YUKON-KUSKOKWIM DELTA ALASKA FEDERAL ......2019/11/06 · YUKON-KUSKOKWIM DELTA SUBSISTENCE RAC MEETING 1 11/6/2019 YUKON - KUSKOKWIM DELTA RAC MEETING Computer Matrix, LLC 135 Christensen

YUKON-KUSKOKWIM DELTA SUBSISTENCE RAC MEETING 1

11/6/2019 YUKON - KUSKOKWIM DELTA RAC MEETING

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

Phone: 907-243-0668 Fax: 907-243-1473

YUKON-KUSKOKWIM DELTA ALASKA FEDERAL SUBSISTENCE REGIONAL ADVISORY COUNCIL MEETING

PUBLIC MEETING

VOLUME I

Yupiit Piciryarait Cultural Center

Bethel, Alaska November 6, 2019

11:20 a.m.

MEMBERS PRESENT:

Alissa Rogers, Chair William Brown James Charles James Landlord Carl Maxie Richard Slats

Regional Council Coordinator, Eva Patton

Recorded and transcribed by:

Computer Matrix Court Reporters, LLC 135 Christensen Drive, Suite 2 Anchorage, AK 99501 907-243-0668/[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 (Bethel, Alaska - 11/6/2019) 4 5 (On record) 6 7 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: This is Alissa 8 Nadine Rogers, the Chair of the Yukon Delta Regional 9 Advisory Council in Bethel. I'm just letting you guys

10 a new current update. We are currently on weather hold 11 and we'll be waiting to hear back in another 15 12 minutes. 13 14 Thank you for your patience. 15 16 (Off record) 17 18 (On record) 19 20 MS. PATTON: If you could go ahead on 21 teleconference and let us know who's joined us this 22 morning. 23 24 MR. REAKOFF: This is Jack Reakoff. 25 26 MS. PATTON: Good morning Jack. 27 28 MR. DECOSSAS: Gary Decossas from Yukon 29 Delta Wildlife National Wildlife Refuge. 30 31 MS. PATTON: Good morning Gary. 32 33 MS. JALLEN: Good morning, this is 34 Deena Jallen with the Alaska Department of Fish and 35 Game, summer season assistant manager in Anchorage. 36 37 MS. PATTON: Good morning, Deena. 38 39 MS. STICKMAN: This is Danielle 40 Stickman with the Western Alaska Landscape Conservation 41 Cooperative. 42 43 MS. PATTON: Good morning, Danielle. 44 45 MR. ADERMAN: Andy Aderman, Togiak 46 National Wildlife Refuge in Dillingham. 47 48 MS. PATTON: Good morning, Andy. 49 50




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1 MR. ADERMAN: Good morning. 2 3 MR. JENKINS: Wayne Jenkins, Yukon 4 River Drainage Fisheries Association. 5 6 MS. PATTON: Good morning, Wayne. 7 8 MR. JENKINS: Good morning. 9

10 MS. PATTON: Anyone else who's joined 11 us on teleconference this morning. 12 13 MS. ERIK: Charlene Erik. 14 15 MS. PATTON: I'm sorry I didn't catch 16 your name. 17 18 MS. ERIK: Charlene Erik. 19 20 MS. PATTON: Charlene Erik. 21 22 MS. ERIK: Yes. 23 24 MS. PATTON: Good morning, Charlene. 25 26 MS. ERIK: Good morning. 27 28 MS. PATTON: And anyone else on 29 teleconference this morning. 30 31 MR. DIETRICK: Sam Dietrick, Kasigluk, 32 KTC. 33 34 MS. PATTON: Good morning, Sam. 35 36 MR. DIETRICK: Good morning. 37 38 MR. ALSTROM: Bill Alstrom. 39 40 MS. PATTON: Good morning, Bill. 41 42 MR. ALSTROM: Good morning. 43 44 GERALD: InterTribal Fish Commission. 45 46 MS. PATTON: Good morning, Gerald. 47 Okay, good morning. And I'm going to turn the meeting 48 over to the Chair to do welcome and introductions here 49 in the audience and updates on the agenda. 50




