They have been working really hard 21 since 2011 when we realized that right around 2009 that 22 none of the distribution centers were coming back to 23 Alaska. It had solely to do with where distribution 24 centers were located, but the pollock industry and the 25 SeaShare program have been working really hard since 26 2011 to get distribution centers not just in the main 27 areas of Anchorage, Juneau, Fairbanks, Kodiak, but 28 they're also working with communities and distributing 29 to, in 2016, 31 communities in Western Alaska. 30 31 SeaShare and the fishing fleet have 32 managed to provide a distribution center on kind of an 33 ad hoc basis in St. Paul as well this past year. So 34 that is for both salmon and for halibut and they're 35 continuing to, as they can find means to form 36 distribution centers in Western Alaska they've been 37 working with the industry and with the communities in 38 order to do that. 39 40 This just gives you a little bit of the 41 background on some of the participants and donors. 138 42 fishing boats, 34 at-sea processors, those are the 43 catcher processors, 15 shore plants. There's eight 44 receiving agencies in Alaska and 22 -- these are all 45 donations that the fleet has to do for cold storage, 46 for freight, for packaging, for processing. They have 47 42 financial donors. These are corporations and 48 foundations that they have solicited to help fund this 49 program. And then all six of the CDQ Western Alaska 50






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1 Community Development organizations are also 2 participants and donors of this program. 3 4 And then just to wrap up in terms of 5 upcoming Council meetings where we discuss salmon 6 bycatch. We have been traditionally doing this at our 7 April Council meeting each year. At the April 2018 8 meeting, which is here in Anchorage, annually the 9 pollock fishery will report on the results of their

10 previous season in terms of their incentive program 11 results as well as the trends in their bycatch. Then, 12 again, the geneticist will report on the stock 13 composition for all of the groundfish fisheries, but 14 that one unfortunately is lagged one year back from 15 that. 16 17 At an upcoming meeting, it won't happen 18 at this one, we would anticipate next year, we'd be 19 updating the adult equivalency analysis that we had 20 previously done for these amendment packages. We are 21 not at this time instigating an amendment package, but 22 the Council has asked that we update the AEQ analysis 23 just to go in conjunction with these reports at the 24 April meeting. 25 26 And then this just provides you how to 27 write a letter to the Council. We are now taking 28 electronic comments. You can testify in person at a 29 Council meeting. We also stream all of our Council 30 meetings on a listen-only mode, but you can receive all 31 of the information online as well. 32 33 Mr. Chairman, I believe that concludes 34 our presentation. 35 36 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. I really 37 appreciate you coming to this meeting and giving us an 38 overview of current management structures and so forth. 39 Has the Council got questions. 40 41 Shirley. 42 43 MS. CLARK: This is just kind of a 44 question. Before you started all these programs what 45 was the bycatch roughly? 46 47 DR. STRAM: Thank you. Actually we 48 have -- the programs have always been in place. We 49 used to manage it with time area closures and what we 50






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1 were finding is that that wasn't controlling the 2 bycatch. So the highest numbers that we had 3 historically occurred in the mid-2000's. We have been, 4 if you look at the trend lines, basically every single 5 time we had a peak in the trend line in the '90s we 6 would then change the time area closure to try to 7 reduce it. 8 9 So we've had caps and closures in place

10 since like 1993, I believe, but the big change was in 11 the middle of the 2000's. In 2005 for chum the fleet 12 ran into 700,000 and then in 2007 for chinook the fleet 13 ran into 122,000. That really dramatically changed the 14 way that we manage the bycatch in the Bering Sea. 15 That's why we now have hard caps on the pollock 16 fishery. Before, if they reached a cap, they just 17 moved away from that area. 18 19 MS. CLARK: Another question. With 20 this pollock crash, is that going to make any kind of 21 difference in the bottom fishery? 22 23 DR. STRAM: Well, the pollock in the 24 Bering Sea is at its target stock size. It's not at 25 all crashing. If you mean the Pacific cod in the Gulf 26 of Alaska, it's definitely in a crash state. Pacific 27 cod in the Bering Sea is low, but the cod fleet doesn't 28 catch any salmon really. It's only the pollock fleet 29 that does. 30 31 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Jenny. 32 33 MS. PELKOLA: Thank you for the report. 34 It was very good. How do you select your members? I 35 didn't get that first part when you said where the 36 members came from. 37 38 DR. STRAM: The Council members you 39 mean? There's seven of them that are selected by the 40 governors of their states. So Alaska has five seats 41 and Washington and Oregon each have one and those are 42 -- Washington has two. Those are designated by the 43 governors of their states. The rest of them are all 44 agency heads or designated seats for different 45 agencies. 46 47 MR. MACLEAN: To add, the governors, 48 when the seats come up, the governors do solicit 49 nominations for those seats, so anybody is welcome to 50






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1 submit a letter of nomination for one of the seats on 2 the Council and then it's up to the governor of the 3 states to make their recommendation and select -- make 4 their selection and then recommendation for the seat on 5 the Council. 6 7 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. Thanks. 8 Other Council questions or comments. 9

10 MR. HONEA: Mr. Chair. 11 12 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Yes, go ahead, Don. 13 14 MR. HONEA: A couple questions for the 15 lady or gentleman there. Number one, since these 16 numbers were imposed on the pollock fisheries, these 17 hard caps, have they ever gone over the hard caps and 18 ceased the fishing at that time? 19 20 The other question was -- she mentioned 21 something about the fishing gear and I was just 22 wondering is there anything in the foreseeable future 23 that's good news about the release of the salmon. I 24 believe she mentioned something about the fishing gear 25 able to not catch a salmon or something. Did I miss 26 something there? If she could explain that. 27 28 Thank you. 29 30 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Go ahead, Diana. 31 32 DR. STRAM: Thank you for the question. 33 To answer your first question, no, the pollock fleet 34 has never hit their caps. We've never moved into the 35 lower cap system. That may happen in the near future, 36 but the fleet has come nowhere near the actual cap 37 levels with their bycatch. 38 39 That's one of the reasons why we put 40 more stringent measures on them because we were trying 41 to change behavior by putting these caps into place and 42 not everyone changed behavior. So we put more 43 stringent measures on so that people can't fish into 44 September, October by design. They're not restricted 45 from it, but they're strongly encouraged not to in 46 order not to hit these additional measures. 47 48 As for the salmon excluder, that's been 49 under development for a number of years. That's been 50






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1 driven by the pollock fishery. They've worked with 2 industry partners to develop these excluders both for 3 chum and for chinook. They've really improved their 4 efficiency in the last several iterations so that they 5 can -- I think that it's reducing somewhere between 20 6 to 30 percent of the salmon that they would encounter 7 otherwise. 8 9 That has always been a voluntary

10 measure by the fleet to use those excluders, but as a 11 part of the program that we modified in 2016 they're 12 now mandated by their incentive program requirements to 13 use the excluders during certain portions of the year. 14 15 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: My question on the 16 excluders is when they use the excluders the 17 demographics of the bycatch change. Is the larger 18 chinook released with the excluder with primarily 19 juveniles as bycatch or is it just pretty much the 20 same? 21 22 DR. STRAM: Well, the pollock fleet 23 tends to encounter the exact same size chinook, so they 24 encounter -- most of the chinook that they encounter 25 are between three and five years old. So they don't 26 tend to run into a wide range of different size fish. 27 They tend to run into the same size fish. Some of them 28 can get out from the net and some of them don't. 29 30 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I heard rumors that 31 they primarily caught juvenile chinook. That's 32 incorrect. 33 34 DR. STRAM: One of the good things 35 about our observer program and the census of the salmon 36 is that we get really good ages on them. And so when 37 -- and, again, we haven't looked at the AEQ analysis, 38 which is what would update it for ages. We haven't 39 done that since 2015. At that time the ages that we 40 were still seeing in the bycatch were between three and 41 five years old. 42 43 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. Jenny. 44 45 MS. PELKOLA: How do you get your 46 counts? Do you count the fish from each boat or what? 47 48 DR. STRAM: Depending on what kind of 49 vessel it is. If it's a catcher vessel where they're 50






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1 just dumping the fish into the hold and delivering to a 2 shoreside processing plan, then they'll census the 3 salmon when it comes off the boat into the processing 4 plant. So there's observers that are pulling every 5 single salmon out of the haul. 6 7 If they're on a catcher processor on 8 board, then the observers are doing it when the fish 9 come on board before it goes to processing and they

10 pull every single salmon out. 11 12 Additional measures that we didn't 13 include up there. In order to be able to do that and 14 make sure that there's eyes on the haul at every point, 15 we have cameras that are installed on board, 16 requirements for where the fish can be dumped. They 17 really had to -- in order to make this airtight 18 counting, they've had to put additional measures on all 19 of these vessels so that there is a line of sight of 20 every single fish that comes on board. 21 22 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Go ahead. 23 24 MR. GERVAIS: For every vessel? 25 26 DR. STRAM: It's a requirement of the 27 program, yes. 28 29 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Other comments. 30 Shirley. 31 32 MS. CLARK: Here's a kind of off-the- 33 wall question. Do you keep track of all your 34 observers? Do they have nice sport cars? 35 36 (Laughter) 37 38 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: My question is 39 what's the apportionment of the bycatch in the SeaShare 40 program? Is it like a small percentage? Your 41 presentation is real vague about how much this is 42 actually going to -- several years ago we had Sam 43 Cotten on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, 44 Commissioner of Fish and Game, and we had our Galena 45 meeting. 46 47 I said those bycatch should be returned 48 to the rivers of origin on a basic ratio. So like 40 49 percent are AYK stocks, some should go to the Yukon, 50






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1 some should go to the Kuskokwim. Only a few should go 2 to the other states that would be receiving these fish. 3 These fish should be returned to the rivers of origin 4 because those are the communities that have the 5 hardship or burden of conservation in in-river system. 6 7 So what is the ratio of processing for 8 the bycatch? Has the Council looked at returning the 9 fish back to the river of origin?

10 11 DR. STRAM: Unfortunately we cannot nor 12 ever will be able to say what the proportion is that 13 goes to SeaShare. That's because of the design of 14 SeaShare. It's designed as a hunger relief program and 15 it's not designed as a program where they are keeping 16 track of the number of fish that are coming in. They 17 keep track of the pounds of filets that they are able 18 to donate and process. 19 20 So that's a question -- I should have 21 mentioned also in April we almost always receive a 22 presentation from Jim Harmon, who is the executive 23 director of SeaShare. Every single time he gets up 24 there he's asked exactly that question. By design, 25 they don't want their program to be used as a mechanism 26 for the Council to see how much of their bycatch is 27 getting into SeaShare. The SeaShare program was 28 designed for hunger relief and that was its sole 29 design. So they cannot calculate that nor are they 30 interested in refining themselves into that. 31 32 As far as returning to the rivers of 33 origin, that is exactly what they have been trying to 34 do. Previously, the only receiving centers were where 35 the fish was being landed. So because of this 36 heightened interest the SeaShare program has worked 37 with the pollock industry and all these communities and 38 now we do have 31 communities in Western Alaska that 39 received fish last year. 40 41 They are working as hard as they can to 42 find different means to distribute more and more fish 43 back to Western Alaska when it's caught in Alaskan 44 waters. So that is something that SeaShare has 45 aggressively been pursuing in conjunction with the 46 pollock fishery. While we'd love to know the 47 percentage as well, we have no way of finding that out. 48 49 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Well, you could come 50






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1 up with an indice where you're kind of taking an 2 average weight for three to five year old chinook, come 3 up with filet averages, come up with a ballpark idea 4 for the Council about how many of these fish are 5 actually being processed. If it's like 2,000 pounds, 6 then it's hardly any of the bycatch. If it's like 7 several ton, that may be a major percentage. 8 9 You could come up with a ballpark

10 figure. You can work with any processor that handles 11 fish, come up with a basic -- for those age classes 12 this is how many pounds of filets we would end up with 13 and this is what the waste product would be. I think 14 that NMFS and North Pacific Fishery Management staff 15 could actually come up with that index. 16 17 Is there other people in the room that 18 want to speak? Wayne. You've got to come up to a mic. 19 You have a response, Steve? 20 21 MR. MACLEAN: Yeah, if I may. Thank 22 you, Mr. Chairman. There's also various qualities of 23 fish that do come in and out of these nets. Fish 24 that's caught early in the tows can be of a different 25 quality than the fish that's caught later in the tows. 26 We don't want to be and SeaShare does not want to be 27 accepting and distributing fish of subpar quality. So 28 there's another complication. There's a lot of 29 complications that would go into actually coming up 30 with that. 31 32 And then for distribution SeaShare is 33 limited to the existing distribution network. So where 34 there are existing distribution networks. Industries 35 work very hard to now grow these distribution networks 36 in Alaska, so that's something that is continually 37 growing. We hope that we'll be able to reach a far 38 greater portion of the affected communities than has 39 been in yearly reports. 40 41 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I was very happy to 42 see that the distribution had increased to what it had. 43 It had been like basically all going to Seattle. So 44 it's a lot better than it was. I'm real happy about 45 that. I'm not complaining. 46 47 You had a question there, Wayne. 48 49 MR. JENKINS: Yes, Mr. Chair. Thank 50






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1 you. Wayne Jenkins with YRDFA. There's always a lot 2 of confusion it seems on the numbers and I'm wondering 3 if Diana could address the percentages -- do you have 4 the genetics that show the percentages going to the 5 Yukon, going to the Kuskokwim or the different river 6 systems. When you report those numbers, can you expand 7 on that. 8 9 Because the fishermen, you know, they

10 look at that one big number, that one big bycatch 11 number, annual number, and they -- you know, people 12 think a lot of times, well, that's -- those are all 13 Yukon fish or those are all Kuskokwim fish. So that's 14 my question. 15 16 DR. STRAM: Sure. Again, that's the 17 report that we do get from the geneticist each year. 18 We didn't put the pie charts in here, but they can 19 report to the Upper Yukon, they can report to the 20 aggregate Western Alaska river systems outside of the 21 Upper Yukon. They're working on breaking out Norton 22 Sound. It comes down to whether or not they can break 23 out the fish genetically statistically to that region 24 of origin. So one of the things that has been a 25 complication for us in reporting some of this is the 26 fact that all of Western Alaska was in one aggregate 27 group because it bleeds across the Kuskokwim, the Lower 28 Yukon, the Middle Yukon. Those were all aggregated in 29 with Norton Sound. So we could break out Upper Yukon 30 and so they report annually the percentage to the Upper 31 Yukon. That one we can do. And then we still have the 32 Western Alaska aggregate group. They are working to 33 try to break out Norton Sound. The North Alaska 34 Peninsula is a separate aggregate so we can get the 35 numbers back to that region. Right now all the Gulf of 36 Alaska, Southeast, all the way down to BC is aggregated 37 in one giant group. They probably could break those 38 out at some point. That was of less interest for their 39 efforts than trying to break out across that Western 40 Alaska proportion. 41 42 So we show what percentages -- again, 43 lagged a year -- on an annual basis and then, when we 44 update our AEQ analysis, we are also still restricted 45 to those groupings. It is my understanding that Norton 46 Sound will be broken out very soon. It's just that 47 they were really close and then it came down to lack of 48 funding. 49 50






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1 Did that answer your question? I'm not 2 sure if I missed part of it. 3 4 MR. JENKINS: Yeah, that's -- I mean 5 it's just understanding what you're able to do. With 6 that approach, do you have like a general percentage 7 from year to year that you see that are basically Yukon 8 fish or Kuskokwim fish? 9

10 DR. STRAM: We have a general 11 percentage for Upper Yukon. Again, Kuskokwim is lumped 12 in with the Nushagak and with the Lower and the Middle 13 Yukon and right now Norton Sound. On a general basis, 14 and it does change a little bit depending on where the 15 fleet is fishing, but ballpark it's been anywhere 16 between 44 percent to all of Western Alaska up to about 17 56 percent and that would include the Upper Yukon in 18 there as well. 19 20 We saw some erratic results in 2015, I 21 believe, where there's a higher proportion than we had 22 seen previously to the Upper Yukon. That is presumably 23 due to increased fishing near the Pribilofs. I think 24 the underlying assumption is if they're fishing in a 25 certain area closer to the Pribilofs, they may catch a 26 higher proportion of Upper Yukon. They didn't catch 27 very much fish at all. They only caught about 15,000 28 chinook total. But of that it was disproportionately 29 larger component from the Upper Yukon in that one 30 particular year. 31 32 We've been working with the salmon 33 geneticist. We have a salmon genetics workgroup and 34 they've been working on how they can spatially look at 35 these aggregations so they can -- statistically they 36 can lump them all together and get good estimates of 37 the overall numbers, but we started to ask them to see 38 what they could do area by area in the Bering Sea so 39 that we could get a more spatially explicit estimate of 40 which areas are catching higher proportions of Western 41 Alaska fish. And then that's specifically to help the 42 industry move away from the areas where they might be 43 catching disproportionately more Western Alaska fish. 44 So they're working on it. 45 46 We have giant management areas in the 47 Bering Sea and those were less informative, so we moved 48 to ADF&G stat areas. So the geneticists are currently 49 looking at which stat areas they can combine together 50






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1 to get a big enough sample that then they can estimate 2 the proportions of fish from each of those boxes. So 3 that's what we're working on with them now and we'll 4 get a report back in April on some of the spatially 5 explicit stuff that they've been doing for chum as well 6 as chinook. 7 8 MR. JENKINS: Thank you. 9

10 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Thank you. 11 12 Tim. 13 14 MR. GERVAIS: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 15 Thank you, Steve and Diana, for coming in. I know you 16 guys have a lot of stuff outside of salmon bycatch to 17 work with. The reason this Council has you coming 18 often is because for the Western Interior there's 19 basically two pillars to the subsistence economy. One 20 is moose and the other is king salmon. 21 22 The king salmon is by far the highest 23 value of protein that is available in the local 24 subsistence economy. Omega 3 and the Vitamin D is a 25 huge health benefit for all the residents during the 26 winter months when we're not getting very good 27 sunshine. So we appreciate your personal and your 28 Council's patience with us to keep bringing up and 29 encouraging you to reduce this bycatch. 30 31 I like the part of the presentation 32 where you were talking about adding additional 33 prevention measures. 2011 with the 100 percent 34 observer coverage and then 2016 with the mandatory 35 salmon excluders. I was quite appalled back in 2009 36 when then ADF&G Commissioner Denby Lloyd presented a 37 preferred alternative and it didn't include 100 percent 38 observer cover and it didn't mandate salmon excluders. 39 I thought that was a real lack of fishery conservation 40 leadership from the Commissioner of Fish and Game at 41 that time. Now you guys have included those things, so 42 we appreciate you doing that continual work. 43 44 I have a few questions. I see in like 45 salmon fisheries like Port Moller index for Bristol Bay 46 and Chignik Weir. Those in-season managers are getting 47 their genetics information within, I think, seven to 48 eight days. Why is there this year lag with the 49 genetics report that you're getting back from whoever 50






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1 is conducting that research? 2 3 DR. STRAM: Thank you for the question. 4 We have been trying to work with them to speed up how 5 they're doing it. I think it's been a slight source of 6 some frustration that it is lagged when other genetic 7 information can come back quicker. A lot of it has to 8 do with the requirements of -- their requirement that 9 they now

10 want to publish it as a NOAA technical memo before they 11 report the results to the Council. That has some 12 certain publication and timing restrictions to it. 13 14 So they've been able to move up a 15 couple months, but they haven't been able to move up so 16 that we can get it in the following year and we've been 17 continuing to work with the geneticist to see if 18 there's ways to streamline. We've been able to 19 sometimes get around it with some white papers that 20 have been presented to the Council that are not yet 21 published. We've been doing that more with the spatial 22 group because that doesn't have -- they don't have the 23 same publication requirement in terms of getting the 24 spatial information back. 25 26 But, yeah, we haven't been able to move 27 that timeline up more than a couple months out of the 28 year and that's out of our hands. It's something that 29 we have to work with the geneticist in Juneau on. 30 31 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Can the North 32 Pacific Fishery Management Council direct them to cut 33 the red tape? Who has made this ruling that they need 34 to publish this first? I mean is this the Secretary of 35 Commerce or how was that implemented? 36 37 DR. STRAM: Mr. Chairman. The Council 38 has tried to direct them to cut the red tape. We have 39 not gotten any traction on that. I believe it's an 40 internal choice at the lab itself. I can try to get 41 you more information on that and try and find out 42 whether or not there's any likelihood. Basically some 43 of it comes down to funding. 44 45 Some of it comes down to just purely 46 staff protocols and the staff that they have available. 47 As their funding has gotten cut, they've lost full time 48 equivalents in the lab, so they end up bottlenecking 49 through a very small group of people trying to run all 50






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1 these samples. 2 3 It isn't a very large amount of fish, 4 so they're often having to then sub-sample. They're 5 getting all the genetics from the observers and then 6 having to sub-sample from them depending on how much 7 bycatch is in any one year and how many samples that 8 they get. 9

10 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Has the North 11 Pacific Fishery Management Council looked at 12 outsourcing this? There's hundreds of labs in the 13 United States that could do this. So let's just move 14 away from that realm of analysis. If the Alaska 15 Department of Fish and Game can analyze in-season in- 16 river and do it, this seems to be a delay tactic. So 17 I'm concerned about this delay tactic. This is 18 important information as to the reality of what this 19 bycatch is and what the impacts are to specific 20 systems. 21 22 If anything, I feel this Council should 23 make a recommendation to the North Pacific Fishery 24 Management Council about outsourcing that genetic 25 analysis so that they have more realtime so that they 26 can deal with real numbers. If I'm sitting on a 27 Council, I need to have real numbers now, not in a year 28 from now because you're behind the 8 ball then. 29 30 MR. STEVENSON: Mr. Chair. 31 32 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Go ahead. 33 34 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. My 35 understanding is that -- and I would be happy to look 36 further into this when we debrief from this meeting 37 later this week, but my understanding is that the 38 Councils do not have the ability to directly request 39 information from agencies. Rather the protocol is such 40 that we use the annual report to work through the Board 41 to make those requests of agencies. The challenge 42 being that the North Pacific Fishery Management Council 43 is affiliated with, and correct me if I'm wrong, the 44 Department of Commerce as opposed to Department of 45 Interior. 46 47 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Correct. 48 49 MR. STEVENSON: Such that we would have 50






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1 to address this from another angle. I just wanted to 2 clarify that one point. 3 4 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 5 6 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Well, this Council 7 is talking to the North Pacific Fishery Management 8 Council. We can speak our minds at this meeting. 9 We're on the record. I feel that this Council should

10 have direct input into the process and we direct that 11 through the OSM -- or this Council can write a letter 12 to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. 13 14 Let it move through the Secretary of 15 Interior's Office, but we need to get transmission 16 because we've got stocks of concern on the Kuskokwim 17 and Yukon River in this region and we need to maybe cut 18 through this red tape. I feel that that could be 19 outsourced. That's not an excuse. NMFS or whoever 20 decided to make up these phony regulations is a delay 21 tactic. Not an industry-driven delay tactic if I can 22 read between the lines here and I'm not going to mince 23 any words about that. So they need to have realtime 24 data so that they can make informed decisions. 25 26 I'll entertain a motion to transmit a 27 letter to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council 28 to go outside of the process and go for realtime 29 genetic analysis through outsourcing with other genetic 30 labs. Can I have a motion to that effect. 31 32 MS. PELKOLA: So moved. 33 34 MR. GERVAIS: I make a motion to that, 35 Mr. Chair, but I would have a few items I wanted to add 36 onto the letter. 37 38 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: We'll put it in the 39 list. 40 41 MR. GERVAIS: Okay. So I'll make a 42 motion that we..... 43 44 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: The motion should be 45 that we're going to write a letter to the North Pacific 46 Fishery Management Council on specific points brought 47 out in our meeting of this date. 48 49 Go ahead, Tim. 50






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1 MR. GERVAIS: Okay. And then 2 communication like that, Diana and Steve, is it 3 sufficient to send one to Chris Oliver at National 4 Marine Fisheries Service or does it really just all 5 need to go to the North Pacific Council without 6 involving National Marine Fisheries Service first? 7 8 DR. STRAM: Mr. Chair, Tim. I think 9 that if you sent a letter to the Council, because this

10 will come up in April, you know, we do have the 11 regional administrator for National Marine Fisheries 12 Service that is a Council member and I think that it's 13 something you could raise to the Council in April in 14 conjunction with getting the genetics report. 15 16 I think you'll find that there's a lot 17 of people around the Council that also share that 18 frustration as well as the industry because they would 19 much prefer to have more realtime data so that they can 20 avoid areas where they're running into those fish. 21 22 MR. COLLINS: Mr. Chairman. 23 24 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Go ahead, Ray. 25 26 MR. COLLINS: Yeah, I have an issue, 27 but I think it's more important to the actual 28 subsistence user. It's meat on the table that they're 29 concerned about. Fish on the table in this case. The 30 SeaShare distribution, have they contacted groups like 31 Tanana Chiefs to see whether they could work in 32 distribution? Because I think a disproportionate 33 number is going to the people most affected, which are 34 the people upriver, up the Kuskokwim and so on. 35 36 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Right. I'm going to 37 call point of order on that because we have a motion on 38 the table..... 39 40 MR. COLLINS: Oh, I'm sorry. 41 42 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: .....and we need a 43 second on that motion. 44 45 MS. PELKOLA: I'll second it. 46 47 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Seconded by Jenny. 48 Write a letter to the North Pacific Fishery Management 49 Council and the first issue is outsourcing the genetic 50






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1 analysis of bycatch. 2 3 Do you have a comment there, Steve? 4 5 MR. MACLEAN: Yeah, just also in 6 response to Mr. Gervais' question. The genetics lab I 7 believe is with the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, 8 which is separate from the Alaska Region and if so 9 might be an efficient method of communication to

10 include or cc that letter also to the director of the 11 Alaska Fisheries Science Center. 12 13 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: We will have a cc 14 list. That's a good one. North Pacific Fishery 15 Management Council. And this letter has to go through 16 the internal analysis of OSM before your meeting. How 17 early does the letter have to be before your Council? 18 19 DR. STRAM: I believe March 29th is the 20 deadline for comments for the April meeting. 21 22 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Write that down, 23 Zach. March 29th this letter has to be to the North 24 Pacific Fisheries Management Council and it has to be 25 gone through the review process. Go ahead, Zach. 26 27 MR. STEVENSON: Just a point of 28 clarification. I've confirmed this with our leadership 29 team representative here at today's meeting. Protocol 30 dictates that because the Council is directly 31 addressing an agency and that the agency in question is 32 not part of the Department of Interior that protocol is 33 to have the Council communicate through the Board on 34 this issue. The mechanism for doing so is via the 35 annual report. In this case we could amend the annual 36 report to address this issue. 37 38 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 39 40 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: We've transmitted 41 letters before. I disagree with that consideration. I 42 feel that this Council has transmitted letters to other 43 agencies. It's not a political -- it's not under the 44 Hatch Act on this one. We're not transmitting to the 45 Governor's Office. We're not transmitting to -- we're 46 transmitting to another agency. So I disagree with the 47 Staff analysis. I feel that we can transmit this 48 letter through the normal review process for OSM for 49 our correspondence, the correspondence review process. 50