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1 (Cell phone ringing) 2 3 MS. PATTON: And we'd just like to 4 remind folks that have joined us on teleconference this 5 morning, if you could please mute your phones, you can 6 just push star six if you have a push button phone, or 7 put it on mute. If you do get an incoming call, please 8 don't put us on hold, though, because that plays music 9 and that helps so everybody can hear. And I will turn

10 it over to the Chair for welcome and introductions and 11 updates on the agenda. 12 13 Thank you. 14 15 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Eva. 16 Thank you, all, that are here today, for your patience 17 and the ability for you to be here. It's unfortunate 18 that we are on weather hold. Our next update will be 19 at 12:00 o'clock this afternoon. Our flights with 20 Grant have been cancelled, and Ravn is currently on 21 weather hold until this afternoon. As far as updates 22 go, we'll continue on with our updates and then decide 23 on what we're going to do with our meeting. 24 25 We do have some folks in the audience, 26 some students that were at our mock RAC meeting this 27 summer that we'll possibly having coming and joining us 28 after their presentations, and we've completely 29 rearranged our agenda accordingly to what we can do at 30 this moment since we do not have quorum. 31 32 Okay. 33 34 We want to go ahead and start with 35 introductions. 36 37 My name is Alissa Nadine Rogers. I'm 38 serving the town of Bethel and I'm also the RAC Chair. 39 We have -- I'll just wait until he comes back up here. 40 41 (Pause) 42 43 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Do you want to 44 introduce yourself. 45 46 MR. SLATS: Shouldn't we start with a 47 prayer. 48 49 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Yeah. Mary, do 50




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1 you want to come do the invocation please. 2 3 MS. MATTHIAS: Come up? 4 5 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Yeah. 6 7 MR. SLATS: Yeah. 8 9 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: So we could hear

10 you on teleconference. 11 12 MS. MATTHIAS: (Invocation) 13 14 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Mary. 15 I'll go ahead and call this meeting to order. The time 16 now is 11:27 a.m. 17 18 We'll go ahead and -- do you want to, 19 Mr. Slats, do roll call for us. 20 21 MR. SLATS: Okay. William Brown. 22 23 (No comments) 24 25 MS. PATTON: Good morning, Mr. Chair 26 [sic] and Council members. At this time perhaps, 27 Richard, you could introduce yourself as a Council 28 member. 29 30 To let folks know, we do have -- all of 31 our Council members are weathered out and we will have 32 some further updates in just a minute here, whether 33 folks might be able to -- some folks might be able to 34 make it this afternoon. So currently all our Council 35 members are weathered out and we have Chair Alissa 36 Rogers and Richard, if you'd like to introduce 37 yourself. 38 39 MR. SLATS: (In Yup'ik) 40 41 INTERPRETER: My ancestors are from the 42 Chevak area and I am Chup'ik. 43 44 MR. SLATS: My name is Richard Slats. 45 I'm from Chevak with Chevak Native Village. 46 47 I'm a product of the Lower Human 48 Services, I got my AA degree in 2016. I'm Second Chief 49 of the Chevak Native Village, also a board member for 50




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1 the Chevak Company Corporation. I got appointed to 2 this seat about a year ago. I'm also a Bering Sea 3 Elders Group executive committee member. I've been 4 involving myself with the Inuit Circumpolar Conference 5 and then from there we work with NOAA report card. And 6 then with the North Pacific Fisheries Management 7 Council, I've been working with local knowledge and 8 traditional knowledge task force, working group. We're 9 working on the Bering Sea Fisheries Ecosystem Plan.

10 11 I'm a subsistence hunter and fisher and 12 I was raised and I've lived that all my life. I grew 13 up going to summer camps. And being subsistence, I'm 14 single and how I know I have enough food for the winter 15 is when my freezer has got food in it. 16 17 About a month ago we started hunting 18 geese because -- actually I thought that they were 19 already moving or heading down to -- moving to their 20 winter camps but then this was at the end of September, 21 normally, that's when we hunt for them, but then I was 22 hunting them in August thinking that because of the 23 climate change and the early -- that they were moving 24 south because they were already gathering. But then 25 when I was heading out to the airport to try to go in 26 to travel for the AFN Convention, the geese were still 27 in Chevak, middle of October. My whole life they've 28 never -- geese would not stay around in our area, and 29 they're gone by the end of September. 30 31 Since we've been having these changes, 32 we're getting late spring -- or early spring, late 33 fall, just as you're seeing now. You guys are seeing 34 firsthand of some of the hardships that we're faced 35 with out there. If you look out the window this is 36 what we're faced with. And we can't head out on our 37 winter trails because, well, there's no snow, and then 38 -- and it's just frozen enough that it's dangerous to, 39 you know, to get on the rivers. And it also makes it 40 hard to go out on the boat to hunt or to, you know, do 41 fishing. 42 43 Last year when I first introduced 44 myself I mentioned something about the tomcods that we 45 always get. The first part of October is when we 46 normally would get our first freeze and then it would 47 get hard, and then we -- since my hometown is on a 48 small river, we go into the sloughs to dipnet, what we 49 call dipnetting. And we haven't done that in -- five 50




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1 -- within five to 10 years because it would freeze up 2 just enough that we -- that it would freeze over the 3 sloughs and then it's not safe and last year it snowed 4 and covered up all of the danger areas so we weren't 5 doing a lot of the things that we normally do. 6 7 In 1985 is the first time that I ever 8 seen it rain into November, it rained in November. The 9 first time I ever seen that. And I was telling my late

10 brother that it -- looked out the window and time to 11 move up north is what -- traditionally that's what our 12 people have always done is to travel, they were nomadic 13 people. We followed the fish and game. 14 15 The fish are dying in our area. 16 17 This summer when I was going to head 18 out by -- my little boat, I seen a dead pink fish right 19 by my boat and this is about the time that I was 20 reading in the papers about the fish washing up on the 21 Kuskokwim. So these things are going on for us. 22 23 And then when I set out my whitefish 24 net and then I check -- my whole life it's always been 25 cold when you go down and check the river, check the 26 waters, it was like it was lukewarm, you know, 27 surprised. So I have it from another Councilman that I 28 asked about this and then he, too, was saying the same 29 thing, from his fish camp, that the fish are dying in 30 our rivers too. 31 32 This summer when I went out on the 33 boat, we were on our way back from our fish camp to -- 34 on a day trip to our fish camp, on the way back we seen 35 what I figure to be common murres that were just 36 staying there. We'd go straight to them and they 37 weren't flying away, they were just sitting there. And 38 then we swayed away from them, it's not like we were 39 playing chicken but normally any -- seagulls would fly 40 away if we get up close to them, but these ones were 41 not moving at all. And we didn't know what to do. 42 43 My whole life when I was being a 44 subsistence user, if there was anything that happened 45 globally that we would be the last people to survive 46 because we can rely on subsistence food because we 47 would still have that subsistence fish and game to live 48 off of. Living off the land. But then this day and 49 age we may not have that same train of thought because 50




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1 the fish and game are dying off. So without 2 subsistence, I'm thinking we, too, will start dying 3 off, our culture will come to an end, and that has 4 always been our main stay is to live off the land and 5 the waters. 6 7 So what I've said before and what I'm 8 saying today is what I'm starting to believe, is that, 9 we are the last of a dying breed.

10 11 When we were in Nome with some of our 12 elders we were talking about things that are going on 13 with our areas, our lands and our seas, we were going 14 on and on about what I just brought up to you, but then 15 at the end -- towards the end we all decided that we 16 need to declare a state of emergency. 17 18 This is going on and it's real. You're 19 witnessing it. And these are just some of the very 20 toughest times in our lives but then we really don't 21 have anywhere else to go except our homelands to hunt 22 and fish. So I don't mean to be going on and on but 23 then these are reality and what I have just mentioned 24 is that -- so while we're here these next couple days, 25 we need to understand that these are real events that 26 are happening right in front of our eyes and these are 27 real. And we're some of the people that are going 28 through some of the toughest times because we just 29 can't go out and go hunt and fish on days like these. 30 31 Thank you. 32 33 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Quyana, Mr. 34 Slats. Very well said. 35 36 MR. SLATS: Thank you. 37 38 MS. PATTON: Madame Chair. 39 40 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Eva. 41 42 MS. PATTON: Madame Chair, if we may, 43 do welcome and introductions to introduce folks who 44 have joined us here in person at the meeting. 45 46 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: That would be 47 great, Eva. 48 49 Well, let's go ahead and start with 50