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1 So I'll deny that in this meeting and 2 we're going to continue making this list of 3 recommendations to the North Pacific Fishery Management 4 Council that has to be transmitted to them. OSM has to 5 review this letter before March 29th. 6 7 Tim. 8 9 MR. GERVAIS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

10 Another avenue we can take is we could just do a 11 testimony at the April meeting. Is that in Anchorage? 12 13 DR. STRAM: Yes, it is. At the Hilton 14 in Anchorage. 15 16 MR. GERVAIS: Okay. So another 17 question I have on bycatch is I've seen numbers where 18 you're saying a certain percentage of the U.S. fleet's 19 bycatch is Asian origin. What kind of communication or 20 cooperation do we have with -- like the Russian pollock 21 fleet is pretty large and generally the Russians have a 22 poor record of conservation and stuff. 23 24 Do you have any information about how 25 much U.S. salmon are being caught by Russian and other 26 foreign fleets? Also, from the other side of that are 27 these other countries upset with the U.S. fleet for 28 catching foreign salmon? 29 30 DR. STRAM: As far as -- so the Russian 31 data is fairly poor and they don't report their bycatch 32 of salmon. There's a bilateral meeting that occurs 33 every September, which includes Russian and -- 34 representatives from Russia and United States. They 35 discuss some of these issues. The surveys in recent 36 years to survey for pollock they've been coordinating 37 with the Russians and sometimes they're allowed to go 38 over the line to survey into Russian waters and 39 sometimes they're not. Last year they were refused. 40 Two years ago they were able to go in there. 41 42 They get some information by doing 43 that. We've talked about trying to get an estimate of 44 kind of some of the salmon. I mean of course if 45 they're fishing right up on the line, they're catching 46 the exact same salmon that our pollock fleet is 47 catching right up against the line. Unfortunately, we 48 don't have any data from them on either their stock of 49 origins or the numbers of salmon that they catch as 50






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1 bycatch. I think it's unlikely that we will get that, 2 but we continue to ask for it. 3 4 Your second question on the Asian 5 origin. Those are all hatchery fish for the most part, 6 so it's chum. It's not chinook. So when we estimate 7 Asian origin fish, it's generally Japanese hatcheries. 8 They also would be at this donut hole meeting that they 9 meet annually, but I've never heard that there's any

10 concern on their part with intercepting hatchery-origin 11 Asian fish. 12 13 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: The majority of the 14 chum salmon bycatch is hatchery fish from Japan? 15 16 DR. STRAM: The majority of the chum 17 salmon bycatch is Asian origin. Unfortunately not all 18 hatchery fish are thermally marked. So we have some 19 estimate of how many of hatchery fish, but we do get 20 from NPAFC annually -- they provide the data on how 21 many fish were released from the hatcheries. So from 22 that and from the general proportion of Asian-origin 23 fish we have a pretty good idea that almost all of 24 those are most likely to be hatchery origin fish. 25 26 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: They're invasive 27 anyways. We've got to complete this in the next few 28 minutes because we have a lot of agenda in front of us. 29 30 Tim, let's come up with more lists for 31 this letter. 32 33 MR. GERVAIS: So this next item I just 34 want to ask if it's occurring. It seemed like during 35 the deliberations for Amendment 91 in '09 the CDQ 36 members were indicating that when they're working on a 37 joint venture with a private vessel that the CDQ groups 38 get to pick their tow after the bycatch is counted and 39 then they were presenting their portion of the catch, 40 that they're cleaner fishermen and stuff like that. I 41 don't understand why they get to choose their tow -- 42 well, does that still occur? 43 44 DR. STRAM: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Gervais. 45 It's my understanding that, yes, they can declare it 46 when they're -- so basically it's the same catcher 47 processor. That it can fish the catcher processor 48 quota or the CDQ quota. And it's my understanding that 49 they can choose and have in the past chosen to apply it 50






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1 as a CDQ tow or to apply it as a catcher processor tow. 2 3 In conjunction with Amendment 91, the 4 problem that we had there was that because they had 5 done that in the past their bycatch looked so much 6 lower. So we had to basically recombine and 7 recalculate it all so that we were getting an actual 8 estimate of what their true bycatch is and not what 9 their reported was because of the way that they could

10 pick tows. 11 12 If that makes sense. So we basically 13 had to go back and recombine all the CDQ tows with the 14 catcher processor tows in order to get an overall rate 15 that would be more reflective of not making those 16 operational decisions on the tows. 17 18 MR. GERVAIS: Right. But why do the 19 CDQ groups get to get that option to select their tow 20 after the bycatch is counted? I'm not understanding 21 why they have that option. 22 23 DR. STRAM: I'm probably not the best 24 person to answer that. I can certainly find out the 25 answer to that and get back to you with it. I think 26 it has to do with how they lease the fish on the 27 catcher processor. 28 29 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. We're going 30 to finalize this letter. Do you want insertions into 31 this letter, Tim? 32 33 MR. GERVAIS: Yes, I do, but I would 34 like to have some time to just review the information 35 we got back from Diana and Steve. You want to put on 36 the record right now what we're going to insert. 37 38 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I want it to be on 39 the record about what you're going to talk about so 40 that you -- then we'll give you the authority to work 41 with Zach on the drafting of the letter. 42 43 MR. GERVAIS: Okay. So I would like 44 this council to ask the North Pacific Management 45 Council if there's a way they could streamline or 46 increase their genetic information processing time. 47 48 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I feel we should 49 directly ask them to outsource the genetic analysis. 50






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1 That's what we're asking. Not look at. 2 3 MR. GERVAIS: Yeah, well that's beyond 4 -- we don't -- we're not involved enough with the 5 process to know what's the best way to do it. 6 7 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: They're bottlenecked 8 right now. 9

10 MR. GERVAIS: It is bottlenecked right 11 now. But there is one thing I'd like to communicate as 12 I've paid attention to this process over the years is 13 there is a portion of goodwill from the North Pacific 14 Council, from the Council members and from the staff 15 members in doing the right thing and trying to reduce 16 this bycatch and there is industry players that are 17 interested in reducing the bycatch. I don't remember 18 the fellow's name exactly but there is a group that 19 works specifically -- it's John -- help me out, Diana. 20 21 DR. STRAM: John Gruver. 22 23 MR. GERVAIS: John Gruver. He works 24 with the fleet as a -- checking different methods to 25 reduce bycatch, gear development, excluder development. 26 So it's not all -- even though we feel beat up because 27 our commercial king fishery has been destroyed since 28 basically about '98 in the Middle and Upper River and 29 then subsistence fishery has just taken immense hits 30 2013 through 2016. 31 32 So we're like emotionally affected by 33 the issue and feel that -- because this is going on in 34 the Bering Sea we don't know all the players and 35 whatnot, so it's easy to get like emotionally involved. 36 It's all bad. But there is a lot of effort and there 37 are good players out there trying to make something 38 happen. 39 40 So I think as we do this letter we 41 should ask them what -- I mean they're professionals. 42 They know exactly what they need to do to get cleaner 43 or faster information back on the bycatch. So I don't 44 think the letter should specifically say that we've got 45 to outsource. We just have to speed it up, whatever is 46 the best cost-effective way. 47 48 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I do feel that the 49 letter should reflect the appreciation from this 50






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1 Council on the implementation of more stringent 2 standards, 100 percent observation, moving away from 3 the September and October bycatch period. I would like 4 to also include appreciation for the North Pacific 5 Fishery Management Council on the measures that they've 6 taken to reduce this bycatch. 7 8 MR. GERVAIS: Yeah, I think that's 9 great. I don't want it to be adversarial.

10 11 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: That's all I want. 12 13 MR. GERVAIS: I just want it to be 14 appreciative and saying that still even right now we're 15 not -- our run is not rebuilt. There's been incredible 16 sacrifices made by subsistence users, Canadian First 17 Nation fishermen and commercial fishery in the Middle 18 and Upper Yukon has been destroyed. The kids don't 19 even know how to fish it because it hasn't occurred 20 since '08. That's 10 years ago. We've lost an entire 21 generation of commercial fishermen on the Middle and 22 Upper River. This is a huge economic impact for an 23 area that has limited options on how to make money. 24 25 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Jenny. 26 27 MS. PELKOLA: I guess we, as 28 subsistence users, are very concerned about our 29 subsistence way, but we have an escapement that we have 30 to let go to Canada. When we don't meet it, we get cut 31 off from fishing. Then we hear about all the bycatch. 32 Like Tim said we -- well, I'll say it in my words. We 33 get angry because we don't have the fish to put on our 34 table. So I would also like to keep this letter 35 positive and not all negative and write our 36 appreciation to the Council for their efforts and 37 lowering the bycatch. 38 39 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: So we're going to 40 move on with this letter. We've got to go to break. 41 Final action on this letter. Any final insertions by 42 Council members into the letter. I would like the 43 letter -- that's the basis of the letter. I would like 44 Tim to work with Zach on drafting the letter. I'll 45 review the letter to be transmitted through the OSM 46 process to the North Pacific Fisheries Management 47 Council by at least March 28. 48 49 Any final insertions into the letter. 50






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1 (No comments) 2 3 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Any further 4 questions. 5 6 (No comments) 7 8 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Those in favor of 9 the letter transmission to the North Pacific Fishery

10 Management Council to be drafted by Tim and Zach and my 11 review through the OSM process by March 28th signify by 12 saying aye. 13 14 IN UNISON: Aye. 15 16 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Opposed same sign. 17 18 (No opposing comments) 19 20 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Thank you very much. 21 I appreciate your coming and I always appreciate your 22 data presentation, Diana. 23 24 DR. STRAM: Thank you. 25 26 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: We're going to go 27 for a 15-minute break and come back on the record 28 again. 29 30 (Off record) 31 32 (On record) 33 34 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I'll bring the 35 meeting back to order again. So we're at 36 Koyukuk/Nowitna. That's you, Jeremy. Innoko. You're 37 going to do mainly PowerPoint to start here. I'll move 38 to the side. 39 40 MR. SCOTTON: Members of the Council 41 and public. My name is Brad Scotton. For the record, 42 I'm the supervisory wildlife biologist for the 43 Koyukuk/Nowitna/Innoko National Wildlife Refuge. With 44 me is Jeremy Havener, my coworker. He's the 45 subsistence biologist at our Refuge and we're both 46 stationed in Galena as many of you know. 47 48 First off I'd like to really express my 49 appreciation for the time that we're allowed to have 50






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1 here to update you. Those of you who have been around 2 for a long time know that I periodically like to 3 provide an update and sometimes it gets kind of long 4 and depending on your schedule and other priorities to 5 try to tailor it to your needs, but it's been a couple 6 years since we've done a full biological update. 7 8 This year we're going to do kind of a 9 half biological update with some of the more pertinent

10 recent data that we've been collecting. I appreciate 11 your thoughtful deliberations on all the data you 12 receive. With that we'll just jump into this and I'll 13 try to move along. If you have questions along the 14 way, feel free to stop me. 15 16 There in the center that's our Refuge 17 complex and it does cover a pretty large portion of the 18 Western Interior. I'm going to focus in on that and go 19 to the next slide and talk about moose primarily for 20 these first several slides. Maybe you've seen this 21 before, but these are the annual trend counts around 22 Galena on the Koyukuk River north of Huslia all the way 23 down to Kaltag, but we count every single year and get 24 data from those trend areas on moose. 25 26 I'm going to start on the north end and 27 work my way to the south. We're going to start around 28 Huslia and Treat Island. Go to the next. That's a 29 map. It doesn't show up very good. There's a lot of 30 data in this. I'm going to focus a lot on trend lines 31 and try to point you at the right line. So on the top 32 graph are total population counts in those trend areas. 33 We have annual data every single year since 2003 34 without missing any years in those two trend areas. 35 36 As you can see kind of in the middle of 37 that top graph there's a marked dip in the numbers we 38 saw between 2010 and 2011 that creates some real 39 biological concerns about hunting in that area. There 40 were some restrictions put in place. The winter cow 41 hunting season went away. The State did some 42 restrictions as well. 43 44 Since that time we've seen some 45 variation in counts, that zigzag pattern, but a general 46 trend upward. The zigzag really has a lot to do with 47 the conditions, the snow conditions that we encounter, 48 the variability in our falls now. We do these counts 49 in November. So we're seeing an uptick in a trend in 50






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1 the Huslia/Treat Island area. 2 3 On the bottom graph are calf/cow 4 ratios, the maroon line in the middle. That's the one 5 to really focus on. Adult cows on the top line in 6 maroon and calf/cow ratios. We're seeing really high 7 productivity, improved productivity going into the fall 8 and then good survivorship after that. 9

10 We have a bull/cow ratio of 32 per 100 11 up in that area now, which is up slightly. We had 32 12 calves per 100, which is an improvement in that area 13 from the counts that were done to 10s to 20s. So we're 14 pleased at that trend. 15 16 So this is the same way to look at it 17 in terms of density. It's just moose and cow moose per 18 square mile in that area. You see the same trend, but 19 it gives you an idea of density. Two adult cows per 20 square mile and four to five moose. With continued 21 good weather conditions we're hoping to see that 22 continue. 23 24 So now I'm moving to Central Koyukuk. 25 Three Day Slough and Lower Dulbi River. It's again a 26 map. They're not connected, these two trend areas, but 27 they're close together. They're both high density 28 areas, heavily hunted areas. 29 30 Again we saw the same pattern. A big 31 decline in 2010-11 and sort of a bottoming out it seems 32 and a return to productivity. On that bottom line you 33 can see the calf/cow ratios really skyrocket up there 34 to 40 calves per 100 just a couple years ago and then 35 it's been above 25 and around 30 in Three Day Slough 36 the last couple years, which is an improvement and it 37 looks like the population may have turned a corner. 38 It's certainly probably not declining anymore and it 39 may actually be increasing, so we're very optimistic 40 about that. 41 42 Now moving further south. Actually 43 this is the density slide again, so same data presented 44 in density. It reflects the total counts as well, but 45 it's just kind of a different scale. 46 47 Moving on to the next slide. This is 48 something I put in because I knew Jack would be 49 interested in it. It's about bull/cow ratios and bull 50






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1 composition. We did see during that declining phase 2 several years of low calf production that was 3 concurrent with the overall population decline. 4 5 In recent years through hunters and 6 through the check stations and through our own surveys 7 we always keep track of the different age classes of 8 bulls during the fall survey. So we classify them as 9 yearling bulls, medium bulls or large bulls. Large

10 bull being anything over 50 inches. 11 12 This year particularly we saw in those 13 two central areas there a really markedly low number of 14 large bulls. We're a little bit below the State's 15 management objective of overall 30 bulls per 100, but 16 not very many of them are large bulls. We saw a big 17 uptick. So the two top green lines are yearling bulls 18 and medium bulls as a proportion of the number of total 19 bulls. The bottom blue line is the number of large 20 bulls we're seeing in the fall survey. 21 22 So 2017 these most recent dates is sort 23 of the lowest number of large bulls we've seen. We 24 expect that to go up next year because of the 25 recruitment the last three years. They'll be getting 26 into those age classes where they should be large 27 bulls, but I think both the State and us are in 28 alignment on remaining very conservative in these areas 29 because if any additional hunting occurs it reduces the 30 number that can even get to the large bull category. 31 32 Anyway, that's data we're keeping a 33 close eye on, but we are overall relatively pleased 34 with the trend in the population, but keeping an eye on 35 the bull/cow ratios and the compositions of those 36 bulls. 37 38 Next slide. So twinning surveys we do 39 in the spring and there's three areas on this graph. 40 The top pink line is the area around Galena, between 41 Galena and Kaltag, so on the Kaiyuh or otherwise known 42 as the Northern Innoko Refuge. We've seen consistently 43 twinning rates in the spring between 40 and 50 percent 44 really for the last 12 to 14 years. Very stable and 45 consistent, good productivity of twins. 46 47 The other lines are northern areas. 48 The blue one is Three Day Slough and Dulbi and the 49 yellow one is up around Huslia and Treat Island. 50






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1 There's a lot more variability and generally lower 2 rates of twinning, which we equate to lower 3 productivity. So that's just more information that 4 goes into sort of our demographic analysis of the 5 population. I'm going to show a slide later that will 6 sort of get at that as well. 7 8 Next slide. So, in contrast, the 9 southern part of these trend areas, so this is right

10 from Galena, downriver past Koyukuk and at the Koyukuk 11 mouth. There's three trend areas all connected in sort 12 of one large area. We analyze that together. You'll 13 notice the difference being in 2010-11 we did not see a 14 marked decline in adult cows or in the overall 15 population. 16 17 We've actually been seeing sort of 18 consistent growth and in the last few years significant 19 growth in the trend areas. That's the lower left graph 20 is total population numbers. So our total observation 21 is really at their highest point ever in the last 15 22 years that we saw this year. 23 24 On the right is the calf/cow ratios in 25 pink again. You'll notice those numbers are between 40 26 and 50 calves per hundred in the fall. Those are 27 really outstanding productivity numbers. Even if you 28 go back in time there's the occasional year of 20 per 29 100, but almost all of them are above 30. So a much 30 longer term, consistent, higher level of productivity 31 and/or survival. 32 33 Next slide. And then further downriver 34 a slightly lower density area, but on the Yukon between 35 Nulato and Kaltag another trend area. For a very long 36 time, for the first 10 years we were surveying it 37 consistently, it just sort of stayed stable or was 38 maybe growing a little and in the last six or seven 39 years has just taken off and the calf/cow ratios are 40 between 50 and 70 per hundred and overall cow/bull 41 numbers, yearling bull numbers they're all increasing. 42 So that's in the Kaiyuh Slough trend area. 43 44 So all these trend data in the lower 45 portions of the Refuge complex that we manage were 46 looking very positive while at the same time the 47 northern areas were not looking very positive I guess 48 would be the way to put it. 49 50






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1 Next slide. So because of this, and 2 this is a map generally of the same area. It's a 3 little easier to pick out. I put Galena and the 4 villages on there. This is Kaiyuh Flats or otherwise 5 known as Northern Innoko Refuge. It's a whole Refuge 6 unit, the Northern Innoko Refuge, about three-quarters 7 of a million acres. 8 9 2011 was the last time we did a

10 population estimate. What I talked about before were 11 annual trend areas where we count everything in a 12 selected portion of those units and that's the area 13 inside the red. The years we do a pop estimate those 14 are statistically bound and highly rigorous surveys 15 flown with a very specific method. We flew that 16 estimate in 2011 for this area and came up with an 17 estimate of about 1,900 moose total, plus or minus 18 about 10 percent. So very tight confidence intervals. 19 Notice the yellow areas are the high density areas. 20 That's how we stratify it. 21 22 Switch to the next slide. This is this 23 year's map. We 24 re-surveyed it, we re-stratified it because we had been 25 observing these increases in population, we had been 26 seeing this in places we'd never seen lots of moose 27 before and we surveyed it at a fairly high intensity. 28 You'll notice that a lot of the green areas turn to 29 yellow and up against the hills on the south side we 30 actually had individual units with 15 to 30 moose in 31 them, which before we'd never seen more than two or 32 three or four. 33 34 Really dramatic changes and this is 35 over the course of six years, so between 2011 and 2017 36 we re-surveyed the exact same area and this year's 37 estimate was over 4,100 moose plus or minus about 10 38 percent. So this population doubled in six years. 39 We're very confident in these data and spent a lot of 40 time on it. 41 42 That's part of the reason I wanted to 43 present just because the situation has changed in this 44 area particularly and it's also improved slightly on 45 the Nowitna, which we'll get to next. We did see 50 46 calves per 100 cows in there on the Kaiyuh and just 47 overall a doubling of the adult cows, increase in adult 48 bulls and just a robust population. 49 50






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1 I can go into this as much or as little 2 as you want, but part of this may be as a result of a 3 large burn that occurred, the Bonanza Creek burn, back 4 in 2005, I believe. It was either '04 or '05. It has 5 really come on as winter habitat. It's finally grown 6 up tall enough that it's useful in the winter. There 7 are moose wintering out there. We see calves being 8 born out in that burn and lots of twins out there. We 9 think it is probably part of the reason for the

10 increase, though probably not the entire reason, but 11 certainly part of the story. 12 13 Next slide. Here are just the 14 population estimates. It's also been flown -- surveyed 15 in 2001, 2004 and 2011. Those three data points all 16 indicated that it was more or less stable. No big 17 changes. Just from 2011 to 2017 we see that dramatic 18 increase. 19 20 Next slide. That's just the table of 21 the results. We can skip right through it because I'm 22 getting long-winded. Again a density graph of the same 23 estimates just showing the doubling of the density in 24 that area. 25 26 Next slide. So here's kind of what I 27 wanted to point out. It's a picture of the two sets of 28 trend areas north and south. If you just look at the 29 last four years worth of fall data from '14 to '17, the 30 calf/cow ratios in those northern areas between 18 and 31 38 calves per 100. Which isn't bad, it's decent, but 32 the southern areas we've seen 44 to 58 calves per 100. 33 Prior to 2012 we never had any differences between the 34 northern areas and the southern areas in calf/cow 35 ratios. So this difference just started showing up and 36 it's having an impact on the population dynamics. 37 38 Next slide. So that kind of covers the 39 Koyukuk. We'll switch over to the Nowitna real 40 briefly. We do two trend areas on the Lower Nowitna 41 that have been done consistently for 15 years. We saw 42 the same decline in trend in 2010-11 in adult moose 43 there and kind of a bottoming out in what appears to be 44 a recovery the last few years. 45 46 Again it's the same stories we saw in 47 the northern Refuges, but this is 100 miles further to 48 the east, just east of Ruby on the Nowitna Refuge. So 49 we're pleased that the trend we're seeing appears to be 50






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1 a recovery. The bull/cow ratio was 32 per 100, which 2 was above the management objective. Calves were really 3 good this year, so we're very pleased with that. 4 5 Next slide. Jeremy might speak a 6 little bit to this at the end, but it's hunter numbers 7 on the top line and moose harvest off the Nowitna in 8 the check station for the last 20-some years. We've 9 seen a stabilization of hunting and the harvest that

10 comes out of there and hunter numbers seem to have 11 stabilized as well around 100 or a little above 100 12 pretty consistently. A lot of the same people hunted 13 every year. So Jeremy can talk about that. 14 15 We didn't see any big changes. We did 16 see a high proportion of two and three-year-old bulls 17 in the harvest this year, which is kind of what you'd 18 expect with the good recruitment the last few years. 19 So all of our data seem to be in alignment with what 20 we'd expect from the trend surveys and the population 21 estimates. 22 23 Next slide. This is just a summary of 24 how things are going generally. A third year of 25 excellent calf production and things are improving and 26 snow conditions were good for the survey this year. 27 Again, we're pretty confident in the numbers and we 28 feel like we are seeing some marginal improvement. 29 It's not a high density population. It's kind of a 30 medium density, but it seems to be doing a little 31 better and we're not as concerned about it as we were a 32 few years ago. 33 34 Next slide. Now onto Innoko Refuge to 35 our south. This is the unit we inherited a few years 36 ago, so we've kind of taken over surveys and projects 37 down there. We have data from one trend area in 38 central 21A, so kind of middle Innoko River. Again, 39 this is a medium density population. Based on one 40 trend area, you don't want to extrapolate to vast 41 regions. We're seeing what appears to be an increasing 42 population. 43 44 Good calf/cow ratios are in blue here 45 on the bottom of around 50 per 100. The adult numbers 46 seem to be trending upward in this trend area every 47 year. We cooperate with the State on projects down 48 here as well out of McGrath, so there is some interest 49 in doing a population estimate in 21A in the next 50






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1 couple years depending on budgets and staffing and 2 need. 3 4 We're keeping an eye on this because 5 there's a fair amount of hunting pressure and that 6 seems to be changing as other areas get restricted. 7 More people seem to be coming to this area, so Josh and 8 I and McGrath have been discussing that. So that's 9 sort of the picture.