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1 you. 2 3 (Pause) 4 5 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Eva, you first. 6 7 MS. PATTON: Welcome everyone. Thank 8 you and thanks to all on line as well for joining us. 9 I know we've tried to reschedule a couple of times here

10 to accommodate everybody flying in. So I'd like to 11 welcome everybody here today. 12 13 Eva Patton, Council coordinator for the 14 Yukon Kuskokwim Delta Subsistence Regional Advisory 15 Council. 16 17 Thank you. 18 19 MR. MASCHMANN: Gerald Maschmann with 20 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from the Fairbanks 21 office. 22 23 MR. KRON: Tom Kron, OSM. Good 24 morning. 25 26 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Good morning. 27 28 MS. LAVINE: Good morning. This is 29 Robbin LaVine, I'm an anthropologist with the Office of 30 Subsistence Management. 31 32 MS. MILLION: Good morning. Bonnie 33 Million, Field Manager with the BLM's Anchorage Field 34 Office. 35 36 MR. BORN: Good morning. Ray Born. 37 Acting Refuge Manager at Yukon Delta Refuge. 38 39 MR. ORR: Good morning. John Orr with 40 AVCP. 41 42 MS. WORKER: Good morning. I'm Suzanne 43 Worker with OSM. 44 45 MR. MCDONALD: Good morning. My name's 46 Matt McDonald. I'm a Federal Wildlife Officer with the 47 Alaska Region, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 48 49 MR. CHEN: Aloha Council members. My 50




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1 name is Glenn Chen. I work for the Bureau of Indian 2 Affairs. 3 4 MR. HARRIS: Good morning. Frank 5 Harris, fish biologist for OSM. 6 7 MR. CHARLES: Benjamin Charles with the 8 Inuit Circumpolar Council. 9

10 MR. JIMMIE: I'm Anson Jimmie from 11 Bethel. 12 13 MR. LUPIE: I'm Sean Lupie. 14 15 MS. LUPIE: I'm Sarah Lupie. 16 17 MS. ESQUIBLE: Hi. I'm Janessa 18 Esquible and I'm with the Orutsararmiut Native Council 19 and I'm the Partners biologist. 20 21 MR. JONES: Good morning. Patrick Jones 22 with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, wildlife 23 biologist stationed here in Bethel. 24 25 MS. MATTHIAS: Good morning. I'm Mary 26 Matthias, the natural resource Director for 27 Orutsararmiut Native Council. 28 29 MS. MCARTHUR: AnnaRose McArthur, KYUK. 30 31 MS. LARSON: We're just guests, our 32 jury was postponed until 2:00 and we just came in and 33 are passing the time. I'm (indiscernible) Larson, 34 originally from Oscarville but I live here in Bethel. 35 36 MS. OLSON: I'm Alice Olson. I'm just 37 a guest. Jury was postponed until 2:00. 38 39 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Well, thank you 40 all for being here, I greatly appreciate it. And, yes, 41 guests are welcome. It's a public meeting. We 42 actually encourage guests to come to the meeting. 43 44 Is there anybody else that would like 45 to introduce themselves. 46 47 (No comments) 48 49 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Tina. 50




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1 REPORTER: Oh, okay, my name's Tina. 2 I'm the court reporter for this Council. Thanks. 3 4 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Did you want to 5 do teleconference or did you already get that, Eva. 6 7 MS. PATTON: Madame Chair and Council. 8 We have most folks who have joined us on teleconference 9 here this morning. I would like to introduce, we do