10 11 The Lower Innoko River just off the 12 Refuge the State does surveys down there in 21E and we 13 cooperate on those. That population seems to be robust, 14 growing and doing really well. If I could just 15 summarize it without a slide. So down around Shageluk, 16 Grayling and that country. Holy Cross, things look 17 really good down there. 18 19 Next slide. I threw this on -- this 20 was my corrupted slide. The whole presentation crashed 21 because I updated this slide and PowerPoint didn't like 22 it, so I just put it on there to remind me. So from 23 the winter of 2014, '15, '16, so three additional 24 winters, they all look exactly like 2013. Low snow. 25 If you hit the button, it will drop a line on there. 26 We consider for the sake of moose a severe winter as 27 having more than 30 inches of snow on the ground for 28 four months, an average of more than 30 29 inches, and we have not hit that threshold for the last 30 five winters really. Prior to that there were a few. 31 32 So these are data that we collect every 33 single month at the beginning of the month and we 34 collect them really for our Refuge specifically to look 35 at the impacts on moose and we think it jives with what 36 we're seeing in the environment and why it's helping 37 our moose out. So that's also part of the picture of 38 why we're seeing things turn around, I think. 39 40 Next slide. So we got off of moose 41 here real quickly. We do have one tiny little caribou 42 herd that inhabits Koyukuk Refuge. The Galena Mountain 43 Herd has sort of been stable at a lower number for a 44 number of years and has been protected by a total 45 closure on hunting. It's probably less than 200 46 animals. We keep a few radio-collared and we survey as 47 often as we can with budgets. 48 49 It appears this year there's more 50






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1 calves that survived this year than usual. So we're 2 seeing some calves out there this winter. We saw 23 3 out of 100 caribou total observed in last week's 4 flight, so we're happy with that. Again, it's hard to 5 say a lot about the population. We're pretty sure it's 6 not growing, but it's still there. 7 8 The animals are healthy, they're big 9 and robust. It's just a small herd dynamics in an area

10 with a lot of predators in a dynamic environment. So 11 that's sort of the situation with the Galena Mountain 12 Caribou Herd. We anticipate that's going to stay 13 closed for a long time. 14 15 Next slide. This just shows the 16 maximum observed over the last 25 years during any 17 particular flight in a year and you can see the trend 18 there. We really think it's probably around 150 19 caribou right now, but it could be a few more than 20 that. 21 22 Next slide. So just real quickly. 23 Every year we do one Refuge. Our beaver surveys that 24 have been conducted since back in the '80s because they 25 were such an important and still are an important 26 subsistence resource. We flew the Nowitna Refuge this 27 year, all those trend areas. It really only takes a 28 couple days of flying to cover it, but we count all the 29 active beaver caches in there. 30 31 One of the reasons I wanted to present 32 this year is because we had such an incredible fire 33 season. Not this summer, but the summer before, and it 34 really burned a significant portion of Nowitna Refuge. 35 We actually saw it in the beaver cache survey results. 36 The numbers did not decline dramatically but the 37 locations of where they were living was altered 38 dramatically. They basically moved away from all the 39 really burned lakes and onto the rivers and sloughs. 40 Several of the local trappers said they witnessed the 41 same thing. They saw more on the mainstem and more on 42 the rivers. 43 44 So having these long-term datasets is 45 valuable for a number of different reasons, but it 46 really helps us interpret some of these things that we 47 see anecdotally and now we actually have empirical data 48 to know what's going on. But by and large the beaver 49 populations are robust and healthy in all the Refuges 50






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1 and there's much less pressure on that resource than 2 there was back in the 1980s and early 1990s. 3 4 Next slide. I asked my colleague over 5 at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to provide me 6 a few slides because we've been at our Refuge a co- 7 operator on the Wood Bison Reintroduction Project since 8 the beginning. Tom Seaton, who most of you probably 9 know in one way or another, provided me this data. I

10 get probably more questions about bison now than I do 11 about moose. 12 13 It is very interesting. I've flown 14 several of these radio tracking flights. I just wanted 15 to give you guys a quick update in case you don't get a 16 chance to see some of Tom. So I pulled four slides out 17 and we'll move on to the next one. 18 19 As most of you know, the project really 20 started over 20 years ago, but the actual first release 21 of bison was in the spring of 2015 near Shageluk. They 22 were held in captivity for a few months and then 23 released with supplemental feed nearby and they by and 24 large stuck around and did fairly well. There were 16 25 calves born that spring. 26 27 Then you can see the numbers the next 28 two years. There were 17 born in 2016 and this year 29 there were 25 born. Most of these bison are born in 30 April, about a month ahead of when moose calves are 31 born. They're very hardy, very robust animals. As of 32 December there were 22 of those 25 at least still 33 alive. So their survival rates are really phenomenal, 34 the calves. 35 36 The next slide is going to show you 37 what happened to the adults, which is what I was really 38 curious. We did see some earlier deaths and that was 39 expected. They released 130 and sort of right away 40 there were several that met their fates early by 41 falling through the ice or having issues with mud or 42 any number of things. Stress from the movement and 43 capture. Then you see the pulse of calves return to 44 kind of back up above 130 the next year with the calves 45 and then we had some more adult deaths that occurred 46 after that. This year we saw sort of a little more 47 robust calf crop got it up to 140. 48 49 The next slide I think is what Tom's 50






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1 really excited about is the number of mortalities in 2 adults seems to have slowed down. The first year there 3 were quite a few. The second year there were less and 4 the third year we've had not very many adult 5 mortalities that we know of. So he is very optimistic 6 that this herd is well anchored, it's wintering well, 7 they're reproducing in the wild, they're producing 8 healthy calves that are surviving. 9

10 I don't want to speak for him directly, 11 but I know they're really optimistic about the project 12 hoping to get more bison potentially released in the 13 state of Alaska and suitable habitats and is eager to 14 work with villages that are interested in having them 15 in their area. 16 17 Anyway, I think that's the last slide. 18 Yeah, there's one more here. He wanted to just show 19 the extent and range of where the bison have traveled 20 thus far that we know of. There weren't 100 percent 21 collared, but a very large proportion of the herd was 22 collared. The red areas around Shageluk and Grayling 23 and Holy Cross where they're kind of anchored, that's 24 where most of them are most of the time. 25 26 A few radio-collared ones have wandered 27 off. A couple have actually wintered around Galena and 28 done well. One cow has been there for three years and 29 she's by herself. One bull wandered all the way up to 30 the Brooks Range and recently died. I mean it was 31 north of the Kobuk River in the Baird Mountains. 32 Wandered all the way up there this summer and a couple 33 have gone down towards Bethel. 34 35 But that's still informative because we 36 have satellite information data. We know where they 37 spent time, where they grazed, what habitats they seem 38 to prefer and what they don't. So Tom really feels like 39 we're learning a lot even from what looks like not 40 success is the deaths. We still learn from it. He's 41 eager to continue the project, I guess. 42 43 So that should be it for slides and I'd 44 be happy to entertain questions on this. If we have 45 any time, at the discretion of the Chair, we'll pass it 46 over to Jeremy to talk about some of the other stuff 47 going on at our Refuge complex. 48 49 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Council member 50






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1 questions or comments. Tim. 2 3 MR. GERVAIS: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 4 Thanks, Brad. Congratulations on that upward trend in 5 moose population in all the areas. That's great to 6 see. 7 8 I had just a quick question on the 9 bison. So that 130 population that's enough to prevent

10 inbreeding? 11 12 MR. SCOTTON: I'm not familiar with all 13 the details of it, but I know the State worked on the 14 introduction plans for 15-plus years and they did look 15 at -- considered genetic bottlenecking and diversity. 16 Given the state of wood bison in North America, they 17 started from a very, very low founded population over 18 in Wood Bison National Park area in Alberta, I believe. 19 20 Essentially all the sources for these 21 new populations have come from that founded population 22 because that's all that was left in North America. So 23 it's already undergone a big genetic bottleneck and 24 they're doing what they can with these herds to 25 maintain the genetic sort of purity of the species, 26 different than plains bison, but also providing as much 27 diversity as they can to try to make these things a 28 success. 29 30 And the ones they've moved to other 31 parts of Canada have done really well and they're 32 actually hunting them now and they've got sustainable 33 harvest from them. They're still at way, way lower 34 numbers than historically in North America, but they 35 are doing well in the places they reintroduced them. 36 So I think they've taken into account and they're just 37 doing the best they can, but I don't know the details 38 on the genetics. 39 40 MR. GERVAIS: Thank you. 41 42 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Other Council 43 questions or comments. 44 45 (No comments) 46 47 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: No. Have you done a browse 48 analysis in Kaiyuh where those moose are intensifying 49 as far as -- they're primarily browsing, moving into 50






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1 those burns, but along the river riparian area are they 2 browsing heavily in there or does it 3 look pretty good still? 4 5 MR. SCOTTON: So back in the mid to 6 late 2000's we did a research project that looked at 7 forage quality and quantity availability in those 8 areas. At that time the browse rates were quite low, 9 the utilization rates, and that was cooperative with

10 the State of Alaska and through the university. 11 12 Really what I look at as a biologist 13 most is that twinning rate. The twinning rate is 14 really a surrogate for the health of those adult cows. 15 They will not have twins if they're nutritionally 16 stressed at any point in their life cycle. So in 17 places with real high densities of moose and 18 nutritional stress you'll see twinning rates drop down 19 to less than 10 percent. Just that consistency of 20 around 40 percent and even up to 50 percent gives us a 21 pretty strong indication that they're fat and healthy 22 and doing really well. 23 24 The little bit of browse work that we 25 have done shows the low utilization rate on those 26 preferred species in the winter. So we're pretty 27 confident that it's not a significant limiting factor 28 in the population, but we haven't done anything recent 29 to look specifically at the burn and whether the 30 quality is better than some of the other areas, but I 31 can say for sure they're using it a lot more than they 32 were, so I'm presuming it's of sufficient or good 33 quality. 34 35 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: So we could 36 anticipate a continued expansion of this population of 37 the Kaiyuh. 38 39 MR. SCOTTON: I think optimistically if 40 we don't see severe winters or we don't see any major 41 changes in populations of predators or predation 42 levels, then I think reasonably we can, but severe 43 winters are always an issue. 44 45 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I have a request 46 from a person that lives in Nulato. They felt the 47 moose population was built up significantly also and 48 they felt that that portion south of the Yukon River in 49 21D from Galena downriver to Kaltag could support a 50






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1 lottery draw permit for cows under State regulations. 2 I want to ask Koyukuk-Nowitna -- I'm just throwing that 3 out on the table what do you think about a proposal 4 like that. 5 6 MR. SCOTTON: I think at this time 7 given the biological trend and the doubling of the 8 population that that has biological feasibility. It's 9 very possible to do that. As you know, because of the

10 dual management system, these things need to be 11 coordinated well and certainly we work with the State 12 on the collection of data and some of the analysis of 13 the data. The complex land status there certainly 14 makes it extremely problematic to have a hunt that's 15 Federal only or State only because of the land status. 16 17 18 From a biological perspective, I think 19 we're at the point where we could -- if closely 20 monitored, we could have some sort of a limited 21 additional hunting opportunity and even including cows. 22 I think that's on the table. 23 24 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: The proposal would 25 be a winter hunt, lottery draw permit for mid-March or 26 something like that. Do you feel if we had a 27 State/Federal proposal, that you could analyze the 28 population and develop a quota for that for any 29 particular year? 30 31 MR. SCOTTON: I think primarily that 32 would be the State's obligation to come up with the 33 numbers and certainly in cooperation with us. I'd be 34 happy to participate in that. I'm not exactly sure of 35 their cycle for game proposals, but I believe there's 36 another full year before they entertain any proposals 37 for wildlife in that region. And we'll have another 38 year of data at that point. If the trend continues, I 39 think it's a definite possibility. 40 41 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. Tommy. 42 43 MR. KRISKA: Yeah, I think that -- I 44 don't know about this lottery deal because it kind of 45 -- I know by State law, Federal, that we're only 46 allowed one moose a year. So I think it mostly will go 47 to people that didn't get a moose. Is that a better 48 deal? I don't know. 49 50






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1 MR. SCOTTON: The details are always 2 complicated because the drawing permits for the State 3 occur in November, so like November 2017 people have to 4 apply for a hunt that would occur then the next winter. 5 My understanding is if you harvest a bull in the fall, 6 then your cow permit for the winter would then be 7 invalid. 8 Yeah, because it's in the same regulatory year. 9

10 So there are ways to deal with that 11 situation in terms of issue permits based on the number 12 that you want to see harvested and then if you have 10 13 or 20 of those people that become ineligible you just 14 issue a few more permits on the list of winters for 15 people that did not get a moose in the fall, but again 16 those are questions kind of for the State and working 17 out the details of it, but I think there are ways..... 18 19 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Right. Well, we got 20 a year out to think about this proposal. But looking 21 at this population increase the State is not going to 22 go -- the hunt won't work because it's too 23 checkerboard, but the State would feel comfortable if 24 they could control the number of cows that were 25 harvested. So to get a winter hunt there where they 26 could kill some cows I feel that it's a worthwhile 27 proposal, but we don't have to develop it right now. 28 When we come to wildlife proposals next year, then we 29 can think about that. 30 31 (Council nods affirmatively) 32 33 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: So continue on with 34 the presentation. I just wanted to throw that out so 35 that you can start talking about it and thinking about 36 it around Galena country. I would like Koyukuk Nowitna 37 to start thinking about that and pass that out and talk 38 about that. 39 40 So go ahead. 41 42 MR. HAVENER: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 43 Council members. For the record, my name is Jeremy 44 Havener. I'm the Refuge Subsistence Coordinator and 45 I'm stationed out of Galena for Koyukuk/Nowitna/Innoko. 46 47 I did pass out a Refuge update. What 48 Brad just discussed with trend count data and the 49 population estimate that's all included in this. We 50






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1 also have some outreach updates in there as well. I'm 2 going to kind of skim through this because we're on 3 kind of a time constraint. 4 5 So jumping into this, the first thing I 6 want to talk about is some staffing updates. Right 7 now, and I know it's come up at past meetings, we are 8 sitting I think on four vacant positions. One of those 9 being a position in McGrath. We've been working on

10 that pretty diligently. Right now we are waiting on 11 some new guidance that's supposed to come out. 12 13 We have a regional priority that was 14 put together that that's going to be a position that 15 will be hired. We're going to hire that as a permanent 16 park ranger and there's going to be all kinds of duties 17 included with that, including RIT duties, outreach 18 education. They're going to have to do some 19 maintenance there because they'll be the sole position 20 in that McGrath office. So we kind of expect a lot out 21 of them and we're going to do it as a local hire. So 22 just wanted to update you on that. 23 24 Outreach education. One of the things 25 I'm putting together this summer is a hunter safety 26 class in Galena. We usually do them with the school, 27 but we haven't done that in a couple years. So I'm just 28 going to kind of open it up to the community and see 29 what kind of interest we'll get and get people enrolled 30 into the hunter safety class. 31 32 We currently have two certified hunter 33 safety instructors at our Refuge, including a State 34 Trooper in Galena as well that can assist with that. 35 Also I've been talking with Nulato Tribal Council and 36 we're going to try to hold one down there this summer 37 as well if logistics work out. 38 39 On to Page 2 of the handout. I'm going 40 to go ahead and jump into some subsistence updates from 41 the last year. On here -- and we've already sort of 42 discussed a portion of this, but it's the decision for 43 the winter moose hunts within the Koyukuk, Nowitna and 44 Innoko National Wildlife Refuges. 45 46 As Brad already discussed with the 47 moose data for GMUs 21B and 24D, because the adult 48 moose numbers are below the long-term average and some 49 conservation concerns there we've made the decision to 50






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1 not hold the winter hunt in those areas. Also we 2 include harvest data that we see from the fall into 3 that decision and we're consulting with different 4 stakeholders and we've made the decision for those 5 areas. 6 7 For 21D, which is the Northern Unit 8 Innoko, we discussed that one a little bit already 9 today, but obviously with the numbers we're seeing down

10 there we have been discussing the potential of a winter 11 hunt and we were just at the Middle Yukon AC and 12 brought that up there and decided not to hold one under 13 Federal regulations this year because of the complex 14 land status. So we are talking with the State and 15 trying to get something formulated there as far as a 16 proposal for the future. 17 18 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I would like you to 19 convey to the Middle Yukon that the Western Interior 20 Council is interested to adjoining a proposal to the 21 Federal lands and go through this drawing issue. Go 22 ahead. 23 24 MR. HAVENER: Note taken. For the 25 Federal fall season in GMU 21E, and that goes from 26 August 25th through September 30th currently. I'm on 27 Page 3. This data is collected through the State area 28 biologist. His name is Josh Peirce. He collects this 29 data. Currently we have a combined Federal/State 30 permit that's issued out for this season. 31 32 I think essentially what we do is we 33 look at the dates that the harvests were reported. If 34 we see it outside of the regular State season, then 35 it's considered a Federal harvest. I've got data from 36 2015 and you can see in Figure 1 that in 2015 there was 37 one moose harvested. 2016 there was two moose 38 harvested and then last year, this last fall, we didn't 39 see any moose harvested under that Federal hunt. 40 41 Federally subsistence moose hunt FM 42 2104, 2105, which takes place in GMU 21E from February 43 15th through March 15th. I have the results here on 44 Page 3 of last regulatory year. FM 2104, which is kind 45 of a permit designated for the area around Paimiut 46 Slough, so it's kind of the southern area of GMU 21E, 47 five permits were issued and we had four bulls 48 harvested. 49 50






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1 Onto Page 4. For 2105, which is the 2 northern area, we issued 19 permits, so we had 10 from 3 Grayling, four from Holy Cross, three from Shageluk and 4 two from Anvik. Eight moose total were harvested with 5 that being made up of two bulls and six cows for that 6 hunt. You can see the information on that in Figures 2 7 and 3 for both of those hunts. 8 9 I did make a few phone calls today and

10 talked to RIT Ken Chase and I've also talked with Bruce 11 Seppi. They both help issuing those permits out. 12 Currently, for the Grayling, Anvik, Shageluk, Holy 13 Cross area there have been 17 permits issued out this 14 year. For the lower area 2104, Bruce said there was I 15 think nine permits issued out so far this year. That 16 season is currently going on and it will go through 17 March 15th. 18 19 On Page 5 some information on FM 2101, 20 which is the Federal moose hunt in the Nowitna Refuge 21 in GMU 21B. That goes from September 26th through 22 October 1st. This last year we had eight permits that 23 were issued. Most from Tanana, there were five. Two 24 from Ruby and one from Galena and two bull moose were 25 harvested and both of those were from Ruby. 26 27 None of them were checked out at the 28 check station. So they got their permits in Ruby and 29 then harvested their moose over there, which correlates 30 with that boundary change so folks don't have to go all 31 the way to the check station. The data for the harvest 32 on that hunt is in Figure 4 and it shows data since 33 2007 on the number of hunters and the number of moose 34 harvested. 35 36 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Is there a 37 correlation between people's success rates early in the 38 season and the reduced incentive to harvest in the late 39 portion of the hunt? 40 41 MR. HAVENER: Yeah. 42 43 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Basically good 44 hunting early provides for their needs and then they 45 don't use that. 46 47 MR. HAVENER: Yeah. Anecdotally, when 48 I've talked to people when they've had a good fall 49 season during the State season, then they have no need 50






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1 to get the Federal hunt following that. 2 3 Onto Page 6 with the Nowitna Moose 4 Hunter Check Station. As you know, we run a check 5 station on the mouth of the Nowitna River. We're 6 checking in hunters and getting harvest data from them 7 and just also counting the number of people going into 8 the Nowitna River to moose hunt. 9

10 This year we had 101 moose hunters that 11 checked in, 43 moose were harvested and there was a 43 12 percent success rate, which is the second highest since 13 we started the check station in 1988. As Brad noted 14 earlier, there was quite a few small bulls harvested 15 this year. Actually 75 percent of the bulls that were 16 harvested were smaller than 50 inches and the majority 17 of the harvest was made up of two and three year olds, 18 which ties in with our trend count data that we get on 19 the Nowitna Refuge. 20 21 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Those demographics 22 of those 101 hunters are they primarily local hunters 23 or are they scattered? 24 25 MR. HAVENER: It's scattered. We see a 26 lot of people from the Anchorage and Fairbanks area. I 27 actually have that data on my computer if you'd like to 28 see that later. I can pull it up for you and show it 29 to you. 30 31 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I just kind of want 32 to know who's using that country. Go ahead. 33 34 MR. HAVENER: On Figure 5 on Page 7, I 35 requested some data from ADF&G and they sent me the age 36 analysis that they do from the teeth that we gather at 37 the check station. As you can see in Figure 5, two and 38 three-year-olds did make up the majority of the 39 harvest. We also had one moose that was harvested that 40 was age 11, so that was pretty interesting data to see. 41 42 Figure 6 we already saw that in Brad's 43 presentation. That's the data from the Nowitna check 44 station, the harvest data and hunter data. This year 45 we saw 43 moose harvested, which the last three years 46 harvest has been up just a little bit, but overall 47 through the long term harvest is kind of right on 48 average. 49 50






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1 On to Page 8. Area biologist Glen 2 Stout sent me this information and this is the final 3 information from the 2017 Koyukuk Controlled Use Area. 4 This year there were 321 hunters registered at the 5 Koyukuk check station, 111 hunters registered in Huslia 6 and 19 hunters registered in Hughes for a total of 451 7 registered hunters. 246 moose harvested and three were 8 harvested for potlatches in the fall of 2017. 9

10 That is my update and I'll open it up 11 for questions. 12 13 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. Council, 14 questions. Go ahead, Ray. 15 16 MR. COLLINS: Yeah, Mr. Chairman. I 17 have a question and then a comment. The question is 18 are you considering a camp at McGrath? They've got the 19 camp facility there and they worked closely with the 20 school district in the past to have that and I know 21 they have the kayaks and all the things they needed to 22 have that and we recruit from the Yukon villages as 23 well as the McGrath area. So is there any 24 consideration for running that camp this next year? 25 26 MR. HAVENER: Through the Chair. Yeah, 27 we are definitely considering that. In the past it's 28 always been held in McGrath and we get funding for 29 that. I believe the last time we held it, it's been a 30 couple years now, we had five kids I think and we had 31 to transfer them all into McGrath and that can be kind 32 of a logistic issue getting them all the training they 33 need to fly Federally and different things of that 34 nature. 35 36 So one thing we look into to more 37 efficiently use that money is to try to get out to the 38 villages and have RITs and myself and outreach 39 specialists kind of put on some outreach and education 40 for those kids. 41 42 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay, Ray. 43 44 MR. COLLINS: I wanted to comment that 45 I've been in the area long enough to watch traditional 46 hunting and what the practice was in the Upper 47 Kuskokwim, for Nikolai particularly, is they would hunt 48 bulls early in the season, but if they didn't get a 49 bull, late in the season they would shift to a cow. I 50






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1 was thinking of this with your permit system because 2 then they could pick out barren cows or cows that had 3 lost their calves and they're not carrying them. 4 5 If you have a winter hunt, you may be 6 taking twins or whatever and they're not as 7 nutritionally good because they're feeding that calf as 8 well. So is there any thought that they need to 9 discuss up there about adding that on? Because we have

10 late winters now so they could have a cow season right 11 after the bull season if they didn't get a bull with 12 the permit system for those and they'd be in a lot 13 better shape and they could be selective. 14 15 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Tommy can speak to 16 that. That's a lot of freezing up, bad ice. It's not 17 good to go in after the season like that. But a lot of 18 the hunts are single cow only. Old-timers like Jimmy -- 19 my dad hunted with Jimmy Huntington. You look for 20 those old cows. They've got a swayed back. The guys 21 that know what they're doing can -- and you don't ever 22 shoot a cow with a calf following it. It's going to be 23 skinny. You don't shoot those. So you look for those 24 dry cows. 25 26 When I was a kid we used to have a two 27 moose limit. We'd look for dry cows and we'd look for 28 those sway back old cows. They're really fat, they're 29 really good and they don't produce calves anymore. 30 They're 14 or 15-year-old cows or something. Going for 31 dry cows would be the objective of the proposal if we 32 do submit the proposal. 33 34 Other comments. Tommy. 35 36 MR. KRISKA: Yeah, you could tell 37 between the pregnant cows or the barren cows and the 38 cows that have -- just by experience. A lot of the 39 people that possibly will go out there anyway have a 40 lot of experience in there. We talk on a daily basis. 41 We call each other about the wolves and what way 42 they're going and all that on a daily basis. We run 43 across moose and phone calls to each other and say, 44 man, if the season was open there's a barren cow right 45 over there. Everybody drives by them. Actually as 46 days go by you always driving. I mean these guys that 47 fly around and see moose in certain areas and it seems 48 like they always hang out there. There's a way to 49 prevent the cows that get shot that's pregnant. 50






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1 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Other questions 2 about Koyukuk/Nowitna's presentation. 3 4 MR. HONEA: Mr. Chair. 5 6 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Go ahead, Don. 7 8 MR. HONEA: Yeah. Hey, Brad and 9 Jeremy. I appreciate that. I was glad to hear the

10 update of the prosperity of the bison down there. We 11 as a tribe have always been open to bison. Bison 12 studies are bringing bison in here, whether it was 13 bison or reindeer. We're working on both of them. 14 15 But anyway, I just had maybe a comment 16 about all the information. You guys gave us a whole 17 bunch of information, as you usually do here. The 18 thing is, to me, I mean I think that outreach -- you 19 mentioned outreach. We haven't had outreach it seems 20 like within our villages. I don't know what McGrath or 21 Grayling or what you guys think about it. We have the 22 RITs and I mentioned this before and it seems like all 23 the information that you are giving us I think that we 24 could certainly use. Whether it's a tribal council 25 meeting or just a meeting of the public. 26 27 We heard from somebody yesterday 28 morning or afternoon that is an RIT in the Lower Yukon 29 or Delta where they have an outreach program that is 30 pretty strong. I just wanted to comment on that. I 31 wish there was more outreach with our villages and 32 that's my comment. I appreciate you guys. I know our 33 numbers here are stable and that one question by you 34 guys recently, we don't have need for a winter hunt at 35 this time. This winter our numbers came in pretty good 36 in the fall time. 37 38 So I just wanted to comment on that. 39 40 Thank you. 41 42 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Say, Don. I really 43 appreciate those comments. Those are excellent. So, 44 Jeremy, you can respond to the outreach to the 45 community issue that he's bringing up. Brad. 46 47 MR. SCOTTON: Mr. Chairman. Mr. Honea, 48 through the Chair. Thank you for the comments. I do 49 appreciate that. Honestly, I think it's probably been 50






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1 two years at least since I've gone to Ruby to do a 2 presentation and I'm more than happy to do that. 3 4 By way of an excuse we have been sort 5 of struggling with an understaffing issue and travel is 6 difficult for that reason with the other obligations. 7 Also Jeremy has been working hard to get the RIT 8 program up and running. One of the goals if we get 9 someone hired in Galena is to travel a little bit more

10 and take the presentation out and get more feedback. 11 12 I do certainly appreciate your comments 13 and I'm glad you're on the line to participate and 14 listen to what's going on. So we'll certainly try to 15 help you out. 16 17 MR. HONEA: Okay. I just wanted to 18 mention that because our number in the past when you 19 had maybe Boomer on board and others there, you guys 20 came up and we had -- maybe it was an AC meeting, but 21 you presented all of these things and, you know, this 22 is good knowledge. What's happening now is just 23 because I'm on the teleconference here and on this RAC 24 I'm hearing about this stuff, but the other members 25 don't. So it's just something that I think is needed. 26 27 Thank you. 28 29 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Thanks, Don. Well, 30 if you get your RIT, then you can send that person up 31 there more often. 32 33 Go ahead, Jeremy. 34 35 MR. HAVENER: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 36 Just to speak to that a little bit. We did hire an RIT 37 in the Galena area. She's stationed out of Huslia. 38 She got hired back in February, so she's still getting 39 some training and kind of learning the program a little 40 bit. If there are interests, we'd be more than happy 41 to talk to folks and kind of work something out and try 42 to get over there and put on a program. 43 44 So thank you for those comments, Mr. 45 Honea. 46 47 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: She can travel? 48 49 MR. HAVENER: Yeah, she'd have to 50






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1 travel commercially or maybe we could even look at an 2 in-house flight with our pilots. 3 4 MR. STEVENSON: Mr. Chair. 5 6 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay, go ahead 7 there, Zach. 8 9 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. Did

10 I hear correctly that the potential increase in moose 11 population that you saw in region may have had some 12 link to fire behavior? 13 14 MR. SCOTTON: Yeah. A major burn that 15 occurred 12 years ago, 2005, on the Kaiyuh Flats has 16 really come on and really changed the habitat from a 17 lot of black spruce over to earlier succession brushy 18 stuff. So we're seeing significant changes in the 19 habitat, which is probably helping with the 20 productivity and the wintering habitat capacity of some 21 of that Northern Innoko Refuge or Kaiyuh in particular. 22 23 And then Nowitna two years ago or three 24 summers had a major fire season. Ten years from now 25 that may potentially sort of change the population 26 dynamics on the Nowitna, but you don't really know 27 until some time passes. 28 29 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you. Through the 30 Chair. Was that part of the fire management strategy 31 for the Refuge? 32 33 MR. SCOTTON: Not exactly. We do have 34 a fire management officer based there and we do have 35 some specific plans, like protecting caribou winter 36 range. Most of the area that's not protected because 37 of its land status, like the Native lands are protected 38 along the river, the rest of it that's Federal land or 39 away from population centers or allotments is in a 40 category that allows it to burn. That summer was just 41 a dramatic fire season. 42 43 I guess that fire in particular we did 44 do some active management on it in that we back-burned 45 near Galena to prevent it from just spreading on its 46 own volition. We picked the right weather conditions 47 and they back-burned about 40,000 acres near Galena 48 back over towards Pilot Mountain, which has all turned 49 into really beautiful moose habitat as a result, but we 50