10 have our Yup'ik interpreter, Evan, extraordinarre. We 11 do have headsets. Maybe some of our Staff can help 12 pull a few out so you can listen to Yup'ik 13 interpretation for the meeting. There's headsets and 14 the receivers over on that side. 15 16 Madame Chair and Council. 17 18 I've been on line and texting and 19 calling folks, again, due to the extreme icing 20 conditions, the majority of our Council has been 21 weathered out. We were hopeful they would fly this 22 morning. Those flights this morning have been 23 cancelled and it's uncertain whether we'll be able to 24 get them rebooked on later flights today. We will have 25 confirmation of that a little later in the afternoon. 26 27 So our strategy for today, many people 28 have traveled here, and folks are available on 29 teleconference and we do have some public interested in 30 hearing some of the informational updates so without 31 having a quorum for the Council to take action on 32 action items, we can proceed with the informational 33 updates at this time and then we'll convene with 34 Council members over lunch and check on travel status 35 and ability for teleconferencing and have some further 36 updates at that time. 37 38 But I think our strategy for today, 39 anyway,is to rearrange the agenda such that those folks 40 who have traveled here and are available to provide 41 agency updates and informational updates, we can still 42 do that for the Council that are here and able to 43 listen in, and also for the public. 44 45 So what we might do is, over the lunch 46 hour, strategize with those folks of you who have 47 traveled here for agency updates of how to proceed with 48 that this afternoon. 49 50




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1 So really appreciate everybody's 2 efforts to get here. I know many of you that are here 3 also got weathered out earlier and we should have 4 further updates on our Council's ability to either 5 travel or call in by teleconference at that time. 6 7 We did have, as our Chair Alissa Rogers 8 noted earlier, students from ONC's science and cultural 9 camp this summer that have some presentations for us

10 and they thought they were special because they got the 11 day off of school to come present and now school's 12 closed due to icy roads, so -- but it's really 13 wonderful that you're able to be here and the Council 14 and all of us are looking forward to your 15 presentations. 16 17 So we'll start with the ONC student 18 presentations at this time. 19 20 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Eva. 21 We'll go ahead and get any public testimony. If 22 there's any public testimony, we have blue cards in the 23 back, go ahead and fill it out and bring it to Eva, and 24 then if there's anybody on teleconference that would 25 like to do public testimony, we'll go ahead and take 26 you up at this time. 27 28 29 (No comments) 30 31 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: All right, 32 hearing none. We'll go ahead and continue on with our 33 agenda. 34 35 (Pause) 36 37 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Are you ready or 38 did you need more time -- okay, we'll go ahead and move 39 right along to -- oh, yeah, hey, Eva, did we get 40 people, their names and everything for teleconference, 41 who was on line for teleconference? 42 43 MS. PATTON: Yeah, we can check back on 44 with teleconference to confirm who has joined us and if 45 anybody new has joined who wasn't able to introduce 46 themselves, while we have -- while we're waiting for 47 the students here. 48 49 50




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1 (No comments) 2 3 MS. PATTON: Okay, so it sounds like 4 nobody..... 5 6 MR. ANDERSON: This is Jeff Anderson 7 with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Kenai 8 Fish and Wildlife Conservation office. 9

10 MS. PATTON: Thank you, Jeff. 11 12 MR. SMITH: Hello everybody. This is 13 Nicholas Smith with the Alaska Department of Fish and 14 Game. I'm the Kuskokwim area management biologist and 15 I'm calling in from Anchorage. 16 17 MS. PATTON: Good morning, Nicholas. 18 19 MARY: This is Mary with the Kuskokwim 20 River Intertribal Fish Commission. 21 22 MS. PATTON: Good morning Mary. 23 24 MARY: Good morning, Eva. 25 26 MS. ERIK: Charlene Erik. 27 28 MS. PATTON: One more time, please, I 29 didn't quite catch your name. 30 31 MS. ERIK: Charlene Erik. 32 33 MS. PATTON: Good morning, Charlene. 34 35 Anyone else on teleconference that 36 hasn't had a chance to introduce themselves yet. 37 38 (No comments) 39 40 MS. PATTON: Okay. I think we could 41 proceed with our student presentations if the students 42 would like to come up to the testimony table here. 43 They were going to present under public and -- public 44 testimony. 45 46 MR. JIMMIE: (In Yup'ik) And my name 47 in gussok is Anson Jimmie, and I'm here from Bethel and 48 I go to school at BHS. 49 50