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1 can't take full credit for it. Mother Nature did most 2 of the work by starting the fire in the first place. 3 4 We do have fire management plans on all 5 the Refuges and that was allowed to burn because we had 6 a plan in place and there was no reason to put it out 7 given where it started. So that's a long-winded answer 8 to a short question, I guess. 9

10 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. We've got to 11 go to lunch pretty quick here. We've got a big agenda 12 in front of us and some other things. One more 13 question there, Tim. 14 15 MR. GERVAIS: Thank you, Mr. Chair. On 16 the beaver count, a lot of beaver habitat, the sloughs 17 that are joining the Yukon River, that used to be 18 wildlife refuge and in the 2000s some of those areas 19 were conveyed over to Doyon. Are they still part of 20 your count areas or once it becomes Doyon do you not 21 count beaver in there anymore? 22 23 MR. SCOTTON: Mr. Gervais, through the 24 Chair. Our trend areas and our population estimate 25 boundaries for all species generally are designed 26 without regard to land status. I mean functionally we 27 operate mostly on the Refuges, but we cooperate with 28 the State on almost everything. So we survey 29 populations and don't worry about where they live. So 30 like the trend areas that happen to be on Doyon or 31 private land, we still survey them. They're within the 32 Refuge boundary. 33 34 We do surveys that are completely 35 outside the Refuge boundary occasionally if there's a 36 nexus to the Refuge. So the State lands that are 37 adjacent to Koyukuk are part of our surveys. When we 38 cooperate in 21E off the Refuge, a lot of 21E is on BLM 39 or State land down there and we just cooperate because 40 we want to know what the populations are doing. So we 41 continue to do those regardless of changes in land 42 status. 43 44 MR. GERVAIS: All right. Thank you. 45 46 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. That 47 completes that presentation. I really appreciate 48 Koyukuk/Nowitna/Innoko's work. You're doing really 49 good work. Absorbing Innoko was a big process, so I 50






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1 feel that you're doing well down there. 2 3 So we're going to go for a one-hour 4 break for lunch. So that clock on the back of the wall 5 says 25 after, so 25 after 1:00 we're going to be back 6 on the record because we've got a lot of stuff to do 7 before -- we don't want to be going until midnight. 8 9 (Off record)

10 11 (On record) 12 13 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I'm going to start 14 this meeting. I've got a couple Council members out 15 but we've got a ton of agenda to go. Tim and Ray are 16 gone. So we'll just going to keep rolling here. We've 17 got Kanuti National Wildlife Refuge that's going to 18 give us an update. Our past Council Coordinator Vince 19 Mathews is going to give us the presentation. 20 21 Go ahead, Vince. 22 23 MR. MATHEWS: I just need to check and 24 see if Brandon Bosch is online. 25 26 MR. BOSCH: Yes, Vince, I'm here. 27 28 MR. MATHEWS: I'll introduce Brandon 29 Bosch. He's the Refuge law enforcement officer. He'll 30 just share real briefly what his background and duties 31 are and then we'll go from there. 32 33 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Yeah, go ahead, 34 Brandon. 35 36 BRANDON BOSCH: Good afternoon, Mr. 37 Chairman and Council members. I'm Brandon Bosch 38 stationed in Coldfoot, Alaska and attached to Kanuti 39 Wildlife Refuge, Yukon Flats and Arctic Refuge. Can 40 you hear me okay, Mr. Chairman? 41 42 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: We can hear you. Go 43 ahead. 44 45 BRANDON BOSCH: I just want to thank 46 everybody for the time to speak before the Council. My 47 apologies for not being there in person. Budget 48 restrictions make calling in a little more feasible. 49 50






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1 I'm here today to give the board an 2 update on U.S. Fish and Wildlife Refuge law enforcement 3 for the previous year in 2017 and our plans going 4 forward in 2018 in the area. I'm only here to speak on 5 behalf of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I'm also 6 attached to the Park Service as an auxiliary officer 7 for Gates of the Arctic, but I'm just here in Fish and 8 Wildlife capacity. 9

10 In 2017, Fish and Wildlife officers 11 conducted the following patrols. Officers conducted 12 village outreach visits with elders and the public 13 while answering questions in mid May ahead of the Yukon 14 River chinook salmon season. Villages contacted were 15 Galena, Holy Cross, Anvik, Grayling, Kaltag, Nulato, 16 Koyukuk, Ruby and Galena. 17 18 Officers conducted law enforcement 19 patrols via boat and aircraft along the Yukon River in 20 mid June and around the villages of Galena, Holy Cross, 21 Anvik, Grayling, Kaltag, Nulato, Koyukuk and Ruby. 22 Illegally caught fish were donated to an elder in the 23 village of Koyukuk. Documented violations included 24 fishing during a closed season and net mesh larger than 25 what was permitted. In all, we spoke to approximately 26 300 people. 27 28 Fish and Wildlife officers also 29 patrolled the Innoko National Wildlife Refuge in a 30 float plane during the first week of the moose hunt 31 season in Unit 21A, 21D. The officer contacted 26 32 people and observed a total of 36 people on the Innoko 33 River. One verbal warning was issued for abandoned 34 property. Property left longer than 12 months on the 35 Refuge. Overall compliance was good. 36 37 In August, officers conducted several 38 patrols along the Dalton Highway Corridor during the 39 open caribou/sheep season. Documented violations 40 included failure to possess age-dependent bow hunter 41 safety course certificates and failure to transfer 42 animal harvest tag numbers. 43 44 Several fall hunting patrols were 45 conducted in and around Kanuti Wildlife Refuge via 46 boats and aircraft. Village visits that were conducted 47 also included the villages of Bettles, Evansville, 48 Allakaket and Coldfoot. Documented violations were no 49 hunting licenses while hunting, failure to possess 50






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1 moose harvest tags while in the field and for boating 2 safety violations. Mainly personal floatation devices. 3 Overall compliance was good. 4 5 Meat salvage efforts and techniques 6 were good. Thirty-eight hunters were contacted. 7 Several post freeze-up snowmachine and aircraft patrols 8 were conducted in around Kanuti Wildlife Refuge. It 9 included Dalton Highway, Bettles Winter Trail and the

10 South and Middle Forks of the Koyukuk River. 11 12 Fish and Wildlife would like to remind 13 hunters to forward along their harvest tag reports to 14 the appropriate agencies in a timely manner. We also 15 ask people to be mindful of their personal safety and 16 wear their personal floatation devices when they're on 17 boats hunting on rivers and lakes. 18 19 Looking ahead to 2018, Fish and 20 Wildlife officers will once again be on the Yukon River 21 in July working with ADF&G to ensure that United States 22 contractual agreements are upheld in agreement with 23 Canada as it pertains to the chinook salmon. We remind 24 fishermen along the river to please mark their nets and 25 their fishwheels with their personal information. 26 27 Village outreach efforts will include 28 preseason hunting regulations dissemination, where to 29 obtain licenses and tags, how to report animals taken 30 and just be available for general questions and 31 answers. 32 33 Some goals, mine particularly, and a 34 few of the other officers is to offer villages 35 certified hunter safety courses on a rotating calendar. 36 Yukon Flats Refuge will be offering a course in Fort 37 Yukon this year. We would like to offer a similar 38 course in 2019 to villages along the Koyukuk River. 39 I've got Allakaket in mind if funds and interest 40 permits for that time period. 41 42 Furthermore, we will be again 43 conducting hunting patrols on Refuge lands within the 44 area. In addition to our normal patrols we will 45 incorporate a higher volume of patrols along the Dalton 46 Highway Corridor with our BLM and State Trooper 47 partners during hunting activities in and around the 48 peak. 49 50






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1 With that, thank you and I'll answer 2 any questions you may have. 3 4 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. Thanks for 5 your comprehensive report, Brandon. Anybody got 6 questions for enforcement. 7 8 (No comments) 9

10 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Don't see any. 11 Thank you so much. Go ahead, Vince. We'll be on 12 Kanuti's presentation, which is 6 of 10 in our tabs. 13 14 MR. MATHEWS: Yes. So if you look at 6 15 of 10 -- I'm going to just hit real quickly, but I do 16 want to recognize Allakaket and their efforts to make 17 sure of hunter compliance. So I want to recognize 18 that. That's the first part with the moose on there. 19 Again, it just shows working closely with the village 20 through the tribe you get high compliance. 21 22 I think you guys can look at the moose 23 population survey data, but the basic thing I'm taking 24 away from it is the overall moose numbers were up. 25 1,300 compared to 1,100. Kind of just giving you the 26 gross figures there. You can look at the bull/cow 27 ratio down in the table below. So I'll leave that up 28 to you if you have questions on it. 29 30 Then basically they're looking at using 31 cameras for -- use of six more cameras with aircraft 32 visiting the different sites where they are and 33 collecting pictures. So that's a new project that's 34 going on and Yukon Flats has done a more extensive use 35 of that and they'll be making a special presentation to 36 Eastern Interior. 37 38 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Is that for 39 waterfowl censussing, high-definition cameras or what 40 are these cameras for? 41 42 MR. MATHEWS: Oh, these are for mammal 43 surveys. If you look in -- I apologize, I didn't put 44 page numbers on here. It would be page 3. It says 45 mammal surveys and development. So it would be for 46 mammal..... 47 48 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Oh, trail cameras. 49 50






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1 MR. MATHEWS: Yeah. They're trail 2 cameras and I believe they're quite expensive, but if 3 Brad was here he would know more about it. They're not 4 the ones you pick up down the road here. 5 6 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Right. 7 8 MR. MATHEWS: And then they're looking 9 at a lynx collaring project and they're hoping to

10 collar 20 lynx with satellites to track their 11 movements. It appears to be, from a novice point of 12 view, the lynx populations are high across the state, 13 so they're looking at that in relationship to hare 14 populations. 15 16 I'll move on to the colored page there. 17 We do have a personnel change. Mike Spindler, the 18 Refuge Manager, who regularly attended this meeting 19 retired after 42 years with the Fish and Wildlife 20 Service, including 12 years as the Refuge Manager for 21 Kanuti. So he retired on January 3rd. Right now the 22 Deputy Refuge Manager Tina Moran is Acting and it is on 23 the list to fill that position, so stay tuned for the 24 appointment of the new Kanuti National Wildlife Refuge 25 Manager goes forward. 26 27 I'll leave the rest up to you on that. 28 29 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Stand by a second, 30 Vince. 31 32 MR. STEVENSON: Pardon me, Vince. My 33 apologies. I just wanted to make certain that everyone 34 in our audience is aware that the handout that we're 35 referencing right now is also accompanying this update. 36 It has a picture of a beaver and a black graphic in the 37 upper left-hand corner. It's also available on the 38 table of supplemental materials, Item 6 of 10. 39 40 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 41 42 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. Continue, 43 Vince. 44 45 MR. MATHEWS: Yeah, I don't know if you 46 have these other materials and I know you're busy, but 47 your Chair, Jack, requested some of this information. 48 So I'll kind of hold them up and they can be passed 49 out. He wanted information on moose movements on the 50






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1 eastern side of Unit 24. So the biologists for Arctic 2 and Yukon Flats gave me a bunch of different 3 professional papers. So I don't know if that got in on 4 the date for the book or not, so I'll pass them out. 5 6 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I was requesting the 7 Kanuti Park Service BLM study for Unit 24 telemetry 8 study, which we never did get a final report. 9

10 MR. MATHEWS: I think this is it. 11 There's variation and fine-scale movement of moose in 12 the Upper Koyukuk River Drainage. 13 14 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Yeah. You can just 15 pass that out. I want the Council to be aware of that. 16 That was a Council-driven proposal for many years to 17 get telemetry to find out where the moose are moving 18 because of all the high harvest of moose in the Dalton 19 Highway Corridor. We want to know what the trajectory 20 of these moose as they move in and out of the Dalton 21 Highway Corridor and other highly hunted areas around 22 the Kanuti and Gates of the Arctic National Park. 23 24 MR. MATHEWS: When you get this, 25 Council Members, the one page is just the abstracts and 26 that's not fair to the full study, but that gives you 27 an idea what they're saying is the key points taken 28 away from that study. I didn't make a lot of copies of 29 each of the studies, but Lisa has I think enough for 30 Council members. 31 32 For instance, if you're interested in 33 that variation of fine-scale movements and that, then 34 you would go to the full report after reading the 35 abstract and then we can connect you with some of the 36 people that actually did the study. So I don't want to 37 gloss over this, but this is what you guys' need data 38 resulted in these professional papers. 39 40 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: That's what I wanted 41 the Council to be aware of the study that occurred and 42 then we get an idea of what the moose movements are, 43 the timings and so forth. So we drove the proposal, 44 the Refuge system worked with the Alaska Department of 45 Fish and Game, did the study, but we never get the 46 results. So this is what I was wanting, was just the 47 results to be provided to the Council to look at. Just 48 look it over. 49 50






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1 Continue on with the rest. We're not 2 going to cover these studies. 3 4 MR. MATHEWS: No. And if in the future 5 you want a presentation on those studies with working 6 through Zach and that, we can do our best to have that 7 presented. The only other thing I was going to present 8 to you, and I don't think you got copies of it. I 9 apologize. I go to a lot of meetings and so I've got

10 to cover -- anyway, I don't think you got this one. It 11 can be passed out. It's on the Arctic National 12 Wildlife Refuge. Most of it does not apply to your 13 area, but your interest in sheep, so that's on Page 2 14 and 3. So I'll just hand that out to you. 15 16 Again, speaking for the three Refuges I 17 work for, if there's anything else you need or if these 18 are not meeting your needs, these summaries, please let 19 us know. It is an effort for staff to do this and I'll 20 be honest, having a December 11 due date for these 21 materials for this meeting was difficult to meet, but 22 we'll 23 meet those either directly through OSM or through other 24 ways. If there's something else you ever need, just 25 let us know. 26 27 So, with that, I'll be open to 28 questions and wondering one day I'll get a purple name 29 tag. 30 31 (Laughter) 32 33 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I wanted this Arctic 34 Refuge report because part of the Porcupine Herd has 35 been starting to move into the Unit 24, so I want to 36 keep tracking with the sheep populations in the Arctic 37 Refuge because the Arctic Refuge comes right up really, 38 really close to our region and we have customary and 39 traditional use in 26B for certain region members. 40 41 So the Council can look over this 42 report also. Just kind of get an idea of what's going 43 on with the Arctic Refuge and about this Porcupine Herd 44 expanding herd, which is a positive thing. 45 46 Any questions for Vince on his report. 47 Shirley. 48 49 MS. CLARK: This is kind of a broad 50






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1 question. We see that the moose populations are all 2 healthy and great. How long do you think before all 3 these wolves that are around are going to affect them? 4 5 MR. MATHEWS: You had an expert in 6 front just before lunch on that and I think he answered 7 that question there, but I think Jack addressed it too. 8 My personal opinion is that use patterns have changed 9 and use patterns on trapping, which would have been

10 using Jack's balancing thing, has changed. So I would 11 say there's going to be a change in populations because 12 people aren't utilizing those populations. 13 14 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: For the Koyukuk area 15 there was lots of snow this year. The snow is really 16 firm and the wolves are on top and the wolves are 17 killing moose and the wolves are really fat. There's a 18 lot of rabbits, so they'll be able to raise a lot of 19 pups. So we're going to look at a pretty significant 20 increase of wolf recruitment this next summer. I'm 21 answering your question. That's what's going to 22 happen. We're going to see a lot more wolves. 23 24 MS. CLARK: My question was one or two 25 years when we start seeing a real downtrend. 26 27 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: That depends on how 28 deep the snow is. If the snow gets shallow again, the 29 wolves will beat themselves back up, but in the short 30 term we're going to see a big increase in wolves and 31 the hare population is going to crash and they'll have 32 a hard time feeding pups. If we get shallow snow 33 behind that, they'll eat themselves up. That's what 34 happens. Alaska Department of Fish and Game studied 35 that. 36 37 So we don't know what the snow depths 38 are going to happen, so you can't actually guess at 39 what -- if we get deep snow years in a series, then the 40 wolves really start building up heavy and then they 41 really cut into the moose population. So that's not a 42 known. We don't know that. Nobody can predict the 43 weather two years in advance. 44 45 Any other questions for Vince. 46 47 (No comments) 48 49 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Thanks so much, 50






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1 Vince. Appreciate that. 2 3 MR. MATHEWS: Thank you. I forgot I 4 probably will be leaving before the end of your 5 meeting. My other duties require I have to get back, 6 but generally I try to make all your meetings and I'm 7 definitely interested in the discussions on Ambler 8 Road. 9

10 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. Appreciate 11 that report. So we've covered Yukon Delta yesterday, 12 so Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association covered 13 part of their presentation, so we're going to give them 14 five to ten minutes. We have to move into this 15 significant BLM interaction today also. 16 17 MR. JENKINS: Thank you, Chairman and 18 the Western Interior RAC. This is Wayne Jenkins, 19 Director of Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association 20 and Catherine Moncrieff, our anthropologist, and 21 Danielle Stickman, who directs our communications and 22 outreach. We have a PowerPoint that is not up. We, in 23 the interest of time, are going to cut our presentation 24 a good bit and work through it pretty quickly. 25 26 Most of you are very familiar with the 27 many programs that we're involved in and we'll get 28 started here in just a minute, I hope. 29 30 (Pause) 31 32 MR. JENKINS: Jack, I could go ahead 33 and start without it. 34 35 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Go ahead. 36 37 MR. JENKINS: We're just going to 38 briefly describe each of the programs we're involved 39 in. I'm going to start with our preseason meeting and 40 everybody's pretty familiar with that annual meeting 41 that we have in conjunction with the fisheries 42 managers. We had a very successful meeting last year. 43 Our funding continues for a meeting this year that's 44 going to happen first week of May. 45 46 I think one of the interesting things 47 out of the meeting last year was it's the first time we 48 had heard anything about potentially using 7.5-inch 49 nets. Folks kind of welcomed that opportunity if we're 50






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1 able to meet all of our escapement goals. It was a very 2 good, strong run this year. We did meet escapement 3 goals. I think there are some people on the river that 4 still have questions about that and the effects it 5 might have on quality of escapement to Canada. But, 6 overall, it was a very healthy run. 7 8 The next project is our teleconferences 9 and the purpose of the teleconferences are to provide a

10 forum for people from the Yukon River to engage with 11 fisheries managers on sharing information about 12 subsistence and commercial harvest during the fishing 13 season. This is an FRMP project through OSM, which we 14 greatly appreciate your support on. This year it's 15 funded through March 31st of 2020. So a couple more 16 years of funding there for that project. 17 18 We continue to hear from both Yukon 19 River fishers and the managers how much they value the 20 information and the conversations shared on the summer 21 fishing calls. Next steps teleconference announcement, 22 posters and letters will go out to Yukon River 23 communities in May prior to the summer fishing season 24 and calls will begin in early June and last until the 25 end of August. 26 27 So the YRDFA building and maintaining 28 public support of the salmon resource management is a 29 pretty sizable grant that we have gotten for a number 30 of years. The purpose is to build and maintain public 31 support, meaningful participation and Yukon River 32 salmon resource management by maintaining community 33 capacity to participate by developing mutual 34 understanding between management agencies and the 35 public for encouraging conservation and stewardship of 36 the salmon resource. 37 38 The funding source is the Yukon River 39 Panel. It's their restoration and management fund. We 40 have funding through June 30th of 2018. Our 2019 41 proposal has been submitted. A decision will come in 42 April at the Yukon River Panel meeting, which is going 43 to be here in Anchorage. I think there's also going to 44 be a little bit of celebration in that it's the 15th 45 year of the Panel operating. 46 47 I'll just skip over to next steps. The 48 2018 YRDFA board meeting was held February 13th and 49 14th as part of this grant. Actions were taken on the 50






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1 Board of Fish proposals and seven resolutions were 2 passed. These will soon be shared with the public. 3 Board members will be taking part in the upcoming 4 preseason planning meeting, which I said earlier would 5 be in Anchorage, first week of May. 6 7 I'm going to pass the mic over to 8 Catherine. 9

10 MS. MONCRIEFF: This project is the in- 11 season harvest interviews and I think you guys are 12 pretty familiar with this because it's been going on 13 for quite a few years. It is a Fisheries Resource 14 Monitoring Program project. I think what's really 15 important for you guys to know about this project is 16 that we're getting ready to re-hire our surveyors in 17 these 10 communities; Alakanuk, Mountain Village, 18 Marshall, Russian Mission, Anvik, Huslia, Ruby, Tanana, 19 Fort Yukon and Eagle. 20 21 In a couple of these communities I am 22 going to be looking for new people. Ruby is one of 23 them. I know that's one of your regions. Tim, you're 24 here from Ruby. Maybe you'll help me identify a good 25 candidate. There may be one or two other communities, 26 but generally we have long-time surveyors who have been 27 doing a really good job and we're trying to build their 28 capacity. 29 30 We bring them into the preseason 31 meeting, make sure they're aware of all that's going on 32 there and do a training for them there where they can 33 all learn from each other. And it's been going really 34 well and we're getting good feedback about this program 35 both from the surveyors and I do an evaluation at the 36 end of the season to find out how people feel about 37 this program and what the value is. 38 39 What I'm hearing is that it's a really 40 good communication tool, both for the managers to get 41 information out into the communities and for the 42 fishermen in the communities to get information into 43 management in-season when the managers can use it. 44 45 Next slide, please. This is a project 46 that just finished. It's a Fisheries Resource 47 Monitoring Program also. It's a partnership with 48 Alaska Department of Fish and Game Subsistence Division 49 and Caroline is here also. We're just getting ready to 50






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1 print the final report. The conclusions of this 2 project are that we found that customary trade 3 practices vary broadly in terms of product sold, by 4 whom, to whom and for what reason. They're not easily 5 reduced to simple drainage-wide description and 6 important similarities in exchanges involving cash, 7 include being largely localized in nature, small in 8 scale and occasional in occurrence. 9

10 Then this is a project that also just 11 finished and I just wanted to make you guys aware that 12 there's some products out about it. This was six 13 elders, knowledgeable elders from the Lower Yukon met 14 in Anchorage to discuss their knowledge of king salmon 15 in Yup'ik for three days and we transcribed and 16 translated the results and we turned it into a 17 brochure, which was mailed to all the tribal councils 18 and all the schools in the Yukon River and I do have a 19 copy for you guys here if you want one. Then there was 20 a longer version for people who were more interested in 21 more information and we printed less of these. 22 23 Next slide, please. Then this is 24 another project that just finished. I just wanted to 25 alert you that the final results are out. I think you 26 each got a copy of this. This is how people of the 27 Yukon River value salmon in their own words. I found 28 that people of course most valued salmon as a food, but 29 it's a culturally-based food. 30 31 I think you guys were talking. You 32 said it really well earlier today. It's a 33 culturally-based food, but it's also a tool that people 34 use to share and teach their culture and it connects 35 their communities through sharing of the harvest and 36 all the intricacies that come along with it. 37 38 MS. STICKMAN: This is Danielle 39 Stickman and I'm going to be talking about the 40 Educational Exchange. I went on the Educational 41 Exchange to Canada this last summer and it was a really 42 huge success. So the Yukon River Panel funds this 43 Exchange and it's a way for people who live and use the 44 Yukon River and both U.S. and Canada to increase their 45 understanding of their neighbors' experiences and 46 challenges relating to supporting and maintaining 47 sustainable salmon runs to the spawning grounds in 48 Canada. 49 50






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1 The funding is through March 31st of 2 this year, so next month, and we submitted a proposal 3 and we'll find out about it at the next panel meeting, 4 which is in April. 5 6 I just have to say -- I don't know if I 7 shared this, but it was a wonderful experience that I 8 was able to participate in that and if we do get the 9 funding, our team will be working on the Canadian group

10 coming over, six Canadians, to Alaska in June and we'll 11 start having that itinerary drafted in April. You guys 12 all have the report on that. 13 14 Then this is the grant that I'm mainly 15 funded under. I think I reported to you guys about 16 this one before. But it's continuing pre-existing 17 education and outreach programs that YRDFA has used in 18 the past as well as creating educational workshops, 19 produce educational materials, research and organize 20 information. This was originally supposed to end 21 December 2017, but we extended it to this December 22 2018. 23 24 We've learned a lot from that and again 25 it's in the report, but we learned a lot about young 26 adult fishers, not youth. Young adults is ages 18 to 27 40. They don't really use social media as much as we 28 thought, so we're trying different avenues of 29 communication and education. We held one successful 30 workshop last year with our preseason meeting and we'll 31 be holding another one this year. 32 33 So I'm looking for two more young 34 adults ages 18 to 40 from either the Upper River or 35 Lower River. We have four other ones that went to the 36 last one that are committed to come to this next one 37 and participate and it's just been a really good 38 experience. Catherine is also working with me to 39 develop a young adult fishers handbook to help them get 40 oriented into these meetings. 41 42 And then Suzanne, Wayne and I touched 43 up on this work earlier yesterday. 44 45 That's it. 46 47 Thank you. 48 49 MR. JENKINS: Do you have any 50






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1 questions? 2 3 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Any questions for 4 YRDFA on the presentation by the Council. 5 6 (No comments) 7 8 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: It was a thorough 9 presentation. Final comments, Wayne.

10 11 MR. JENKINS: Well, just thank you very 12 much and we either put you to sleep or did a great job. 13 14 (Laughter) 15 16 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: You did a great job. 17 A picture is worth a thousand words. Danielle. 18 19 MS. STICKMAN: I just have one more 20 comment, Mr. Chair. There's some newsletters from the 21 fall on the back table as well as some new brochures. 22 I'll be having new newsletters around May and we'll 23 distribute them as they come in. 24 25 Thank you. 26 27 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I'd like to get a 28 copy of that. 29 30 MS. MONCRIEFF: I'll pass you those. 31 32 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay, thank you. 33 Thanks so much. We really appreciate all that YRDFA 34 does for the fishers of our region within the Yukon 35 River Drainage. 36 37 We're at the BLM presentations. The 38 first one is, A, North Slope Borough Right-of-Way 39 Request to the BLM for the Galbraith Airstrip. 40 41 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. I 42 wanted to be clear with the Council that Friday of last 43 week I received a letter, which was included in your 44 packets, dated February 9, 2018. The letter concerned 45 a request submitted by the North Slope Borough to BLM's 46 office in Fairbanks seeking to develop three winter 47 trails. There's a scoping period in that letter of 14 48 days and that would end -- if that scoping period were 49 pursued, that period would close on February 23rd. 50






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1 So I understand that Mr. Seppi -- 2 pardon me, Mr. LaMarr, who is not available to be here 3 in person, is joining us telephonically to address that 4 issue over the phone before the Council. 5 6 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Are you on the 7 phone, Tim LaMarr? 8 9 MR. LAMARR: Yes, Mr. Chair, I'm here.

10 11 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. We're going 12 to turn the mic up just a teeny bit and go right ahead. 13 14 MR. LAMARR: Okay. For the record, my 15 name is Tim LaMarr. I'm the Central Yukon Field Office 16 Manager for the Bureau of Land Management in Fairbanks. 17 18 This proposal from the North Slope 19 Borough came in the form of an application for right- 20 of-way submitted to our Arctic District Office, our 21 fellow office to the north of us in Central Yukon, for 22 three winter snow routes. They're requesting a 23 five-year authorization. 24 25 The three routes are -- two of them are 26 very far north. One is from Drill Site 2P at Deadhorse 27 to Utqiagvik, second one is from Utqiagvik to Atqasuk 28 and then the third route is from the Dalton Highway to 29 Anaktuvuk Pass. So the latter route lies within the 30 Central Yukon Field Office and the other two routes 31 lies within the Arctic District Office. 32 33 The application was received by the 34 Arctic District, so we -- our initial approach was for 35 the Arctic District to prepare an environmental 36 assessment to consider permitting the request, the 37 rights-of-way. With the assistance of the Central 38 Yukon Field Office, we would obviously be involved with 39 the Dalton Highway to Anaktuvuk Pass route. Their 40 desired timeframe was to get permitted by the end of 41 February. They want to start construction immediately 42 thereafter. 43 44 Since sending out the scoping letters, 45 the February 28th timeframe explains the short two-week 46 scoping period that I identified in the letter that we 47 sent out. But since sending out the scoping letter 48 we've confirmed actually Friday I confirmed this with 49 the North Slope Borough that they're resigned to not be 50






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1 able to construct the Dalton Highway to Anaktuvuk Pass 2 route this year were it to be permitted, but they still 3 want to construct the other two routes in the Arctic 4 District. 5 6 So what we're going to do at this point 7 is the Arctic Office is continuing on with the 8 environmental assessment to potentially permit the 9 other two routes on their February 28th timeline and

10 the North Slope Borough still wishes to be permitted 11 for five years for the Dalton Highway to Anaktuvuk Pass 12 route with first construction use to occur next year. 13 14 So what we're going to do is pull that 15 route out of the 16 current NEPA process for the other two routes and I'm 17 going to put it on a much more extended timeline for 18 the NEPA and it will be a separate environmental 19 assessment that we prepare here in the Central Yukon 20 Field Office. What I'm going to do is re-scope once I 21 kind of figure out what a reasonable timeframe is. 22 23 I'd like to extend it out as long as 24 possible to allow as much briefing public involvement 25 as to be prudent, but the BLM is also being pressed to 26 shorten our NEPA timeframes as permit applications walk 27 through the door. Right now I have to figure out what 28 a timeline is that kind of meets those two opposite 29 pressures in the middle. 30 31 My approach will be to extend -- well, 32 we'll go ahead if folks want to submit comments now by 33 the -- as per the letter that I sent out, by the 23rd, 34 we'll obviously accept them, but what I'm going to do 35 is re-scope the project for a more extended timeframe 36 later. In talking to Zach, I understood the time 37 pressure associated with that original timeframe, so 38 we're trying to be more inclusive of considering input 39 from various folks from the public and various 40 entities. 41 42 So that's kind of where we are with the 43 project now. Once we set up the timeline we'll send 44 out scoping letters to you all and I think we're going 45 to add to the mailing list that we sent out before. 46 There's some questions that I have about the route that 47 I need to run by our solicitor and there are some 48 questions that I want to visit with ADF&G with regard 49 to hunting regulations in the Dalton Highway Corridor 50






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1 Management Area related to this proposal and a couple 2 other things. 3 4 At this point, just maybe a couple key 5 aspects of the route. It would originate from 6 Galbraith Lake area. The proponent is the North Slope 7 Borough. They're proposing crews construction to 8 construct and maintain the route. They acknowledge the 9 need for various permits in their applications.

10 They're pursing the permits from other entities, 11 including ADF&G for fish habitat permit. So there will 12 be some water withdrawals necessary to construct river 13 crossings in a couple of locations on the route. 14 15 The proposal is for non-commercial use 16 of the trails in the form of escorted convoys. So the 17 Borough was planning to, once the route is established, 18 have escorts at front and at the end of a 10 to 15 19 personal vehicle convoy once per week is what they're 20 anticipating. The guides or the escorts will run a GPS 21 lined route of the finalized route to manage the use 22 and everyone staying on the route as constructed and 23 proposed. 24 25 They plan to track the names of drivers 26 and types of vehicle used and numbers of passengers. 27 They want to get a feel for the use. Their planned 28 season of use is approximately February to mid April. 29 So that was the information I wanted to provide up 30 front and maybe take questions at this point that you 31 might have. 32 33 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: My concern is that 34 it would be a route that's -- what is the proposed 35 trail? It's going to be bladed right to the ground, 36 take the tussocks off the ground or is it just strictly 37 an ice road? They pack it with a Rolligon or 38 something? What is the impact to the surface that 39 they're talking about? 40 41 MR. LAMARR: Yeah. So I would suggest 42 in the scoping letter that we sent out we put in a 43 website link to the BLM's Arctic District Office 44 planning website and that link takes you right to a 45 couple documents that include the project proposal from 46 the proponent and it details out a lot of that stuff. 47 48 I'm not always prone to optimism, but 49 one thing that we do know is that Cruz Construction is 50






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1 pretty reputable and responsible with the way they 2 build these roads, so I was kind of encouraged to hear 3 that that's what they're proposing, the constructor and 4 maintainer of the road. 5 6 What they are proposing to do is pre- 7 pack snow. Part of it is snow where necessary. They 8 talk about using snow fences and starting with a couple 9 of groomers, PistenBully 400s, Tiger Case tractors and

10 snowcats to kind of be the equipment that they use to 11 construct it. They recognize again the need for water 12 to construct crossings at several different rivers that 13 they've identified in the proposal. So it would be an 14 over-the-tundra snow route is the proposal. 15 16 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: My other question is 17 is the BLM going to require barrier and gating at that 18 road because every last hunter that drives up that 19 Dalton Highway if that road is sitting there wide open? 20 21 MR. LAMARR: That's something we have 22 talked about in the first couple meetings that we've 23 had on this. We're certainly open to suggestions and 24 input from the public on that. So yeah, I mean that is 25 something that is already something that we've talked 26 about. 27 28 We also are coordinating with Alaska 29 DNR because the majority of the route was on State 30 lands. So we're going to be coordinating with them on 31 their terms and conditions that they have for 32 consideration if we approve the route for consideration 33 with our authorization as well. 34 35 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: The general public 36 is -- that road is open to the starting point. The 37 Galbraith Road under board regulations hunters can 38 access to that gravel pit at Galbraith Lake by 39 regulation. Beyond that they would not legally be 40 permitted, but that doesn't mean anything. Guys will 41 drive across tundra to pick up caribou. They do all 42 kinds of crazy stuff. If they see a road like that 43 without a gate on it, they will drive on it. You build 44 it, they will come. 45 46 Like any of the rest of those access to 47 the pipeline, there's rocks and things that barrier 48 from driving around that. It also has a steel gate. So 49 when SRC or whoever is going to convoy, they open the 50






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1 gate, they let their people through, they shut the 2 gate, they lock it so nobody is going to keep going in 3 there when they're not there every week. So that would 4 be a significant deterrent to keeping the public from 5 using this road at will. 6 7 So I look forward to looking into that 8 website and making comment. Would this Council be able 9 to make comments in our fall meeting or your scoping

10 period would be closed by then? Our meeting is in mid 11 October of 2018. 12 13 MR. LAMARR: That's a good question. I 14 would probably shoot to try and permit it, if I do 15 permit it, in the fall. So I don't know if that 16 October date for verbal comments would fit the 17 timeline. If folks want to make comments now, I'll 18 take comments now, but I would also -- again, I need to 19 kind of take a look at a prolonged scoping period for 20 primarily written input. 21 22 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. I will plan 23 to make written input. But this popped up on 24 everybody's radar screen. 25 26 MR. LAMARR: I agree. 27 28 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: So I do feel initial 29 stuck at one is a barrier gate to keep the public from 30 driving around that gate to keep everybody away from 31 using the road randomly. That's a given. That has to 32 be in place. My concern is that once the snow road is 33 in that somebody will talk the Board of Game into 34 allowing the public to use the snow road when it's 35 open. 36 37 You're going to get into rescues. 38 Vehicles are going to get stuck, drifted in, because 39 they're not going with the convoy. Yet, when they get 40 outside the Dalton Highway Corridor five miles out, 41 then they're legal to drop snowmachines and begin 42 hunting with firearms. So then you would open up 43 Pandora's Box. So I have a lot of concerns about Board 44 of Game action opening that ice road once it's in 45 place. 46 47 Those are futuristic comments, but I 48 want this Council to be aware that the Dalton Highway 49 is closed to all-terrain vehicles and firearms five 50






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1 miles on each side of the road and that's what keeps 2 everybody in the box. If a road extends outside the 3 five mile line, there could be hundreds of snowmachines 4 dropped off and they'll go extensively across the North 5 Slope hunting caribou at will. So that could be a huge 6 impact on caribou that are migrating over the Brooks 7 Range in February through March, coming out from 8 Anaktuvuk Pass and other places, and transecting this 9 snow road.

10 11 So those are some of my concerns that 12 I'm voicing on the record. Go ahead. 13 14 MR. STEVENSON: Mr. Chair. This is 15 Zach Stevenson. I just wanted to clarify so that we can 16 follow through in due diligence on Council comments. 17 Did Mr. LaMarr specify a date when those written 18 comments are due? 19 20 MR. LAMARR: I did not. What I'm going 21 to do is reset the schedule. We're going to break out 22 this road in a separate EA on its own, so it will have 23 its own timeline and its own process and I'll be able 24 to notify you of that once we figure out what that 25 timeline would be. But there will be extended scoping 26 associated with the new timeline. 27 28 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Council member 29 Thomas has a question. Go ahead, Dennis. 30 31 MR. THOMAS: I would hope that you 32 would dig into this a lot more and have an awful lot 33 more information for us before we'd even consider this 34 thing. As Jack said, the other people said, this could 35 really open up a bucket of worms for the people who 36 live up in that area for those that want to use that 37 exclusively for personal use type thing. You would 38 have just like caravan after caravan after caravan 39 going through that thing. Like Jack said, wherever 40 there's a road somebody is going to go. So make sure 41 you have the right information for us. 42 43 Thank you. 44 45 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Another concern is 46 the legal aspect of the North Slope Borough opening a 47 convoy. What stops the general public from joining the 48 convoy to get outside the Dalton Highway Corridor. 49 There's no -- I mean they can't just like pick and 50






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1 choose who's going to go with them on their convoy. 2 They might have 100 vehicles wanting to go with them 3 and they'd have a legal right to it too. 4 5 So these are some serious concerns that 6 I have for this thing that the Central Yukon should be 7 considering in the EIS. I think you need a significant 8 comment period so I can come up with plenty of reasons 9 that you're going to have to have like lots of plugs to

10 plug into this dam that could just burst if you didn't 11 do it right. 12 13 So I think we've covered -- oh, one 14 more comment there, Tim. Go ahead. 15 16 MR. GERVAIS: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 17 Mr. LaMarr, has the North Slope Borough indicated their 18 main objective to having these convoys? What kind of 19 things are they transporting? 20 21 MR. LAMARR: Right. So there's no -- 22 the proposal is not to allow any commercial traffic. 23 It's just to allow personal vehicle traffic for people 24 to travel into and out of the villages. 25 26 MR. GERVAIS: Like they're not hauling 27 construction material or diesel fuel, it's just..... 28 29 MR. LAMARR: Correct. 30 31 MR. GERVAIS: I don't even know what it 32 would take. Sno-Gos. 33 34 MR. LAMARR: That's correct. That's 35 the proposal. 36 37 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. I appreciate 38 you being on the call to enlighten us further at what 39 point in the process you're at there, Tim. I think 40 we've covered that one. 41 42 We're going to go into status update 43 for the Central Yukon Resource Management Plan and 44 Environmental Impact. Are you doing that one also? 45 46 MR. LAMARR: Yes, sir. And I 47 appreciate the comments from the Council on this 48 proposal. I did take some notes. It's early in the 49 discussion period for BLM staff on how to address some 50






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1 of these issues. Like I said some of these are 2 questions -- we're starting to touch on some of the 3 topic areas that I want to visit with our solicitor on 4 as well. 5 6 So the Central Yukon RMP, our current 7 status is that we're still doing internal tweaks, if 8 you will, edits to the draft, alternatives based on 9 public input that we got about a year ago at the

10 meeting we got there. As well as a lot of input that 11 we've received from our cooperating agencies as well as 12 some internal reviews from other BLM staff at our state 13 office level. So we're still working on that. 14 15 There are a couple of items. We've 16 been really kind of hinging on the State of Alaska to 17 identify their priority selections, including the 18 priorities of their top filings in the utility corridor 19 for us to entertain and consider in our alternatives. 20 21 We were really pushing on them last 22 fall to get us input on that. They've given us a 23 timeline of January of 2018 to get us that input and 24 that time has come and gone and we have not received 25 that. The word that we've received is the State is 26 really no longer working on that re-prioritization of 27 their selections. They were working on that 28 re-prioritization statewide, so what they were telling 29 us was we don't want to tell you what the priorities 30 are for your area until we've completed the statewide 31 priority review. 32 33 So they were working on that and now 34 all of a sudden they aren't. So we're working with our 35 Acting State Director. She's going to work with the -- 36 she either has recently or is going to soon meet with 37 the commissioner of DNR to try and get a commitment 38 from them on what their timeline is to get us some 39 priorities for us to consider. 40 41 Another issue with the project at this 42 point is right now our timeline would put the draft 43 EIS, the draft Resource Management Plan and 44 Environmental Impact Statement out in spring of 2019. 45 The one barrier to that is we are working with a third 46 party contractor on this Environmental Impact 47 Statement, but the contractor is not funded all the way 48 to that stage. 49 50






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1 So we're waiting to see what kind of 2 funding we get in this fiscal year to potentially add 3 to the contract to get us to the point where we release 4 the draft. But we're not getting clear messages from 5 Washington on our relative priorities for funding on 6 that. 7 8 So that's the update. 9

10 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. 11 12 MR. COLLINS: Mr. Chairman. 13 14 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Go ahead there, Ray. 15 16 MR. COLLINS: My question is, if this 17 is for personal use, why the priority to rush this 18 through? Why couldn't they wait a year to do it? I 19 mean it's only going to be personal vehicles that are 20 going in and out. 21 22 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: You mean the 23 Galbraith Road? 24 25 MR. COLLINS: Yeah. 26 27 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: They're not going to 28 do it this year. That's why they've gone into the 29 slower EIS process. 30 31 MR. COLLINS: No, I mean the Anaktuvuk 32 one. 33 34 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: The Anaktuvuk Road 35 is not going to happen this year, so they're going into 36 a delayed process. That's why we've got more time on 37 that. 38 39 MR. COLLINS: Okay. 40 41 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: So as far as this 42 draft alternatives, the State is holding their cards 43 close to their chest and they're not sure what lands 44 they want to select now as a priority. You know our 45 feelings on lifting the 5150 for the Dalton Highway 46 Corridor. They've way over-selected. Under 1971 the 47 Secretary of Interior precluded that area from 48 selection by the State of Alaska and Native 49 corporations. 50






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1 So it's a matter of inequity that the 2 State of Alaska -- they weren't eligible to select in 3 1971. After 1971 they had until -- from 1959 to 1971 4 to select lands. They knew that pipeline was going 5 through there and they still didn't select it, 1968. 6 They had three years to select that land and they 7 didn't do it. Native corporations couldn't select 8 lands and the State of Alaska has no right to select 9 those lands.

10 11 The Secretary of Interior should 12 seriously consider that inequity in the deliberation of 13 lifting the 5150 for the Dalton Highway Corridor to 14 basically gift the State of Alaska the Dalton Highway 15 Corridor, which eliminates subsistence. Without a 16 Federal land status we completely lose subsistence. 17 It's a sport hunting only area otherwise. 18 19 The Alaska Department of Fish and Game 20 has told me that it's a priority for high-quality 21 hunts, period. Gary Haines with the Alaska Department 22 of Fish and Game told me that from Subsistence Division 23 years ago. Laughed in my face when we made proposals 24 to have subsistence hunts under the Board of Game 25 process before 1990. 26 27 I'm not a little unhappy with this 28 contemplation of giving that Dalton Highway Corridor to 29 the State. I'm a lot unhappy with that one because of 30 the inequities of not allowing the Native corporations 31 to select lands and also the detriment to subsistence 32 that it would do for Wiseman, Coldfoot, Bettles, 33 Allakaket and the communities that use that land and 34 have customary and traditional use of that land. 35 36 So I'm concerned about this as you 37 know, Tim. 38 39 MR. LAMARR: Yes. 40 41 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: But I'm stating that 42 for the record again. So thanks for that update. And 43 status report update for the Ambler Road Project. 44 45 MR. LAMARR: Yes, sir. I'll just 46 briefly -- thanks again for those comments on the RMP. 47 Many of the issues that you raised in your comments as 48 well as other comments you've provided will be 49 addressed in the Environmental Impact Statement and 50






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1 considered in the decisions that are made. So I'll 2 leave that at that and move on to the Ambler Road. 3 4 So, as folks may know, we've been in a 5 prolonged public scoping process for the Ambler Road 6 EIS. The scoping period ended -- it started at the end 7 of February of last year and it just ended at the end 8 of January of this year. So we had about an 11-month 9 scoping period.

10 11 We held 13 public meetings in 12 communities in November and December and then we added 13 two teleconferences in January, a couple weeks before 14 the end of the scoping period in an effort to reach out 15 to some of the other communities that we didn't visit 16 in person, particularly on the west side of the project 17 area in communities that are stakeholders with the 18 Western Arctic Caribou Herd. 19 20 In those teleconferences, I think we 21 did have participation involvement and comments from I 22 want to say 15 or 16 communities did call in to us and 23 we gave them a presentation overview of the project and 24 solicited comments and then a number of them also sent 25 in written comments as well. 26 27 So the scoping period has ended. We do 28 have a third-party contractor working with us on that 29 EIS as well. We received about 850 or 900 emails and 30 letters, over 5,000 form letters of various sorts and 31 then a lot of comments in the public meetings 32 themselves. The third-party contractor is now in the 33 process of going through those comments and pulling out 34 the substantive comments and preparing a scoping 35 summary report for us. 36 37 The scoping summary report should be 38 completed about mid April and posted -- once that's 39 completed it will be posted on our website for the 40 project, the BLM website for the project. Then we'll 41 be moving into some steps to take a look at the 42 substantive comments to consider altering draft purpose 43 and need for the project that we had presented on 44 during the public meetings as well as identify 45 potential sideboards for the alternatives that will be 46 considered in the context of the input that we've 47 received. 48 49 So that will be a process that occurs 50






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1 internally as well as with the cooperating agencies 2 involved and then I'll also add that about two weeks 3 ago we briefed the Assistant Secretary of Interior on 4 this project, Joe Balash. He has a keen personal 5 interest in this project. So Washington will - the 6 Department will continue to be involved with this 7 project moving forward on some of these key steps that 8 we have coming up ahead. 9

10 At this point our timeline remains to 11 have a draft EIS out in March of 2019 with a final 12 scheduled for December of 2019 and a record of decision 13 in early 2020. 14 15 So that was what I had upfront to say 16 about that. Any questions on that? 17 18 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: The Deputy Secretary 19 of Interior has a keen personal interest? What were 20 you alluding to? Financial interest? 21 22 MR. LAMARR: He's just interested in 23 tracking this project and us keeping him posted on the 24 progress of the project. 25 26 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. Understand 27 that. The Northern Environmental Center wanted to 28 comment on this. There's other people in the room that 29 may want to comment on this Ambler Road issue. This is 30 a big issue that would have huge impacts to the Western 31 Interior Region. This Council wrote a comment 32 submitted on the Ambler Road Project to the BLM. 33 34 On our agenda here we have Elisabeth 35 Dabney that wanted to speak to this issue. Are you on 36 the phone there, Elisabeth? 37 38 MS. DABNEY: I am here. 39 40 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Go ahead and speak 41 to the issue. 42 43 MS. DABNEY: Thank you so much. 44 45 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Speak louder and 46 state your name for the record. 47 48 MS. DABNEY: Elisabeth Foster Dabney, 49 executive director at the Northern Alaska Environmental 50






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1 Center in Fairbanks, Alaska. 2 3 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. You're on a 4 cell phone and you're a little bit wobbly, but go 5 ahead. 6 7 MS. DABNEY: I will try to keep things 8 more abbreviated given the technical difficulty. I 9 apologize. I thank you all for the opportunity to

10 present this afternoon. I wanted to present 11 specifically on the work the Northern Alaska 12 Environmental Center has been doing in regards to 13 advocacy for the proposed road and our key concerns 14 about the projects and I will highlight those. 15 16 These are abbreviated and I'm happy to 17 share with the Council offline our substantive comments 18 that were submitted to the Bureau of Land Management 19 during the scoping process that ended on January 31st. 20 21 22 The highlights of those concerns of the 23 Northern Center..... 24 25 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Standby a moment, 26 Elisabeth. We're having a little bit of a hard time 27 hearing you and we're trying to clarify your call 28 there. 29 30 MS. DABNEY: Okay. 31 32 (Pause) 33 34 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I would appreciate 35 it if everybody pushed *6 that wasn't speaking other 36 than Elisabeth. Go ahead, Elisabeth. 37 38 MS. DABNEY: I'll pick up with our key 39 concerns that the road crosses 2,900 streams, 11 major 40 rivers and 1,700 acres of wetlands. The road would 41 intercept migratory routes of three caribou herds, 42 including the Western Arctic Caribou Herd. 43 44 AIDA, the Alaska Industrial Development 45 did not provide in their permit application information 46 about what this project will look like or about the 47 potential impacts for the public to fully understand 48 the proposal. AIDA also claims and makes claims in 49 their permit that this would be a private haul road, 50






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1 but has yet to provide indication on how the road will 2 be kept private over the long term. 3 4 There is widespread local opposition to 5 this project at the time that comments were submitted 6 on January 31st. There were 17 community and 7 organizational resolutions against the road. A 8 petition had over 102,000 signatures opposing the road. 9 And we saw frequent in all of Alaska's major media and

10 regional newspapers letters to the editor and opinion 11 pieces as well as peer review research coming out 12 particularly about subsistence and the potential 13 impacts on wildlife. 14 15 The purpose of the road is to access a 16 mining district, so we had advocated within our 17 comments that the BLM should fully consider the impacts 18 of this mine and any infrastructure related to the mine 19 or the road would have in regards to acid rock 20 drainage. 21 22 Further, we have significant concerns 23 about the construction, maintenance and use of the road 24 in the river crossings and the potential negative 25 impact to vegetation, permafrost conditions in 26 waterways in the area. The road would cross Gates of 27 the Arctic National Preserve and the Kobuk Wild and 28 Scenic River. 29 30 Finally, and we heard a lot of this 31 coming in from the communities, that the proposed road 32 would run near communities but would not run directly 33 to the communities, meaning that the communities will 34 experience a majority of negative impacts and not 35 necessarily benefit from the road being in proximity to 36 their communities. 37 38 The Northern Alaska Environmental 39 Center and our Clean Water and Mining Program in the 40 context of resource and mineral development works with 41 their environmental policy laws and project provides 42 for the preservation of impacted ecosystems and 43 material in Arctic Alaska. We do this work at the 44 local, State and Federal level to ensure that mineral 45 resource development and permitting decisions protect 46 critical habitat, wild places and particularly cultural 47 values. 48 49 So on the agenda in regards to the 50






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1 advocacy and outreach, in the near term the Northern 2 Alaska Environmental Center will be -- our advocacy and 3 outreach will include legislative pressure, 4 particularly on potential AIDA oversight and organizing 5 and providing opportunity to partner with the local -- 6 this Northern Center but local communities to address 7 concerns in the form of an official resolution. The 8 Northern Center is positioned to be able to partner 9 with communities on that and provide information to

10 allow communities to either voice concerns or outright 11 opposition to the road. 12 13 I will conclude with, and something for 14 this Council to consider, is potentially formally the 15 EIS process in regards to the proposed road to Ambler. 16 17 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: This Council will be 18 tracking this project and we'll be making further 19 comments in the future. That's for sure. I appreciate 20 your comments before the Council. Any Council questions 21 for Elisabeth. 22 23 (No comments) 24 25 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Seeing none. Your 26 presentation was thorough. Does YRDFA want to present 27 the position that the board took? 28 29 MR. JENKINS: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 30 Wayne Jenkins with YRDFA. At our meeting last week, 31 out annual board meeting, the YRDFA board passed a 32 resolution unanimously opposing the Ambler Road. 33 34 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: And you work under a 35 consensus? 36 37 MR. JENKINS: Yes. 38 39 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: So unanimous? 40 41 MR. JENKINS: It was unanimous. 42 43 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. Thank you. 44 Any comments from Council members on the Ambler Road. 45 46 (No comments) 47 48 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: We've made comments 49 on the record in written form. Any further comments 50






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1 from Council members regarding the Ambler Road. 2 3 MR. THOMAS: I think everybody pretty 4 well said how we feel about it. 5 6 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: All right. On the 7 final draft we'll have additional comments, Tim? 8 9 MR. LAMARR: Yes, Mr. Chair. When the

10 draft EIS is released, there will be a 45-day public 11 comment period and that will be accompanied by another 12 round of public meetings to many -- well, most and 13 maybe even more communities than we visited during 14 scoping. 15 16 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Zach, go ahead. 17 18 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. I 19 wanted to get some clarification from BLM if that's 20 possible on when that draft EIS comment period will 21 open. The underlying concern behind that question is 22 this Council's next meeting is scheduled in early to 23 mid October of 2018. I want to determine whether or 24 not there will be sufficient time in light of that 25 upcoming meeting for the Council to speak on the record 26 to its comments on the draft EIS. 27 28 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 29 30 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: My understanding, 31 the final draft will be available in March of 2019. 32 33 Is that what you said, Tim? 34 35 MR. LAMARR: Yes, Mr. Chair. That's 36 the current schedule. That's the plan anyway, right. 37 You know how those things can change based on reality, 38 various realities that might set in, but that's the 39 project schedule at this time. So it would be March of 40 2019, the opening of the 45-day comment period. 41 42 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: But can a draft be 43 made available so that we can have time to review and 44 then make comment during -- our spring cycle is 45 typically from February through early March would be 46 the normal -- the RAC comments. If it came out in mid 47 March, it would preclude many RACs from even commenting 48 on it. 49 50






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1 MR. LAMARR: Yeah. The only way I 2 could see that happening would be if the schedule gets 3 accelerated and we get the draft out sooner. 4 5 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. All right. 6 Any further comments on the Ambler Road. 7 8 (No comments) 9

10 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I appreciate your 11 excellent update on that, Tim. Real concise. 12 13 MR. STEVENSON: Mr. Chair. 14 15 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Zach, go ahead. 16 17 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 18 I wanted to thank Mr. LaMarr for his update. I had 19 been in conversation with OSM and understand that in 20 the instance of Council need or desire for gathering 21 additional information there is a means for doing so 22 through the working group process should the Council 23 choose to exercise that ability. 24 25 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 26 27 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: It may behoove this 28 Council to develop a work group so that we can 29 telephonically track this and at our fall meeting it 30 may be apparent that we need to delegate authority to 31 that committee to make a comment on that after the 32 draft is released because we're not going to be able to 33 comment unless we have somebody to track this. 34 35 Would that work out, Zach? Is that 36 possible? 37 38 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. 39 Yes, Jack, that is appropriate and the procedure for 40 moving ahead in that direction to establish a working 41 group would require that to be introduced in the form 42 of a motion. If approved, defining who would be on 43 that council. 44 45 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 46 47 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Can we take this up 48 at our fall meeting though because we've got..... 49 50






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1 MR. STEVENSON: Certainly. 2 3 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: .....other issues 4 going on here. So we can load that into the agenda for 5 the next meeting and that work group could also work 6 with Donlin issues. 7 8 So I appreciate you being on the phone 9 there, Tim. We'll be looking into this further.