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1 And I'd like to talk about the moose 2 populations and if they are declining. People -- and 3 if people here aren't meeting their needs. We do not 4 support non-Federally-qualified users to hunt in this 5 area. And we support Wildlife Proposal 22-35 to add a 6 winter season for moose in Unit 18 because the moose 7 population is increasing and people may not be able to 8 get moose in the fall because it's been getting warmer 9 and warmer and there's less snow. So people may not be

10 able to use their snowmachines. 11 12 Quyana. 13 14 MR. LUPIE: (In Yup'ik) Sean Lupie. 15 And I wanted to share some concerns and changes with 16 the ptarmigans. 17 18 A long time ago, I think in 2012 they 19 had more ptarmigans in Kipnuk, Qwig and Kong, but now 20 we have less ptarmigans in the area. We go out hunting 21 to the..... 22 23 (Teleconference interference - 24 participants not muted) 25 26 MR. LUPIE: .....by Tunt from Kong to 27 hunt ptarmigans. I think ptarmigans stopped living in 28 the place where there are no trees because they are 29 getting killed by predators like wolves and fox. 30 31 (Teleconference interference - 32 participants not muted) 33 34 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Just one moment 35 please. 36 37 MS. PATTON: For the..... 38 39 REPORTER: I will cut in and take care 40 of it. 41 42 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: We are going to 43 make sure that they silence their phones so they can 44 respectively hear you. I apologize for the background 45 noise so she's going to let them know. 46 47 (Pause) 48 49 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Quyana. 50




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1 REPORTER: You're welcome. 2 3 MR. LUPIE: Do I restart? 4 5 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: No, you don't 6 have to restart, you can just start where you left off. 7 8 MR. LUPIE: Therefore, they move to a 9 place where there's more hiding place from predators.

10 We think there has been an increase in predation 11 causing them to decline. And maybe because the climate 12 is changing, like in fall and spring, to use -- it used 13 to be cold and there were more ptarmigans but it's 14 getting warmer and warmer every year. 15 16 Quyana. 17 18 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Quyana. 19 20 MS. LUPIE: (In Yup'ik) Sarah Lupie. 21 22 I am schooling in Bethel this fall. I 23 attended the science and cultural camp this summer. 24 This year fishing was good except there seems to be 25 more puss in the fish we found when we were cutting. 26 The salmon seems to get more smaller even though we use 27 8.5 mesh. We had to go down to Quinhagak to get larger 28 salmon. This year there were more herrings in the 29 Lower Kuskokwim. 30 31 We would also recommend allowing 32 fishing on the Kuskokwim River after working hours so 33 more families can have a chance to fish after work. 34 35 Quyana. 36 37 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, folks. 38 You guys did a great and wonderful job. Everyone help 39 me give a round of applause for these kids. 40 41 (Applause) 42 43 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: I'm so proud and 44 thankful you guys were able to make it. It really 45 blesses our heart to see young folks be a part of these 46 issues and know that these issues and their voices can 47 be heard and that way we can continue on this process 48 and can pass down our traditional knowledge on our 49 cultural values and knowing how they can impact them 50




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1 and continue them on. 2 3 MR. SLATS: Yeah. 4 5 (In Yup'ik) 6 7 MR. SLATS: Thank you for coming here 8 and giving us your report. 9

10 I want to thank the youth for being 11 here. I know it also takes a lot of courage, even for 12 people that's been up here and it just takes a lot of 13 courage to get up and speak. So I want to commend you 14 guys for being with us and then getting up to speak. 15 16 Thank you. 17 18 Quyana. 19 20 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: We'll go ahead 21 and do about a five minute break so we can call Ravn, 22 Eva. 23 24 MS. PATTON: Sure that sounds fine. 25 And I just want to check on line, I know we had 26 students that were talking about ptarmigan and one of 27 the folks that we had lined up to speak during the 28 Council meeting, I believe, has joined us on 29 teleconference, and not to put you on the spot, but was 30 wondering if it might be an opportunity to share a 31 little bit of those ptarmigan updates with the students 32 if you have any questions and share your observations. 33 34 Nicholas Smith, I believe, were you 35 this afternoon. 36 37 (Cell phone ringing) 38 39 MR. SMITH: Hi, this is Nick. So I was 40 going to call in and I was -- so I'm calling in to do a 41 joint presentation with Ray from U.S. Fish and Wildlife 42 Service on the Kuskokwim season summary. 43 44 MS. PATTON: My apologies. I got you 45 mixed up with Rick Merizon. Thank you for calling in. 46 But we might have an opportunity for more discussion, 47 if the students are able to join us, we'll have 48 presentations this afternoon from our biologists and 49 Refuge and agency Staff, too, so hopefully we can have 50