10 11 MR. LAMARR: Thank you, Mr. Chair. And 12 thank you, Council, for all your comments. I 13 appreciate the input and the opportunity. 14 15 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Thanks so much. So 16 we're on item D, Status Update of the Bering Sea 17 Western Interior Regional Management Plan Environmental 18 Impact Statement. 19 20 Go ahead and state your name for the 21 record. 22 23 MS. MILLION: Good afternoon. My name 24 is Bonnie Million. I am the field manager for the 25 Anchorage Field Office with the Bureau of Land 26 Management. Thank you so much for the opportunity to 27 come and provide updates on some of the other projects 28 that we've got going on with the BLM across the state. 29 30 If possible, I would like to start off 31 with a couple of introductions. We do have some new 32 staff with our Anchorage Field Office, myself included. 33 But we have Walker Gussy. We were able recently to 34 hire a new pilot ranger to assist with compliance 35 issues that we've got across Western Alaska. So I 36 wanted the opportunity to let everybody see his face 37 and know that he'll be reaching out to communities and 38 seeing how we can help in some of the areas out there 39 that we manage. So thank you, Walker, for coming down. 40 41 We also, for the Anchorage District, 42 our District Manager retired back in October and there 43 has been a new selection. His name is Thomas Heinlein. 44 He is coming to us from a BLM office down in Colorado, 45 but he does have Alaska experience. He worked for the 46 National Park Service up out of Nome and Kotzebue 47 several years ago. So we are hoping that he will join 48 us I believe in April of 2018, so just a couple of 49 months away and then we'll hopefully have him out to a 50






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1 fall meeting so he can meet folks in person. 2 3 So, with that..... 4 5 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: And then yourself. 6 7 MS. MILLION: Oh, myself. Oh, gosh. 8 So Bonnie Million. I am originally from the East 9 Coast, mid-Atlantic Region, Northern Virginia. My

10 folks are from -- my dad is from Illinois and my mom is 11 from China, but she was born and raised -- or raised I 12 should say in Thailand mostly. So from the mid- 13 Atlantic. I've got 15 years with the Federal 14 government. I've lived all across the western United 15 States. I worked for the Park Service up here before 16 based out of their regional office. So I've got a 17 little bit of a nomadic background, but really excited 18 to be back in Alaska. I'm really hoping to be able to 19 set down some roots and stop moving around so much. 20 It's getting a little tiring. So that's a little about 21 myself. 22 23 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I like to know the 24 background of who we're dealing with. I appreciate 25 that. 26 27 MS. MILLION: No, no worries. 28 29 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Bud Cribley came to 30 our village and I pretty much made him tell me who he 31 was and where he came from. Don't worry. 32 33 MS. MILLION: Sure. Well, I have a 34 botany degree as a background and I've served as an 35 ecologist and invasive species specialist and 36 restoration specialist in several different areas with 37 both the BLM and the Park Service. I really do have a 38 passion for plants and I'm always very, very interested 39 in learning about local uses and learning the different 40 flora in the area. So I'm very excited to be back up 41 in Alaska. 42 43 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Well, cool. Welcome 44 here. I'm glad you're wanting to put down some roots 45 because we hate retraining people. 46 47 MS. MILLION: I know the feeling. It 48 is definitely -- the revolving door of the Federal 49 government can get frustrating. I do appreciate 50






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1 everybody's patience. But I have some business cards 2 that I'll definitely hand out and if anybody has any 3 questions or any concerns that they would like to 4 address with the BLM, please do feel free to get in 5 touch. I'd be more than happy to try to track down 6 some answers for people. 7 8 Any other introductory? 9

10 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: No. Go right ahead. 11 12 MS. MILLION: Okay. So the first topic 13 is an update on our Bering Sea-Western Interior 14 Resource Management Plan. We released our newsletter 15 number 5, I believe, last August 2017. I brought some 16 additional copies in there. There were some updates 17 with some of the geological findings in the area, an 18 update of the locatable minerals report. 19 20 Our timeline for that project is slated 21 to have the draft EIS for release in 2019. For us it 22 will be late 2019 and we're hoping to have that 23 correspond with some of the fall meetings that will be 24 going on with the subsistence RACs and we'll have 25 another round of public meetings in communities to roll 26 out that project and there will be a public comment 27 period associated with that at that time. 28 29 We are in the analysis phase right now 30 as Tim mentioned for the Central Yukon RMP. Our 31 project is also funded through a third-party 32 contractor. We are, knock on wood, lucky in that we 33 were able to fully fund our contract with funding from 34 the end of the fiscal year last year. So we should, 35 barring any major change in priorities, be able to keep 36 on the timeline that we have. Again, knock on wood for 37 that one. 38 39 Are there any comments or questions on 40 the Bering Sea RMP at this time? 41 42 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Any comments. 43 44 (No comments) 45 46 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Seeing none. 47 Continue. 48 49 MS. MILLION: I had two other projects 50






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1 that are in this area that I would like to give an 2 update to the group on if you'll bear with me. First 3 is the Donlin Gold project, the final EIS for that is, 4 I believe, hopefully coming out in March of 2018. The 5 Army Corps of Engineers is the lead Federal agency for 6 that project. The Bureau of Land Management is serving 7 as a cooperating agency for that. 8 9 Again, the final EIS hopefully they're

10 planning on it coming out in March 2018. I believe the 11 Army Corps would like to release their record of 12 decision by August of 2018 and then the BLM record of 13 decision would potentially come out in September of 14 2018 for the pipeline right-of-way, which is the 15 portion of the project that falls under our 16 jurisdiction. 17 18 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. This Council 19 has had significant concerns about that pipeline and it 20 being used as an access route for four-wheelers and et 21 cetera. So we've made various comments on the Donlin 22 project. There's no further public comments in the 23 final Donlin March 2018. We'd have opportunity to 24 comment through what point? 25 26 MS. MILLION: So I believe with an 27 Environmental Impact Statement the public comment 28 period is associated with the Draft Environmental 29 Impact Statement. The public comment period is 30 associated with the Draft Environmental Impact 31 Statement. The Final EIS released does not have a 32 public comment period associated with it. The next 33 stage would be that once a record of decision is 34 released, if any affected party would like to appeal 35 the project, that that would be the next opportunity 36 for involvement. 37 38 I know the Donlin Gold company has been 39 very interested in hearing back from community 40 concerns. Dan Graham is the project manager that we 41 have been working with and he has always relayed to us 42 at least that he's very, very interested in hearing 43 back on if there are any design features that they can 44 include with the project that would aid in allowing 45 communities to feel better about the project as a 46 whole. 47 48 MR. THOMAS: Just a second. That 49 Donlin Gold Project I'm 10 miles from it in Crooked 50






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1 Creek and I don't remember anybody coming in there as 2 far as the pipeline is concerned where there's been 3 anything adverse to that. I don't know where it 4 crosses much of anything anyway out there. I mean any 5 villages per se. It crosses property like TKC and these 6 kind of thing, but other than that it has been pretty 7 good. As far as I know it's moving along fairly well 8 and let's hope it continues. 9

10 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Well, that's your 11 opinion. 12 13 MR. THOMAS: Well, I mean I live there 14 and I see what goes on with this thing, then I look at 15 that Ambler Road Project and I see what a mess that 16 would make, but where we're at I don't see where it 17 would really harm anything per se. Now if you have an 18 act of God, the thing falls apart, okay. This could 19 happen anywhere. But overall I think it's pretty well 20 under control. Again, that's what I see. 21 22 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Well, I appreciate 23 your opinion. 24 25 MR. COLLINS: Mr. Chairman. 26 27 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: It's a public forum 28 for comments and I appreciate your opinion, Dennis. 29 30 Ray. 31 32 MR. COLLINS: Yeah. It may not have an 33 impact there, but I have a dramatic impact up in the 34 headwaters because it goes right along the foothills 35 and they're already flying four-wheelers into Farewell. 36 So once there's a right-of-way every drainage in the 37 headwaters will see an impact from snowmachines even 38 though they're supposed to leave it -- it's like you 39 said. When they create a road, they'll come and 40 they're already expanding out wherever they can up 41 there. 42 43 We tried to get them to move it down in 44 the black spruce where it would have less impact on the 45 big game which is along the foothills, but that turns 46 out to be wetlands believe it or not, although I don't 47 know of any nesting there, but there's Federal 48 determination that that black spruce is wetlands, so 49 they couldn't pull it away from the mountains. I 50






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1 testified for Nikolai on their behalf. I guess that 2 hasn't changed. Black spruce is declared wetlands and 3 that was -- I couldn't figure out why. But further 4 down it may not have the same impact, but here along 5 the mountains it will have dramatic impact. 6 7 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: So that pipeline is 8 going to be directionally drilled underneath drainages, 9 is that the objective for this pipe?

10 11 MS. MILLION: I believe in certain 12 drainages it will be. They've got several different 13 methods I believe that they're attempting when it comes 14 to crossing drainages. 15 16 MR. THOMAS: They're going to try and 17 bury an awful lot of it through there especially where 18 they're crossing creeks and all this. They're going to 19 bury it. I guess the same thing under the Kuskokwim 20 River. That's what I've been led to believe. They're 21 going to run that under, not across things. So that's 22 better too. 23 24 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: That's what they're 25 talking about that Alaska in-state pipeline is drilling 26 it underneath the Yukon River. That's their objective 27 to do that, which is a gas line. But, yeah, there's 28 other impacts. There's all this arsenic, mercury. 29 That mercury there, that Cinnabar near where you live 30 there, there's going to be a lot of heavy metals, toxic 31 metals that are going to be stirred up in a huge dam. 32 33 That breaches, gets into the Kuskokwim 34 River, there will be a major impact to especially the 35 coho and the sockeye that utilize those side sloughs 36 and those side drainages in the Kuskokwim drainage. 37 There's potential for phenomenal impact in a fairly 38 seismically active area. 39 40 So basically we've got to wait and see 41 and then possibly appeal if things go sideways. That 42 would be the only recourse of the Council at this 43 point. 44 45 MS. MILLION: That is my understanding 46 of the process. I would encourage you to reach out to 47 the Army Corps of Engineers as they're the lead agency. 48 They recently had a change in their project manager. 49 Again, apologies for the rotating door for Federal 50






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1 government. But his name is Jamie Heaslip and I can 2 send Zach his contact information if that is something 3 that would be helpful. 4 5 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. Appreciate 6 that. 7 8 MS. MILLION: Sure. And then the last 9 project that I would like to give an update on is the

10 Red Devil Mine Remediation Project. We recently sent 11 out informational letters to members of the general 12 public and communities in the area notifying folks that 13 we have completed an initial investigation report and 14 feasibility study. So this would be an opportunity -- 15 it's not the formal public comment period for the 16 project proposal, but it's just sort of a status update 17 to interested communities on where we're at in the 18 process and what some of the outcomes from that 19 feasibility report were. 20 21 Currently we have one meeting scheduled 22 in Aniak for April 16th, one meeting scheduled for 23 Chuathbaluk on April 12th and I believe we'll also have 24 a representative who will be attending the Middle 25 Kuskokwim tribal gathering in Aniak on March 7th. But 26 if there are any other communities that would be 27 interested in hearing more about the project and the 28 status update on that, please do let me know. 29 30 MR. THOMAS: At Crooked Creek for one 31 because we're a lot closer to them than any of them out 32 there. 33 34 MS. MILLION: Okay. I will get you my 35 contact information and we'll set up a time to come out 36 and chat with folks. 37 38 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Bruce is sitting 39 here. Back to this Donlin issue. I'm concerned about 40 various -- you know, how many page document was that 41 EIS and you've read that thing? Yeah? Well, what are 42 some..... 43 44 MR. SEPPI: Several times. 45 46 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: What are some of the 47 high points for this Council? Correction, low points. 48 49 MR. SEPPI: Well, I guess I'm really 50






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1 not at liberty to say at this time. I did the 810 2 analysis. That will be included in the EIS although 3 it's gone through quite a stringent review process. So 4 you'll just have to read that when it comes out. 5 6 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I would appreciate 7 you sending me a link to that particular portion, the 8 810 analysis. 9

10 MR. SEPPI: It will be Appendix N of 11 the EIS. 12 13 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Would you transmit 14 that to our Council Coordinator..... 15 16 MR. SEPPI: Sure. 17 18 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: .....that specific 19 link when it does come out so that we can thoroughly 20 review that to make comment or appeal or whatever it 21 may take in regards to that so Zach can receive that 22 for us. I'd appreciate that because I really want to 23 look at that 810 analysis closely. 24 25 Go ahead, Zach. 26 27 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. 28 This question was for Mr. Seppi. Am I correct just in 29 terms of understanding the timing given that we have 30 this Council's next meeting scheduled for October of 31 2018 that the Donlin Final EIS was planned for March of 32 this year? 33 34 MR. SEPPI: Yes, that's right. 35 36 MR. STEVENSON: Okay. That being the 37 case, that the FEIS is planned for March, will the 38 period for substantive written comments from this 39 Council have passed by the time that they meet in 40 October? 41 MS. MILLION: So that's a question that 42 really should be directed to the Army Corps. Again, my 43 understanding of the process is that there is not a 44 public comment period associated with the Final 45 Environmental Impact Statement release, but I could be 46 mistaken on that. Jamie Heaslip, who is the project 47 manager with the Army Corps of Engineers, would be the 48 one to be able to more clearly answer that question. 49 50






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1 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Their record of 2 decision is in August of 2018, so they must have some 3 kind of a lag point. There's got to be some mechanism 4 to make comment. 5 6 MS. MILLION: Right. I can definitely 7 forward these questions on to Jamie and I'll let him 8 respond back to Zach and forward that answer on to 9 Council.

10 11 MR. STEVENSON: Mr. Chair. 12 13 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Go ahead, Zach. 14 15 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 16 And thank you, Ms. Million. Respectfully, my concern, 17 if memory serves me correctly, is that this document, 18 as stated at our previous meeting in October of 2017 in 19 Fairbanks, was approximately 5,000 pages in length. 20 I'm concerned that if that size of document remains at 21 that length that there will be sufficient time for this 22 Council, given that the FEIS period will close before 23 they meet in October, for them to provide any feedback, 24 assuming that option is available, to the Army Corps. 25 26 So I just wanted to bring that to the 27 Council's attention that I have a concern about timing 28 and being able to provide substantive comments, 29 assuming that's possible, given that timeframe and the 30 length of the document. 31 32 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 33 34 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Thank you. 35 36 Tim. 37 38 MR. GERVAIS: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 39 Bonnie, can you briefly explain what that means, that 40 term or time. You're saying record of decision. 41 42 MS. MILLION: So for the National 43 Environmental Policy Act for an Environmental Impact 44 Statement, the record of decision is the decision 45 document for the project as a whole. For environmental 46 assessments, the decision document is called a decision 47 record. For an Environmental Impact Statement the 48 record of decision is the item that allows the Federal 49 agency to move forward with permitting the project. 50






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1 So for the Army Corps I believe their 2 record decision believe their record of decision would 3 include the wetlands mitigation and outline their 4 wetlands process. The record decision for the Bureau 5 of Land Management would allow us to move forward with 6 permitting our portion of the right-of-way corridor 7 across BLM-managed lands. 8 9 MR. GERVAIS: So in general it means

10 the project is approved and then it states the various 11 steps that are going to allow the permitting to 12 proceed? 13 14 MR. MILLION: Correct. It would 15 outline any mitigation measures or permit stipulations 16 that would be required, which should be analyzed in the 17 Environmental Impact Statement as a whole. 18 19 MR. GERVAIS: Thank you. 20 21 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. Further 22 comments on that. 23 24 (No comments) 25 26 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I think we've 27 covered it. Appreciate your participation, Bruce. 28 29 MS. MILLION: Thank you so much. 30 31 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Welcome on board, 32 Bonnie. We'll see you along the way. Zach, should we 33 take a 10, 15 minute break and then clean up the rest 34 of this agenda. We've got Marcy Okada with the Gates 35 of the Arctic National Park. So we're going to take a 36 break. It's about 10 after, so we'll come back online 37 about 25 after. 38 39 (Off record) 40 41 (On record) 42 43 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: We're going to come 44 back on the record. Are you on the phone there, Marcy? 45 46 MS. OKADA: This is March. I'm on the 47 phone. 48 49 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Stand by. We've got 50






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1 to turn up your volume and speak closer to your phone. 2 3 REPORTER: And everybody else needs to 4 mute themselves. 5 6 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: And other people on 7 the phone push *6 because you're blotting out whoever 8 is presenting on the phone. So Marcy, open your mic, 9 speak into the mic closely, not on speaker and go right

10 ahead. 11 12 MS. OKADA: Okay. Good afternoon, Mr. 13 Chair and Council members. For the record, my name is 14 Marcy Okada, Subsistence Coordinator for Gates of the 15 Arctic National Park and Preserve. 16 I had submitted a handout to Zach for distribution. I 17 was wondering if you have it in front of you. 18 19 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: It's 8 of 10 in our 20 packet for the Council members. 21 22 MS. OKADA: And then I also want to 23 share that we'll be providing an Ambler Road update for 24 Gates of the Arctic as well and that will be presented 25 by Joe Durrenberger after I give my Park update. 26 27 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. Go right 28 ahead. 29 30 MS. OKADA: Okay. Gates of the Arctic 31 Subsistence Resource Commission met November 14th and 32 15th in Fairbanks. Two of the presentations shared at 33 this SRC meeting was by Toolik Field Station and the 34 Wildlife Conservation Society. Toolik Field Station 35 presented on the actual research station and the types 36 of research conducted out of the station. The Wildlife 37 Conservation Society presented a wolverine ecology 38 project. 39 40 The SRC also took action to submit an 41 Ambler Mining District access road comment letter to 42 the National Park Service and the Borough of Land 43 Management. The next SRC meeting is scheduled for 44 April 2018 in Allakaket. 45 46 Continuing on. There was a comparative 47 bear study, grizzly bear study done looking at spring 48 body composition of grizzly bear populations across 49 Kodiak, Katmai, Lake Clark and Gates of the Arctic. 50






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1 Results showed that Kodiak bears had twice the mass of 2 Gates of the Arctic bears while Katmai bears were 85 3 percent heavier and Lake Clark bears were 41 percent 4 heavier than bears in Gates of the Arctic. 5 6 This makes sense because Kodiak and 7 Katmai bears have access to substantial marine meat 8 resources, primarily salmon, and Lake Clark bears have 9 access to summer and fall runs of Bristol Bay salmon,

10 while bears in Gates of the Arctic use smaller runs of 11 chum and king salmon in the Noatak, Kobuk and Koyukuk 12 River drainages. 13 14 Another study on grizzly bears also 15 showed that Gates of the Arctic bears are nutritionally 16 limited compared to bears in Katmai and Lake Clark 17 region. 18 Moving on to the Dall sheep surveys. 19 Results from the July 2017 surveys indicate that Dall 20 sheep numbers continue to be very low in the 21 northeastern portion of Gates of the Arctic. Although 22 the ratio of lambs to ewe-like sheep has been higher in 23 recent years, the sheep population has not recovered 24 from the 2013 crash. 25 26 Estimated that there's about 1,000 27 sheep in the northeastern portion of Gates of the 28 Arctic, which is 65 percent fewer than what was found 29 in 2013. A recent paper showed that ewe-like sheep, 30 which consist of adult ewes, yearlings and very young 31 rams were declining slightly prior to 2013 and the lack 32 of ram recruitment and high ewe-like mortality in 2013 33 precipitated the population crash. 34 35 Since 2014 rams have also started to 36 decline, which is expected, as any male rams born 37 around the time of the population crash would now be 38 approaching half curl horn size had they survived. 39 However, there are some signs that sheep in southern 40 portion of Gates of the Arctic may be recovering based 41 on the higher sheep numbers seen during BLM surveys 42 near Wiseman. 43 44 The Park Service will continue annual 45 surveys in the northeastern portion of Gates of the 46 Arctic in order to monitor changes in sheep population 47 demographics. 48 49 I know I just sped right through that, 50






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1 but are there any questions at this time? 2 3 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Any questions for 4 Marcy on Gates of the Arctic's presentation. 5 6 (No comments) 7 8 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I am on the Gates of 9 the Arctic Subsistence Resource Commission and

10 participated in writing that draft comment on the 11 Ambler Road to the BLM and the Gates of the Arctic 12 National Park Service. For Council's information, 13 sheep population is really low. Of course, with three 14 blank years, 2013 killed all yearlings, killed all 15 lambs. The next year those ewes didn't have lambs. So 16 we have three cohorts completely gone. 17 18 So as we start to time out, you're 19 going to see that dip in the population, but we're 20 seeing really strong recruitments, especially this year 21 on lambs. Large lambs. And we have lots of wind this 22 year and no rain on the snow. The big deal is no rain 23 on the snow. We had big rain events back around 2013 24 also. 25 26 So the sheep population is still very 27 low, but coming around. Just like those caribou are 28 doing. Those three cohorts are starting to come in as 29 productive ewes, so we're going to start to see more 30 and more lambs produced. We're on a flat line right 31 now because of aging and then we should start to see a 32 slight increase in sheep population. 33 34 This sheep is a significant subsistence 35 animal, especially for communities that live inside the 36 Brooks Range. So Anaktuvuk Pass, Wiseman harvest sheep 37 fairly extensively. Oh, they're not a subsistence 38 animal. Yeah, they are. You get 100 pounds of meat 39 off them. What are you talking about that's not a 40 subsistence animal. Sheep are excellent eating. 41 They're the highest grade meat that we have, excellent 42 flavor, really highly sought because of the delicacy 43 and you get 100 pounds of meat. 44 45 Any questions for Gates of the Arctic. 46 And then you were going to have somebody else do a 47 certain portion, Marcy? 48 49 MS. OKADA: Yes. If there's no 50






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1 questions on the Park update, we'll have Joe 2 Durrenberger give an update on the Ambler Road. 3 4 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. Go right 5 ahead, Joe. 6 7 MR. DURRENBERGER: Hi. This is Joe 8 Durrenberger, the project manager for the Ambler Road 9 Project for the National Park Service. Thank you, Mr.

10 Chairman and the Council for the opportunity to provide 11 an update. I listened in to what Tim LaMarr had to say 12 from BLM and the Park Service is in a similar situation 13 in the project as BLM. Our permitting responsibilities 14 are somewhat different in that ANILCA directs the Park 15 Service to issue a right-of-way upon receipt of an 16 application. 17 18 Our decision in this process is where 19 to issue a right-of-way permit across NPS lands and 20 what are appropriate terms and conditions to apply to 21 that. Our public comment period was the same as BLM 22 and closed on January 31st. In response to our public 23 comment period, we had something over 13,000 comments 24 come in to the Park Service. 25 26 Of that 13,000, there were 201 discreet 27 individual comments and roughly 13,000 form letters 28 that were all the same just with a different signature 29 and most of those duplicates and those form letters 30 came in via email. So for 13,000 comments we ended up 31 with a couple hundred unique comments pertaining to the 32 project. 33 34 What we're doing right now is our 35 consultant is working with us on the environmental and 36 economic analysis and entering those comments into 37 PEPC, which is our tracking program for handling things 38 like EISs or the Environmental and Economic Assessment 39 and evaluating those comments. We expect to have a 40 report summarizing the results of the scoping process 41 in March, similar timeframe to BLM. 42 43 Then we are going to start doing 44 impacts analysis on the two alternatives that were 45 presented in the application from AIDA for that part of 46 the project that crosses NPS lands and we'll start 47 doing that impacts analysis in March and that will 48 continue through the spring. 49 50






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1 Our timeframe for the overall project 2 is roughly parallel to the BLM process for the EIS with 3 the idea that our Draft Environmental and Economic 4 Analysis will be available for public review about the 5 same time as the draft EIS document. That way we'll 6 have concurrent opportunities for public review and 7 comment. At the end our decision documents will be 8 issues at about the same time. 9

10 One of the difference between our 11 process and BLM is that our process, the EEA, the Park 12 Service will be making a recommendation for a 13 right-of-way location as well as terms and conditions. 14 That recommendation will go to the Secretary of 15 Interior and the Secretary of Transportation, who will 16 make the final decision on a right-of-way location and 17 once that decision has been made the Park Service will 18 issue the appropriate permits. 19 20 Are there any questions? 21 22 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Questions about Park 23 Service's process on the Ambler Road. 24 25 MR. DURRENBERGER: Yes. 26 27 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I'm questioning the 28 Council. 29 30 (No comments) 31 32 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I see no questions 33 or comments. Appreciate you..... 34 35 MR. STEVENSON: Mr. Chair. 36 37 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Go ahead, Zach. 38 39 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. I'm 40 wondering if Park Service can help us identify whether 41 there is still any opportunity for public comment and, 42 if so, what are those associated deadlines? 43 44 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 45 46 MR. DURRENBERGER: The next opportunity 47 for public comment in our process would be on the Draft 48 Environmental and Economic Assessment Document, which 49 would contain the Park Service's recommendation to the 50






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1 Secretary for the location of the right-of-way and 2 terms and conditions. So that would be the opportunity 3 for public comment on that and the methodologies we use 4 to arrive at that recommendation. 5 6 Timing on that would be similar to BLM 7 on the Draft EIS, which would be late next fall. 8 9 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

10 11 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. I don't see 12 any other comments or questions. Thanks so much, Joe. 13 14 MR. DURRENBERGER: Thank you very much, 15 Mr. Chairman and Council. 16 17 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. Is that 18 conclusive of your presentation, Marcy? 19 20 MS. OKADA: Yes, Mr. Chair. If there 21 are no other questions, that's the end of our 22 presentation. 23 24 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. Thank you 25 very much. We'll see you at the next SRC meeting. So 26 next on the agenda is the Alaska Native Tribal Health 27 Consortium. 28 29 Erica Mitchell. 30 31 MR. STEVENSON: Mr. Chair. 32 33 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Yes, go ahead. 34 35 MR. STEVENSON: If I may, I just wanted 36 to briefly let the Council know why Erica is here. 37 Northwest Arctic Subsistence Regional Advisory Council 38 has been dealing with a caribou population issue in 39 Unit 23 and Council Member Hannah Loon in Northwest 40 Arctic in Kotzebue had requested information that could 41 be useful in understanding changes in caribou 42 population dynamics as it relates to climate change. 43 That's why NTHC has made it possible for Erica to be 44 here today. 45 46 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 47 48 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Go ahead, Ray. 49 50






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1 MR. COLLINS: We got a letter from 2 Denali Park and I'm Chair of that. Do you want.... 3 4 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: It doesn't show that 5 on the agenda. 6 7 MR. COLLINS: Yeah, it wasn't down 8 there, but it was a handout. 9

10 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: All right. 11 12 MR. COLLINS: I just want to note on 13 there that they've been doing various studies too and 14 they're relatively healthy populations all the way 15 around. We keep getting pressure to protect the wolves 16 that wander outside the Park by expanding the State 17 protection area and so on, but you'll notice only three 18 wolves were harvested in those extensions on the Park. 19 Yet, in that same area there were, I think, five packs 20 and they had 20 pups or something like that. So they 21 were replaced well above what was being taken by those 22 that wandered outside. 23 24 Just one anecdote on the bears too, 25 having a campground break-in problem with a bear a few 26 years ago. They didn't want to kill it, so what they 27 did is they flew it out by Telida. Well, in about five 28 days it was back in the campground. So the next time 29 they sent lunch with it. They took a road-kill moose 30 and dropped it off and this time it took about two 31 weeks to come back. It ate that moose up first. 32 33 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: There's no getting 34 rid of them. They have a GPS in their head. They know 35 exactly where they've got food and they're going back 36 to that place. I'll look this over. I always 37 appreciate looking at what's going on in Denali 38 National Park also. 39 40 They used to come to our meetings or at 41 least call in or something, but I guess they're relying 42 on you to do that. 43 44 MR. COLLINS: I guess so, yeah. 45 46 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Erica, go right 47 ahead. 48 MS. MITCHELL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman 49 and members of the Council. My name is Erica Mitchell 50






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1 and I work at the Alaska Native Tribal Health 2 Consortium. As Mr. Chairman mentioned, I will be 3 referring to supplement number 10. 4 5 Within ANTHC I work for community 6 environment and health, which hosts many environmental 7 health programs that you all may be familiar with in 8 your home communities. We have the Air and Healthy 9 Homes Program, the Brownsfield Program and

10 Environmental Health Services. Within the center for 11 Climate and Health we also host the LEO network, which 12 I'll be talking about today, as we think it may be a 13 helpful tool both for the Council and for agencies that 14 you all work with. 15 16 LEO stands for Local Environmental 17 Observers and it's a network of local observers and 18 topic experts who share knowledge about environmental 19 change. This is an online platform that's accessible 20 at leonetwork.org. So within this network individuals 21 are able to speak up and share about changes that they 22 see in their community and also be connected to 23 scientists and topic experts who may be able to provide 24 more information about how and why some changes are 25 occurring. 26 27 So if someone sees an unusual event, 28 they're able to post to the network and we do ask for a 29 photo, a location, and a short description of what 30 people saw and why they consider it to be unusual. 31 From that point LEO staff at ANTHC receives the post 32 and we reach out to a topic matter expert who may be 33 able to provide more information about how and why the 34 change is occurring. 35 36 So the benefits of this process are 37 really twofold. It helps local residents understand 38 more about the environmental changes that are happening 39 in their area from usually a scientific background. It 40 also brings these changes to the attention of subject 41 matter experts and may help guide research questions as 42 more changes become evident. 43 44 So today the network has documented 45 hundreds of observations across the state of Alaska 46 totaling about 900 worldwide. Each of the blue dots on 47 the map on slide 4 represents an observation, although 48 I have to say not all 900 are represented on that 49 photo. 50






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1 But LEO is really effective because of 2 the people who use the tool. The network is made up of 3 individuals who make observations through their own 4 personal experience and through they own unique 5 combination of scientific, local and traditional 6 knowledge. So this is different than many of the other 7 monitoring networks that we know of or work with around 8 the state. We're able to accept single and repeated 9 events with wide content parameters allowing us to

10 collect information and identify trends on very broad 11 geographic and temporal scales. 12 13 So everyone who interacts with LEO 14 creates a member profile. This is a password protected 15 network, so this is a safe space we hope to share 16 information that you are willing to share. The profile 17 lists basic information about the person, their name, 18 their home community and any organizations they may be 19 affiliated with. 20 21 We also ask for information on topic 22 areas that they have a particular interest or level of 23 expertise in. All organizations, communities and 24 interest areas are searchable within the network, so 25 that makes it easy for people to connect with other 26 network members if they have a particular interest or 27 question. All observations that a person makes are 28 attached to their personal profile. 29 30 So each of the observations that we 31 collect on the network help us better understand our 32 current environment and how it's changing, but some 33 observations also help us understand a baseline 34 understanding of the issues that we're currently 35 facing. One example I have on slide 6 is an observation 36 that we received from Nuiqsut about a skin illness on 37 whitefish. We just received notice that they were 38 catching sick fish. 39 40 We coordinated with the North Slope 41 Borough who arranged for samples of the fish to be 42 taken and sent to the fish pathology lab at Fish and 43 Game. They got back to us and let us know that the 44 fungus that they were seeing on the fish were growing 45 in net injuries that the fish previously ran into. 46 Most importantly they did let people know that once the 47 diseased flesh was removed and discarded the fish was 48 safe to eat. So that's one information benefit of a 49 network such as this. 50






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1 On this slide you can see that there 2 are several parts to the observation, so we'll always 3 list the full text of the observation. There are 4 always pieces of information that we may not take up or 5 may not think are important that others may. We also 6 list any resources that we are able to collect and 7 share. We collect any coordinating efforts that we 8 make so that people are aware of our process and we 9 post the entire consult that we receive back. All of

10 this is available on a single observation page that 11 people can see. 12 13 Other observations help us understand 14 the changes, of course, that are happening around the 15 state. The next example that I have is an observation 16 from Kiana about a change in caribou migration. So we 17 learned that a portion of the Western Alaska Caribou 18 Herd migrates across the Kobuk River, but that this 19 migration is changing in time and location and that 20 impacts subsistence harvest. 21 22 I also want to point out that on slide 23 8 you can see that there's a comment space. This 24 allows people to give their own experience if they 25 don't want to make a full observation. This is an 26 opportunity for people to say that they are 27 experiencing something similar, maybe something 28 different and we can help ground truth and fact check 29 the information that we're putting out. 30 31 The next observation that I have in the 32 example packet on slide 9 is from Kivalina and it's had 33 too much rain, but I think that this observation really 34 demonstrates the importance of local observation in 35 understanding how change is experienced in Alaskan 36 communities. 37 38 So here Janet is talking about a change 39 in weather patterns initially, but goes on to say that 40 the change in weather patterns has affected their 41 timing of bearded seal hunts. Additionally, it's 42 affecting her ability to preserve subsistence food. 43 44 So you can see on slide 10 the photo 45 that she submitted along with her observation and this 46 is a photo of bearded seal meat hanging in her house. 47 She said there was too much moisture in the air outside 48 and that she had to clean mold off of the meat, so this 49 is a good example of understanding the change and its 50






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1 impact that we may develop informed adaptation 2 strategies from. 3 4 We have several tools for organizing 5 observations so that they're useful and easy to find. 6 If you search for any community name within the tool, 7 you'll find all the observations made within a 50-mile 8 radius of that community. But we also organize 9 observations into what we call projects and these are

10 really curated collections of observations around a 11 specific topic or geography. 12 13 As an example I have here is called 14 Subsistence Access and it's a project led by Dr. Todd 15 Brinkman at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. This 16 project includes observations of events that interrupt 17 or improve normal access to subsistence resources to 18 increase the understanding of the importance of access 19 in subsistence hunt and food security. 20 21 Slide 12 has an example of the type of 22 observation we would put into that project. It is 23 titled Risky Ice Conditions for Whaling. This was 24 submitted by Heather and here Heather just talks about 25 the poor ice conditions and how that impacted the 26 whaling season that year. Within this project we also 27 have observations of river change, lake drying and 28 other landscape changes that affect hunts. 29 30 We also create projects around the 31 health of subsistence resources, so the example I have 32 on slide 13 is for fish illness and this is a project 33 that we started in collaboration with the Department of 34 Fish and Game Fish Pathology Lab. Any observation that 35 we received that deals with a change in the appearance 36 of fish or the quality of meat we add to this which 37 immediately notifies the pathology lab staff. So it's 38 a fast-track way to bring these observations to their 39 attention. 40 41 The example I have from that project is 42 from Twin Hills. It was submitted in October of last 43 year. Someone caught a silver salmon with small cysts 44 that were identified as Henneguya and the fish 45 pathology staff were able to give more information 46 about common fish parasites and information on how to 47 identify them. But they're always there as a resource 48 if people have questions. 49 50






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1 LEO is a very flexible tool. It 2 captures many different types of information and right 3 now a lot of that is concentrated within Alaska, but we 4 are working to network with some of the other people 5 around the circumpolar north specifically looking at 6 the health of caribou and reindeer population and how 7 changes in that impact human health and human 8 communities. 9

10 We will also reach out to other 11 projects that may work well as a tail end to some of 12 the observations that we receive within LEO. One 13 example, we work with the Rural Alaska Monitoring 14 Program, which is a project supported by ANTHC and it 15 is done in partnership with the University of Alaska 16 Fairbanks Wildlife Toxicology Lab. 17 18 So we are taking blood samples from 19 subsistence harvested animals to look at the prevalence 20 of zoonotic disease and toxin and contaminate load. 21 What we're hoping to do is better understand prevalence 22 and distribution and have that direct food safety 23 guidelines for vulnerable populations such as children, 24 the elderly and the immuno-compromised, cancer 25 patients. 26 27 So LEO observations are contributing to 28 this by identifying instances in which animals are 29 caught when they show symptoms of disease or if they're 30 caught in an unusual area and that better helps us 31 direct the blood sampling methods or reach out to other 32 topic experts if it's something we can't answer within 33 that project. 34 35 So through the conversations that we 36 have around a lot of the LEO observations, we're 37 beginning to develop a profile of how environmental 38 change across Alaska is impacting human health and well 39 being. We hope that LEO can be a useful tool in 40 collecting information and identifying trends in the 41 health and distribution of subsistence resources across 42 the state and we are happy to be a resource for this 43 Council and any interested agencies. 44 45 So thank you very much for your time. 46 I very much appreciate the opportunity to speak with 47 you. My contact information is on the last slide and 48 you're always welcome to contact Zach and he can get in 49 touch with me. I'm happy to answer any questions. 50






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1 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Do you have a link 2 to the LEO website? 3 4 MS. MITCHELL: Yeah. It is 5 www.leonetwork.org. 6 7 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: So Google will pick 8 that up? 9

10 MS. MITCHELL: Google will pick it up. 11 However, it is worth mentioning that any of the 12 observations made within the network are not indexed by 13 LEO. So if you search for silver salmon cyst it will 14 not come up. So that information is protected, but the 15 network itself is available. 16 17 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Say that again. 18 19 MS. MITCHELL: Google will pick up 20 leonetwork.org. 21 22 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Oh, I see. 23 24 MS. MITCHELL: However, any of the 25 information inside of the network is not indexed by 26 LEO. I'm sorry, it's not indexed by Google. 27 28 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. That's good 29 to know. Go ahead, Zach. 30 31 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 32 Quick question. Does LEO still provide updates on some 33 of the current findings of people reporting? 34 35 MS. MITCHELL: Every month we host LEO 36 webinars for any interested members. Those happen on 37 the second Tuesday of every month from 2:00 to 3:30 38 p.m. You can receive notifications of those webinars 39 by signing up as a LEO member and we distribute the 40 notifications. As a part of that, we do go over all 41 observations received within that past month and also 42 host a presentation from a science or topic expert that 43 we've been working with. 44 45 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. Has LEO got a 46 good search engine inside of its website? I don't know 47 how many sites I've gone on and tried to find something 48 in there. You can't find anything. 49 50


http://www.leonetwork.org/





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1 MS. MITCHELL: All you have to do is 2 click on the little magnifying glass that will be in 3 the upper right-hand corner of the screen and you can 4 search by species name. We do try to include 5 scientific name if possible. You can also search by 6 community, organization, topic, like weather, air, 7 fish, plants and a variety of other things. You're 8 also welcome to get in touch with us. 9

10 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: All right. Sounds 11 good. Any Council questions or comments. Tim. 12 13 MR. GERVAIS: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 14 Yeah, Erica, I just had a couple questions. The 15 network of Local Environmental Observers that's set up 16 through the Native Health Tribal Consortium, but then 17 the general public can just get onto the network and 18 can look at the findings of all these observers? 19 20 MS. MITCHELL: Anyone has to become a 21 member in order to see the actual observation text. 22 Once you are a member, and anyone can become a member. 23 We have members worldwide. Then you can see the entire 24 observation text and the credits. 25 26 MR. GERVAIS: Thank you. 27 28 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Any other questions 29 or comments. 30 31 (No comments) 32 33 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Thanks so much, 34 Erica. 35 36 MS. MITCHELL: Thank you. 37 38 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Appreciate that. 39 Office of Subsistence Management. 40 41 Orville Lind. 42 43 MR. LIND: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 44 Council members. For the record, my name is Orville 45 Lind. I'm the Native Liaison for the Office of 46 Subsistence Management. I've been in this position for 47 just over three years, 30 days and four hours. 48 49 (Laughter) 50






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1 MR. LIND: I'm totally enjoying myself 2 right now. I get to visit people all over the state of 3 Alaska. I worked with the Regional Advisory Council 4 back in Bristol Bay since 1993. I really appreciate 5 the time you guys volunteer to do these types of 6 meetings. It's so important to our local residents out 7 there in Alaska. I'm with the Office of Subsistence 8 Management and thank you for the opportunity for just 9 giving you a brief update on what's happening in our

10 office. 11 12 We actually have two new hires since 13 your last OSM update report from your last meeting. 14 Mr. Johnson did talk about Jennifer Hardin, who had 15 taken the new policy coordinator position. She 16 continues to do a wonderful job for us. She's an 17 outstanding asset to the Office of Subsistence 18 Management. 19 20 Just to give you a little background, 21 she has a quick study of ANILCA and an expert in 22 subsistence law and policy. Dr. Hardin has experience 23 with multiple Federal agencies and tribal entities. 24 Before she took this position she was an American 25 Indian liaison for the Park anthropologist at Yosemite 26 National Park. 27 28 Previously with the OSM she was an 29 anthropology division supervisor and she was an acting 30 fisheries division supervisor, which gave her 31 experience to excel at the position of being our policy 32 coordinator. Since Jennifer was the former 33 anthropology lead she has created a vacancy for that 34 position now. 35 36 Our second hire, Christine Brummer as a 37 Pathways student while attending UAA as an anthropology 38 student. The Pathway Program is a bridge to permanent 39 Federal employment after school. She's from Anchorage 40 with two bachelor degrees and is pursuing a master's 41 degree in anthropology. 42 43 Mr. Tom Doolittle is our new Deputy 44 ARD. Tom started his career with the National Park 45 Service and then working for 12 years as a fish and 46 wildlife biologist and program supervisor and as a law 47 enforcement supervisor and warden for the Bad River 48 Band of Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians. This 49 included the reservation Western Lake Superior Tribe of 50






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1 Commercial Fisheries, and ceded territories of 2 Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. 3 4 Then he came to Alaska as a supervisory 5 fish and wildlife biologist and later became the Deputy 6 Refuge Manager at the Yukon Delta National Wildlife 7 Refuge in Bethel. After seven years in western Alaska 8 he went to Wisconsin to reconnect with five new 9 grandchildren and conducted a sharp tail grouse

10 restoration project for the U.S. Forest Service. 11 12 Once that program was secured and 13 running, went to the Tongass National Forest for a 14 short time supervising the fish, wildlife, subsistence 15 and watershed management program on Prince of Wales 16 Island in Southeast Alaska before accepting the Deputy 17 ARD at OSM last January. 18 19 It's really a pleasure to work with Mr. 20 Doolittle. He has the knowledge that local Alaskans 21 have taught him while he spent his time here in Alaska. 22 He's done a really excellent job and looking forward to 23 working with him in the future. 24 25 Any questions for me or OSM? 26 27 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Zach, go ahead. 28 29 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 30 Orville, in preparation for this meeting I know that 31 there had been some discussion about the possibility of 32 a government-to-government consultation training or 33 exercise perhaps in the fall timeframe. Is this the 34 opportunity to perhaps address that item? 35 36 MR. LIND: Absolutely. Thank you, 37 Zach, for reminding me. Last round of Regional Advisory 38 Councils I attended the Southeast Regional Advisory 39 Council and the day before the actual meetings happened 40 Linda, who was the former council coordinator, put 41 together what you call a tribal engagement session. 42 43 Since I was not familiar with Southeast 44 tribes, she thought it would be an excellent session to 45 hold so I could get to know the tribes, they'd get to 46 know me, what I do as a tribal liaison, tribal 47 connection for all the subsistence issues. With tribal 48 consultation also being fairly new this was an 49 excellent opportunity to visit with tribal leaders, 50






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1 corporation leaders. 2 3 We had an excellent turnout. It was to 4 me one of the best engagement sessions other than 5 actual tribal consultations with the tribes. I am 6 actually excited about future tribal engagement 7 sessions. As Zach mentioned, I'm working with a couple 8 coordinators, giving them the thumbs up to say we could 9 use another tribal engagement session, possibly in your

10 region. 11 12 I'm looking at the Bristol Bay Region 13 next month. I believe March 13 and 14. We're looking 14 to do a tribal engagement session there. Again the 15 purpose is to meet the tribal leaders and the corporate 16 leaders, any questions they have about tribal 17 consultation and why, what and who. The questions 18 hopefully will be answered during that session. 19 20 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Go ahead. 21 22 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 23 May I add a brief point to that, Orville. One of the 24 things that I've observed in the past two years working 25 for OSM is that the Federal government has a law that 26 was signed by the President. I forget the actual 27 number of the executive order, but what this law 28 requires is any time that OSM conducts work on an 29 issue, policy issue, we are required by law to make 30 affected communities, in this case tribal governments 31 and Native corporations, aware of that issue so that 32 they are provided an opportunity on the record to 33 comment on whatever that issue is. Our hope is that 34 continues to be a strong process where meaningful 35 participation with communities can occur. 36 37 So the thought that Orville had was 38 perhaps use this Council and others as a way to train 39 folks and how to get more people involved in that 40 consultation. If that's something this Council is 41 interested in, we would perhaps look at addressing that 42 in the near future, perhaps this fall. 43 44 Thank you, Orville. 45 46 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Go ahead, Orville. 47 48 MR. LIND: Just for your information it 49 was Executive Order 131.75, which was thumbs up from 50






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1 me. A lot of tribes are unaware that we have to listen 2 to their voices. That policy in place allows that to 3 happen. The awareness of that is increasing in the 4 three years I've been in this position. I think it's 5 working. More people are contacting our office. We're 6 getting more involvement. 7 8 Again, we can't do this without you and 9 again I appreciate your time and your involvement.

10 11 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 12 13 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Thank you, Orville. 14 15 Any final questions, comments. 16 17 MR. HONEA: Yeah, Mr. Chair. 18 19 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Go ahead, Don. 20 21 MR. HONEA: Just a quick question here. 22 I don't want to take up time. Orville, this is Don 23 Honea. I've met you before at other RAC meetings. If 24 you're invited out to a tribe or a village or 25 something, how can you help us. Can you kind of fill 26 that in here? I mean I realize it's not grant writing, 27 is it, for specific things like fisheries programs. 28 What exactly do you do? I thought that maybe you'd 29 come and help us or something. 30 31 MR. LIND: Through the Chair. Thank 32 you, Don. Yeah, it's good to hear you. 33 34 MR. HONEA: Hello? 35 36 MR. LIND: Can you hear me? 37 38 MR. HONEA: Yeah. 39 40 MR. LIND: So primarily, Don, my 41 position as a Native liaison for the tribes, all 42 Federal recognized tribes, 229 of them, then plus the 43 12 regional corporations and up to 180-plus village 44 corporations, I'm the primary contact for the 45 subsistence issues out in rural Alaska. Basically what 46 I primarily do is put together the connections on how 47 to have government-to-government consultation and this 48 includes whether they're special actions, whether 49 they're change of proposals, fisheries or wildlife. 50






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1 You can just call me for questions like this. I'm hear 2 for you. 3 4 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Go ahead, Orville. 5 6 MR. LIND: As far as coming out to the 7 village, I'm old fashioned. I tell you what. I love 8 going to villages. Before my government job I used to 9 travel as an artist in residence to a number of

10 villages around the state of Alaska. Before I got 11 hitched, I used to have a rock and roll band and we'd 12 travel all over the place for graduations or church 13 fund-raisers. So I love going to the villages. 14 15 My position as Native liaison I totally 16 believe that I should be the one going out to the 17 villages every Regional Advisory Council meeting. 18 However, it's a tough thing to do when you're trying to 19 reach all 10 Councils in the cycle. Plus with our 20 budget crunching -- when I started, I did I believe 21 five, which was quite a bit for the first round, and 22 now I'm down to two with approval. 23 24 If we can get together some connections 25 prior to a Regional Advisory Council, I can't see how 26 the VIPs can say no. 27 28 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Our next meeting is 29 in Galena if you'd like to come up. You're welcome to 30 show up. Any final questions for Orville. Go ahead 31 there, Shirley. 32 33 MS. CLARK: Do we have to give you a 34 potlatch when you come to our village? 35 36 MR. LIND: I'm old fashioned. I would 37 love one. 38 39 (Laughter) 40 41 MR. LIND: Actually I would even bring 42 some of my own. 43 44 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: All right. 45 Appreciate you acting as Native liaison for OSM. 46 You're really getting proactive and I really appreciate 47 that. So I would appreciate you traveling out to 48 communities where if a RAC is meeting in a rural 49 community, I feel that you should be allowed to be 50






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1 present at that community. I'll register that on the 2 record that the Native liaison should be allowed to 3 travel to rural communities to interact with the 4 public, with the local Native people and find out what 5 local issues are. That's the way the Native liaison 6 would be able to assess the regional uses on an annual 7 basis. 8 9 So I would like to make that statement

10 on the record for the OSM Assistant Regional Director 11 Gene Peltola that this is an integral part of this 12 system as a meaningful role for a fish and wildlife 13 manager or anything that affects subsistence. That's 14 statutory language. So it's an important issue that 15 the Native liaison should be able to travel to 16 communities. 17 18 Thank you, Orville. 19 20 MR. LIND: Thank you, Mr. Chair and 21 board members for the time. Again, I really appreciate 22 your time in spending some really critical issues in 23 your region and being able to bring it forth. 24 25 Quyana. Thank you. 26 27 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Thank you. We're 28 coming down on the end of the agenda, but in our book 29 here we've got our Western Interior Regional Advisory 30 Council Charter on Page 51. So I was like looking 31 through this Charter and suddenly appeared a whole 32 bunch of language inserted into our Charter that wasn't 33 there before. So I think the Council should kind of 34 take a look at this language to review what the 35 Secretary of Interior's orders -- a whole bunch of 36 orders have been inserted into our Charter which we 37 should go over. They're on Page 42 under (I). The 38 Secretary of Interior is implementing a whole bunch of 39 stuff here that this Council should be aware of. 40 41 We are under ANILCA, Title VIII and the 42 statute actually directs us. So under I. Provide 43 recommendations for implementation of Secretary's Order 44 3347: Conservation Stewardship and Outdoor Recreation, 45 and Secretary's Order 3356: 46 Hunting, Fishing, Recreational Shooting, and Wildlife 47 Conservation Opportunities and Coordination with 48 States, Tribes, and Territories. 49 50






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1 Recommendations shall include, but are 2 not limited to: 3 (1) Assessing and quantifying implementation of the 4 Secretary's Orders, and recommendations to enhance and 5 expand their implementation as identified; 6 (2) Policies and programs that: 7 (a) increase outdoor recreation opportunities for all 8 Americans, with a focus on engaging youth, veterans, 9 minorities, and other communities that traditionally

10 have low participation in outdoor recreation. 11 12 My response is rural residents have 13 typically a high participation, so this objective (a) 14 is being met in rural Alaska. This is Regional Council 15 dealing with fish and wildlife for rural residents. So 16 that objective (a) is being met in response to the 17 Secretary's directive. 18 19 (b) expand access for hunting and 20 fishing on Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and 21 Wildlife Service, and National Park Service lands in a 22 manner that respects the rights and privacy of the 23 owners of non-public lands; 24 25 I feel the agencies should continue to 26 inform the hunting and fishing public, non-subsistence 27 users, that there's restricted access on Native corp 28 lands in Alaska. So that's a directive to the land 29 managing agencies to assure the Secretary's objective 30 is met. This Council is not in the position to educate 31 the hunting public as to where they can go hunting. 32 That's an objective of those land managers to inform 33 the public that there are private lands that are 34 typically closed to the public. Doyon and all kinds of 35 lands have been closed to the public. 36 37 (c) increase energy, transmission, 38 infrastructure, or other relevant projects while 39 avoiding or minimizing potential negative impacts on 40 wildlife. 41 42 We don't go through the NEPA process. 43 This is not a directive to this Council. This is a 44 subsistence Council. We're not going to go through 45 EISs. So this is completely not applicable to this 46 Council. So they just cut and pasted this garbage 47 right into our Charter and this is not what this 48 Council does. We don't do EISs and things like that. 49 This is ridiculous. 50






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1 (d) create greater collaboration with 2 states, tribes, and/or territories. 3 4 Great pains have been taken to 5 collaborate with Federal, State and tribal agencies by 6 this Council and the Federal Subsistence Management 7 Program. So the answer to (d) is that's being 8 accomplished. 9

10 j. Provide recommendations for 11 implementation of the regulatory reform initiatives and 12 policies specified in section 2 of Executive Order 13 13777: Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory 14 Costs; Executive Order 12866: Regulatory Planning and 15 Review, as amended; and section 6 of Executive Order 16 13563: Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review. 17 Recommendations shall 18 include, but are not limited to: Identifying 19 regulations for repeal, replacement, or modification 20 considering, at a minimum, those regulations that: (1) 21 eliminate jobs, or inhibit job creation. 22 23 Subsistence regulations do not 24 eliminate jobs. These are subsistence activities, so 25 they're not commercial activities. 26 27 (2) are outdated, unnecessary, or 28 ineffective. 29 30 The Subsistence Management Program 31 recommendations are continuously fluid to update 32 regulations and strategies for fish and wildlife 33 management. So that objective is being met annually. 34 35 (3) impose costs that exceed benefits. 36 37 This Council considers costs and is 38 constantly reminded by agencies as to the cost to 39 benefit ratios. So that's being implements. 40 41 (4) create a serious inconsistency or 42 otherwise interfere with regulatory reform initiative 43 and policies. 44 45 We don't deal with regulatory reform 46 policies. In a way we do, but we don't seriously 47 interfere. Our objective is if we make recommendations 48 on policies within OSM, they are to better the policy. 49 So we're not hindering the policies, we're enhancing 50






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1 the policies. 2 3 (5) rely, in part or in whole, on data 4 or methods that are not publicly available or 5 insufficiently transparent to meet the standard for 6 reproducibility. 7 8 We use public information, current data 9 from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and other

10 agencies that can be reproduced, so this is 11 unnecessary. That's just a given in this program. 12 13 (6) derive from or implement Executive 14 Orders or other Presidential and Secretarial directives 15 that have been subsequently rescinded or substantially 16 modified. 17 18 I don't even know what that means. So 19 this is a bunch of cut and paste that applies -- this 20 is like a broad brush for the United States of America 21 and trying to jam it into our Charter. So I feel the 22 Secretary of Interior has possibly illegally violated 23 certain statutes of ANILCA and that some of this stuff 24 is not applicable to our Charter and some of these 25 things are routinely met by this Council. 26 27 I wanted to get all that stuff on the 28 record and I would like the Council to speak to that 29 Charter insertions also if they choose to. Our record 30 is transcribed. 31 32 Tim. 33 34 MR. GERVAIS: Yeah. Should we add 35 these inaccuracies and inconsistencies to our annual 36 report to the Federal Subsistence Board. 37 38 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: That's a great idea. 39 The Federal Subsistence Board should be aware that the 40 Charter's cut and paste method of the Secretary of 41 Interior does not address the realities of this Council 42 and it would be burdensome or it could not be produced 43 by this Council, like doing EISs and crazy stuff like 44 that. That can't happen. You're exactly right. Would 45 you like to make a motion to insert. 46 47 MR. GERVAIS: I move regarding this 48 topic of the revised Charter to add it to our annual 49 report that it contains inaccuracies and 50






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1 inconsistencies that are not matching up with the way 2 the Regional Advisory Councils were originally set up 3 in ANILCA. 4 5 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: We have statutory 6 directive that would preclude some of this from our 7 Charter. There's some things that can and cannot 8 happen in our statutory parameters like eliminating 9 jobs or.....

10 11 MS. PELKOLA: Second. I second. 12 13 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: You're seconding. 14 We need to outline -- and we have outlined some of the 15 things that would be inaccurate. Our transcript should 16 allow the coordinator to develop an annual report topic 17 to that effect. 18 19 Restate the motion for the record. 20 21 MR. STEVENSON: Mr. Chair. I just want 22 to make sure I understand the intent of the Council 23 correctly. Is the intent to amend the existing draft 24 annual report to the Federal Subsistence Board to 25 reflect the Council's desired changes or concerns 26 regarding changes to the existing Charter? 27 28 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Yes, that's exactly 29 what it is. 30 31 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 32 33 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I don't know if 34 other Regional Councils have even talked about this, 35 but the reality is this is a broad brush effect by the 36 Secretary's Office and they apparently got people that 37 know nothing about ANILCA Regional Advisory Councils. 38 39 Go ahead, Tim. 40 41 MR. GERVAIS: Should we also have the 42 solicitor for OSM get back to us on what the situation 43 is? 44 45 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Excellent point. I 46 do feel that the Federal Subsistence Board should 47 direct the solicitor to review these insertions as far 48 as statutory violations and what may or 49 may not be applicable to this Council and the statutory 50






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1 directive that Council and the President gave this 2 Council. So that should be part of our annual report 3 issues, correct. 4 5 Other comments on that issue. 6 7 MR. THOMAS: Something that doesn't 8 ring true on it, it seems like they tried to put 9 something in there to stir it up so that -- put

10 something in there that doesn't have anything to do 11 with us really and pretty soon they're going to try to 12 put in that we are doing something that isn't according 13 to our Charter and then we're in trouble. So maybe 14 just ought to ignore the whole damn thing. 15 16 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Well, we can't 17 ignore it. The Secretary stuffed it in there and we're 18 going to try to tell the Federal Subsistence Board they 19 have to at least develop a response to the Secretary. 20 21 MR. THOMAS: This does not apply to us. 22 That's all. Make it simple. 23 24 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: The Federal 25 Subsistence Board has a lot higher pay grade than we 26 are, so they can deal with the issue, but they need to 27 deal with the issue. They can't allow the Secretary to 28 require us to do things we statutorily can't do or 29 never could do or are already being accomplished as 30 part of the normal -- it doesn't have to be written out 31 like that. That's the way this program works. 32 33 Further discussion. Ray. 34 35 MR. COLLINS: Would it help to insert 36 somewhere to review the directives that are 37 incompatible with ANILCA or something to that effect? 38 39 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: That's what the 40 Solicitor's Office would do, would be to look at..... 41 42 MR. COLLINS: Yeah. 43 44 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: .....what we're 45 requesting in the annual report the Solicitor's Office 46 review the requirements of these executive orders being 47 inserted into our Charter that would not meet ANILCA 48 statute and cannot be accomplished by this Council. 49 50






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1 Other comments or concerns, insertions. 2 3 MR. THOMAS: Maybe I'm paranoid, but I 4 get the feeling somebody is trying to play around with 5 us. Just like that thing with that road going in 6 there. All of a sudden he dropped it after we brought 7 it to his attention. I just think this guy is trying 8 to jerk us around. He's trying to circumvent us to get 9 something done.

10 11 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Kind of. 12 13 MR. THOMAS: Maybe I'm paranoid. 14 15 MR. GERVAIS: Which guy, Dennis? 16 17 MR. THOMAS: I've dealt with these 18 people a lot of years. 19 20 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I think that 21 clarifies -- go ahead, Jenny. 22 23 MS. PELKOLA: I just have to say what 24 gives him the right to try to change our Charter when 25 it was already passed or whatever? 26 27 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: He's the Secretary 28 of Interior. He can kind of do what he wants. He's 29 like a bull in a China shop crashing into stuff, so we 30 need to clarify to the Secretary this stuff can't 31 happen within the statute. I don't think the Secretary 32 himself did this. This is one of his peons that can't 33 pour piss out of his own boot. 34 35 (Laughter) 36 37 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: So we're going to 38 continue on. We need to move this motion along. 39 40 MS. PELKOLA: Question. 41 42 MR. COLLINS: Question. 43 44 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: The question is 45 called. Those in favor of adding that annual report 46 topic to be inserted into our annual report to the 47 Federal Subsistence Board signify by saying aye. 48 49 IN UNISON: Aye. 50






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1 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Opposed same sign. 2 3 (No opposing votes) 4 5 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Unanimous support. 6 I heard Don's affirmative. 7 8 MR. HONEA: You did. Right. 9

10 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Zach, I don't see 11 any more -- we need future dates for next meeting. 12 Confirm the fall date in Galena. 13 14 MR. STEVENSON: Pardon me, Mr. Chair. 15 16 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Go ahead. 17 18 MR. STEVENSON: Our fall 2017 meeting 19 the Council had expressed a desire to meet in Galena. 20 The only reason we hadn't in the fall was because there 21 was a fisheries issue that had taken the attention of 22 the Louden Council. They've been contacted. The 23 Council has expressed their desire to have us meet 24 there. Their facility is not large enough for this 25 entire group and I was directed to speak with the city, 26 which I've done. The city has provided me with a draft 27 agreement. So their facility is available and they 28 would love to have us if the Council so chooses. 29 30 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 31 32 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Does that sound 33 good, Jenny? 34 35 MR. THOMAS: They have beds for us, 36 they've got food for us? 37 38 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Oh, yeah. 39 40 MR. THOMAS: Make coffee. 41 42 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: They're as big as 43 Aniak. Don't worry. You won't starve. The dates 44 October 10 and 11 good? It's good for me. 45 46 MR. THOMAS: October 10th, 11th in 47 Galena. 48 49 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Galena. We want to 50






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1 go to Aniak at some point but we're not meeting in that 2 gym in Aniak. No way will I ever have a meeting there 3 because the public can't hear us. 4 5 MR. THOMAS: The acoustics aren't too 6 good down there. 7 8 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: They used to have 9 panels on the wall to stop that but they took them all

10 off when they had a fire. So is the Galena October 10, 11 11 good for the Council? 12 13 MR. THOMAS: Terrific. 14 15 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: What about you, Don? 16 17 MR. HONEA: Right. I'm just right next 18 to it. If I can't make it by flight, I'll go by boat. 19 20 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Right. Or at least 21 jump on an iceberg and come by. 22 23 MR. HONEA: The way the river is, it's 24 not until late October, middle of October, I'll still 25 be in the river. 26 27 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. That's cool. 28 29 MR. STEVENSON: Mr. Chair. 30 31 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Go ahead, Zach. 32 33 MR. STEVENSON: I just wanted to also 34 clarify that invitation is also open to our partners 35 from Bethel, from Yukon Refuge, correct? 36 37 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Yes, it is. They 38 can participate telephonically or in person, whatever 39 they would care to do, but I would like to interact 40 more with Yukon Delta Wildlife Refuge. 41 42 Select winter 2019 meeting at date. 43 It's my opinion that this Council is best served by 44 meeting in one rural community and then one urban 45 community. So Fairbanks, we get better staff 46 participation typically. And it's cost effective as 47 far as I know to meet in an urban center versus a rural 48 place. Is Fairbanks a good meeting place for the 49 Council. 50






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1 (Council nods affirmatively) 2 3 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: We're looking at the 4 calendar. Open window is February 4 and ends on March 5 15. I like this week that we're in right now. This is 6 a good week for me. How about February 19 and 20 or 20 7 and 21 or whatever? 8 9 MR. KRISKA: How about second week in

10 February? 11 12 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Second week in 13 February. Like 12th or 13th? It's on Page 49 you've 14 got a calendar there. 15 16 MR. KRISKA: Yeah, I know. 17 18 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: So February 12 and 19 13, is that a good time for people? 20 21 MS. PELKOLA: We don't know yet. 22 23 MR. THOMAS: We've got a whole year to 24 make changes. 25 26 MR. COLLINS: It probably won't be good 27 for me. I usually take a winter break in January and 28 February and do some travel out to a warmer climate. 29 Later in the month would better. 30 31 MR. THOMAS: End of the month. 32 33 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: So February 20, 21? 34 Is this week good for you, Ray? 35 36 MR. COLLINS: Yes, that should work. 37 38 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Okay. So we'll go 39 to February 20, 21. Avoiding President's Day because 40 if we get travel problems like I did. It could be kind 41 of a problem. We're going to want to avoid this 42 President's Day thing again. Is that good for 43 everybody, 20, 21? 44 45 (Council nods affirmatively) 46 47 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I see affirmative. 48 That's good for you, Don? Are you still there, Don? 49 50






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1 (No response) 2 3 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: He's gone. So that 4 sounds good, Zach. 5 6 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. 7 8 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Yes. 9

10 MR. STEVENSON: So we had all voting in 11 support of that with the exception of Don, is that 12 correct? 13 14 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Yes. He dropped off 15 the call. 16 17 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 18 19 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Closing comments. 20 Go around the room. Tommy, want a closing comment 21 closing out the meeting? 22 23 MR. KRISKA: I just wanted to thank the 24 board for inviting me -- I mean for getting back on the 25 board and to see what's going on. I'm usually a verbal 26 guy, but just checking out things to absorb the things 27 that are going on in this day and age. I'm really 28 thankful to be catching up here after a few years off. 29 I have a lot of knowledge and what's going on in the 30 Interior and the surrounding villages and other places 31 in the state. So I'm thankful for being here and 32 hopefully it will be okay for our people in the future 33 here. I will be there in Galena. 34 35 Thank you. 36 37 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Thank you, Tommy. 38 You're a really good Council member. I really 39 appreciate your participation. We were really bummed 40 out when you got off the Council, but we're really 41 happy that you're back on again. 42 43 MR. KRISKA: Yep, thank you. We all 44 have our reasons for what we do in our lives. So it 45 was good and like I said, even getting off the Council 46 and living around the 42 villages of building houses in 47 those 42 villages I got to live around the people and 48 their wants and needs and learned a lot. It doesn't 49 stop me from anything. 50






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1 I think I learned more in those 12 2 years being around the 42 villages than just traveling 3 on the river. I do travel up and down the Yukon. Been 4 from Eagle to St. Mary's and all the way up to your 5 neck of the woods. I do a lot of boat charters. I 6 know pretty much everyone on the Yukon and the Koyukuk 7 Rivers, so that's good for me. 8 9 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Everybody knows you.

10 You're famous. 11 12 MR. KRISKA: Thank you. Yep. 13 14 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: So Shirley. 15 16 MS. CLARK: Thanks. This has been a 17 nice interesting meeting. There was very few moments 18 of real boredom. 19 20 (Laughter) 21 22 MS. CLARK: But I learned a lot. I'll 23 be back for the next meeting. 24 25 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Appreciate that, 26 Shirley. Tim. 27 28 MR. GERVAIS: I'd like to thank all the 29 Council members for showing up and contributing their 30 experiences and knowledge. I'd like to thank the Staff 31 people from the various agencies for reporting and 32 helping us work through our information and procedural 33 methods that we use. 34 35 I had talked to Diana and Steve, the 36 North Pacific Management Council staff after their 37 presentation and I was asking them if there was much 38 change in the procedures that were going on within 39 their council with the Trump Administration and they 40 said they were having some issues with lack of funding 41 on their continual research. 42 43 They also said they were struggling 44 with executive order that they had to remove two 45 regulation to put one in, so that was frustrating to 46 hear that there might be some kind of disruption in the 47 rulemaking for fisheries. At this stage of Planet 48 Earth there has to be regulations on fisheries. There's 49 way too many user groups for the available resource. 50






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1 Anyway, we just need to keep an eye on 2 what's going on and try to work with the conditions at 3 hand to provide the subsistence resource. 4 5 It seems like when we were working 6 through our proposals, even on issues that couldn't be 7 determined through the available information, this 8 Council was siding on the side of conservation and I 9 like that strategy. I feel that we're dealing with

10 national resource allocation. I feel like if you err 11 on the side of conservation, then you really haven't 12 lost anything. You've still got population out there 13 and stuff. If you err on the side of exploitation, you 14 could create a crash or some issue that would take 15 several years to resurrect. 16 17 Anyway, I wish everybody safe travel 18 home and I do learn quite a bit from all of you and I 19 appreciate being here and 20 being part of it 21 22 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Appreciate that, 23 Tim. I'm exactly on the same sheet of music. Erring 24 on the side of conservation you don't go into crash. 25 That is sustainability. You get bad weather or some 26 little thing comes up, we're harvesting way too heavy, 27 bam, we're in the toilet and it takes decades sometimes 28 to get these populations back. That is conservation. 29 That is sustained yield. To maintain healthy 30 populations. That's part of this program and I'm real 31 happy that this Council errs on the side of 32 conservation because we will provide for subsistence 33 uses by doing that. 34 35 I appreciate you making that point. 36 37 Thank you. 38 39 Ray. 40 41 MR. COLLINS: Yeah. I apologize for 42 missing part. I had some medical appointments that I 43 needed to make the other morning, but I didn't miss the 44 main part it sounds like. I'm glad particularly on the 45 Kuskokwim and the Yukon that we're taking a stance on 46 conservation and preservation and a restoration of 47 those king salmon runs and I think we're headed in the 48 right direction. But the pressure is coming on to make 49 some changes right away and modify and I hope we can 50






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1 hold off on that for a couple more years so we can get 2 some positive gains that have already started. 3 4 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I appreciate you 5 doing all the work for this Council on the Kuskokwim, 6 Ray. We only have two members from the Kuskokwim on 7 this Council, so we rely heavily on your long knowledge 8 base. Institutional knowledge that you have and we 9 really appreciate that.

10 11 Pollock. 12 13 MR. SIMON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm 14 so glad to be here and I'd like to thank Zach and his 15 staff for putting the meeting together and thank all 16 you board members for coming. I know most of the 17 peoples in all the different agencies. I know most of 18 the peoples up and down the river because I also sit on 19 the YRDFA board. I also sit on the Caribou Working 20 Group. I always like to help out. 21 22 Of course I do subsistence lifestyle 23 and I still have a dog team I drive. I always like to 24 see everybody. Working together is the key to survival 25 and I like to work with and talk with all the different 26 agencies and trying to work out some solutions. I 27 always like to come back and be here at the board. 28 29 Thank you, Jack. 30 31 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Thanks so much, 32 Pollock. Pollock has been on this Council since 1993 33 when we started. Pollock has a long-term knowledge of 34 the resources in the Upper Koyukuk and we look heavily 35 to his knowledge as an important part of this Council. 36 Thank you, Pollock. 37 38 Jenny. 39 40 MS. PELKOLA: Yeah, this has been 41 another good meeting and I just want to thank the Staff 42 and thank you, Mr. Chair, for being our leader again, 43 being a very good leader. Also to Don for being on the 44 phone for almost the whole meeting. I think he should 45 get some kind of reimbursement for sitting there all 46 day. 47 48 (Laughter) 49 50






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1 MS. PELKOLA: I know sometimes we get 2 so many reports and some people do -- I mentioned this 3 before. They do get long-winded and then the end 4 people don't have enough time to give their reports. 5 So I think we need to take a look at that because I 6 think we're missing out on some important information 7 from some of these groups and they just have to hurry 8 up and get done because 5:00 comes pretty fast. 9

10 Also we had one resignation 11 unexpectedly on this Council and there should be a 12 provision where we should have an alternate or 13 something because there are so many decisions to make. 14 We do rely on each other to be at the meetings and when 15 we don't have our whole board there -- I know Don was 16 weathered out, but he was on the phone and I just want 17 to thank him again for that. 18 19 MR. HONEA: Hello? 20 21 MS. PELKOLA: Oh, you're still there. 22 Thank you, Don. Anyway, to get back to our missing one 23 board member, you know, it affected some of our 24 decisions. So we should take a look at that. 25 26 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I fully agree with 27 that. You remember back in McGrath they talked about 28 our Charter and we talked about alternates. We talked 29 about going to four-year terms, we talked about a bunch 30 of stuff and we needed an alternate because when we 31 have somebody not be able to attend or somebody drops 32 off the Council, like we had, we should have an 33 alternate so that they can step right into that spot. 34 35 Yes, go ahead. 36 37 MR. STEVENSON: Responding to Jenny's 38 point about alternates. That had been a year ago one 39 of the points that this Council had made in its annual 40 report to the Federal Subsistence Board. If my memory 41 serves me correctly, that information was transmitted 42 to the Secretary and we have not received a response. 43 44 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 45 46 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Thank you. Are you 47 still there, Don? 48 49 MR. HONEA: Yeah. Hey, I keep getting 50






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1 cut off on my cell, so I keep calling in. I wanted to 2 comment if possibly. 3 4 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: I want you to make 5 your final comment. Go right ahead. 6 7 MR. HONEA: Okay. This is my final 8 comment. I don't enjoy this being on the phone here. 9 I'd much rather be at the meeting if there was funding.

10 I don't like this -- as Jenny mentioned, I don't like 11 this two-day thing, like the last few hours. We're not 12 getting enough. We're cutting people short and I've 13 talked to Zach about this. I think that possibly if 14 there was funding because, for me, we're kind of 15 rushing things here. 16 17 On another point here, if I was able to 18 like go down on the second day and be there at least 19 two days, then that would be worth my time. Maybe I'll 20 talk to someone with the Council or with you guys or 21 Zach. I don't know exactly what the protocol is on the 22 travel. 23 24 I think education is key and we should 25 have that. Anyway, I'm pushing if there's any more 26 money for more training and more information. If we 27 could have three days on there, then I would say, hey, 28 I'm going to go for the second day and then not just 29 appearing for one day. 30 31 So that's my comments. 32 33 I will see you guys in Galena. 34 35 Thank you. 36 37 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Thanks for your 38 comments, Don. 39 40 Zach has a response. 41 42 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. 43 Don, this is Zach and I wanted to thank you for your 44 persistence particularly when you were calling into a 45 long two-day meeting. 46 47 That's a real sign of the commitment 48 that you and others have, so thank you. 49 50






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1 I just wanted to clarify that we had 2 another Council member attend this meeting who prior to 3 traveling had requested arriving a day early, 4 experiencing in the past a weather-related delay that 5 prevented them from attending in person. Like 6 yourself, they called in to the previous Council 7 meeting. That request was denied for reasons I'm not 8 entirely clear on. I can speculate that that was due 9 to funding considerations. What I was told was that

10 Council members are certainly welcome to arrive earlier 11 than the meeting. However, if that is beyond the dates 12 of ordinary travel, that will be out of the Council 13 member's own pocket, at their expense. 14 15 Stepping back for a moment, I know that 16 while we were waiting longer than expected to see a 17 Federal budget passed, the expectation was that we were 18 going to see a lower budget than we had seen last year. 19 So I think part of the issue that you're referring to, 20 Don, has to deal with an organization that's really 21 trying to pinch every single penny. 22 23 In that environment, I want to thank 24 you for your continued participation. It means a lot. 25 26 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 27 28 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Don, I can empathize 29 with you sitting on the phone. 30 31 MR. HONEA: Mr. Chair. 32 33 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Yes, go ahead. 34 35 MR. HONEA: Okay, just one more comment 36 on what he said. I realize I could have asked to come 37 in a day earlier, but that's Zach's call. I had no 38 qualms about doing that if it's a freak doggone 39 accident. Not an accident, but I was on the field and 40 it was really foggy down to the ground. I don't know 41 why it happens to me all the time, but it makes me look 42 bad in not being there at the meeting. 43 44 Anyway, I really appreciated Zach 45 trying to get me down there, but it was good me sharing 46 and listening in. 47 48 Thank you. 49 50






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1 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Thanks, Don. Being 2 on the phone you're basically only 10 percent effective 3 because you're sort of this faceless voice out there in 4 the void. But I do appreciate you doing both days and 5 putting in your comments and your votes. So I really, 6 really appreciate you being on the phone. 7 8 MR. HONEA: Thank you. 9

10 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Dennis. 11 12 MR. THOMAS: It's always good to be 13 here. Thank you, Zach. I think one thing I've learned 14 since I've been here you can't attack things. You've 15 got to sit back and think about them a little bit. 16 Sometimes you feel like you like to move quick, but 17 then you better not because it could be a problem. 18 You've got to think things through a little bit. Take 19 your time and look at it. Sometimes you've got to slow 20 things down and sometimes you want to speed them up. 21 Again, you've got to look at it long and cool and just 22 take it easy. 23 24 The people that come into these 25 meetings other than us they come and make their 26 presentation. They spend a lot of time on this and 27 they spend a lot of hours and days and stuff getting 28 these things prepared for us. I wish there was some 29 way that we didn't have to slow them down sometimes 30 because it seems like all the time they spent it would 31 be nice for them to have more to present what they have 32 for us. It just seems the way it is, you know. 33 34 If there's another answer out there, I 35 don't know what it is. Okay, you've got 10 minutes, 36 you've got five minutes or whatever it happens to be 37 and cut it off at that. This isn't too much fun 38 either, you know. 39 40 Anyway, it's good to be here and I hope 41 we just keep doing some of the good work we've been 42 doing. 43 44 Thank you. 45 46 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Thanks, Dennis. 47 Appreciate your participation. I do want to thank OSM 48 Staff. I know that OSM is really shorthanded and 49 you've got the Federal Board meeting. I was having a 50






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1 little tirade about participation, but that all 2 worked out. 3 4 I want to see this program have 5 absolute credibility between the State and Federal 6 management programs. Process is a big deal and getting 7 stuff on the record is a big deal. I'll keep pushing 8 that, but I do feel that OSM provides us a lot of 9 beneficial support and I really appreciate OSM's

10 participation with this Council and support of this 11 Council. 12 13 I also appreciate the Refuges and the 14 Park Service. Yukon Delta came up this year to our 15 meeting. I really appreciate that. We have a lot of 16 things. I mean Jeremy didn't even know that you had an 17 RIT in Aniak just to issue 21E permits. So I think 18 it's beneficial for everybody to kind of get across 19 those little border lines. They're not just borders. 20 There's customary and traditional use across both of 21 those boundaries. 22 23 So I appreciate all the various 24 agencies coming to this meeting. The BLM spent a lot 25 of time coming here to talk about those various issues 26 that this Council deals with. 27 28 I appreciate all the organizations 29 coming here and also the State of Alaska. The State of 30 Alaska has been at our meeting, Subsistence Division 31 and Division of Wildlife has been at this meeting, 32 although entire meeting. That's what makes this public 33 forum work is having all those comments and all that 34 input into this process and this Council needs that. 35 36 That will be my closing comment. 37 38 The Chair will entertain a motion to 39 adjourn the meeting. 40 41 MS. PELKOLA: So moved. 42 43 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Moved by Jenny. 44 Seconded by Shirley. 45 46 MS. CLARK: (Nods affirmatively) 47 48 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Those in favor of 49 adjournment signify by saying aye. 50






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1 IN UNISON: Aye. 2 3 CHAIRMAN REAKOFF: Opposed same sign. 4 5 (No opposing votes) 6 7 (Off record) 8 9 (END OF PROCEEDINGS)

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1 C E R T I F I C A T E 2 3 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ) 4 )ss. 5 STATE OF ALASKA ) 6 7 I, Salena A. Hile, Notary Public in and for the 8 state of Alaska and reporter for Computer Matrix Court 9 Reporters, LLC, do hereby certify:

10 11 THAT the foregoing pages numbered through 12 contain a full, true and correct Transcript of the 13 WESTERN INTERIOR FEDERAL SUBSISTENCE REGIONAL ADVISORY 14 COUNCIL MEETING, VOLUME II taken electronically on the 15 21st day of February 2018 at Anchorage, Alaska; 16 17 THAT the transcript is a true and 18 correct transcript requested to be transcribed and 19 thereafter transcribed by under my direction and 20 reduced to print to the best of our knowledge and 21 ability; 22 23 THAT I am not an employee, attorney, or 24 party interested in any way in this action. 25 26 DATED at Anchorage, Alaska, this 5th 27 day of March 2018. 28 29 30 31 Salena A. Hile 32 Notary Public, State of Alaska 33 My Commission Expires: 09/16/18 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50


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WESTERN INTERIOR ALASKA FEDERAL SUBSISTENCE REGIONAL … · 2018. 3. 12. · WESTERN INTERIOR FEDERAL SUBSISTENCE RAC 2/21/2018 2 WESTERN INTERIOR RAC MEETING Computer Matrix, LLC