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1 some more discussion with you and your observations as 2 well and any questions if you have. 3 4 Okay, thank you. 5 6 (Cell phone ringing) 7 8 MS. PATTON: Yeah, and at this time if 9 people are willing to just take a five minute break

10 here, we're just going to check in on the status of 11 flights and be able to give everybody an update and 12 then also a strategy for this afternoon for folks that 13 are on line. If you're willing for just five minutes 14 here and we'll get back with everybody. 15 16 Thank you. 17 18 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Five minutes 19 folks. 20 21 (Off record) 22 23 (On record) 24 25 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Teleconference 26 we're just rearranging our agenda at this time. We're 27 going to go ahead and ask that our mock RAC 28 representatives, our students from the science and 29 cultural camp, this afternoon, come and sit up at the 30 table with us. 31 32 (Pause) 33 34 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: All right, we'll 35 go ahead and call this meeting back to order. The time 36 now is 12:18. We're going to have a change in our 37 agenda, it's going to be Janessa Esquible, the ONC 38 Partners Program and then we're going to go on to the 39 Bureau of Land Management, and then we'll be talking 40 about ptarmigan and then we'll recess for lunch. And 41 then right after lunch we'll go ahead and discuss 42 Mulchatna Caribou Herd in-depth. 43 44 (Pause) 45 46 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Go ahead, 47 Janessa. 48 49 MS. ESQUIBLE: Okay. Oh, should I go 50




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1 stand up there? 2 3 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Yeah, if you want 4 to. 5 6 REPORTER: Well, from over here, you 7 could, as long as you have that microphone with you, I 8 can pick it up. So stand somewhere in the vicinity of 9 a microphone so I can pick you up. Thanks. I'll let

10 you know if I can't hear you -- you're good there. 11 Thanks. 12 13 MS. ESQUIBLE: Okay. Hi everyone. 14 Thanks for having me today. My name is Janessa 15 Esquible and I live here in Bethel and work for ONC. 16 And today I'm just going to give a short overview of 17 our Partners Program, and, actually I believe Mary had 18 -- save some time for her, so I don't know if she wants 19 to come up here also, with me. 20 21 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: What's the 22 discussion point? Is it going to be on natural 23 resources or on -- okay, maybe we can do it after 24 lunch. 25 26 MS. MATTHIAS: (Nods affirmatively) 27 28 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thanks. 29 30 MS. ESQUIBLE: Oh, okay. I saved her 31 time because I know I have like a 15 minute slot, so 32 mine should only be 10 or so. 33 34 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Time now is not 35 even -- we don't care about time right now. 36 37 (Laughter) 38 39 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: We're on Yup'ik 40 time. 41 42 (Laughter) 43 44 MS. ESQUIBLE: Okay. All right. 45 46 Well, we can go to the next slide. 47 48 So this past summer we hired seven 49 technicians to help us out. Starting on the left-hand 50




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1 side, we have Calvin Samson. He was the only one not 2 working in our in-season harvest monitoring program so 3 we hired him in conjunction with the Refuge here to 4 work on the tree swallow monitoring project. I think 5 you all had him present with you last year on his work. 6 So he's continuing to do that. 7 8 And then we had Clarissa Zeller, Deja 9 Jackson, Mathew Kapsner, Avery Hoffman, Peter Crow

10 Dylan Demientieff and Destiny Ropati. 11 12 This might have been our largest crew 13 thus far but it was a really great summer and about 14 half of the students are returners from last year, and 15 three of them are with the Alaska Native Science and 16 Engineering Program. We have a pretty large age range 17 from like ninth grade all the way up to their under- 18 graduate career. 19 20 So we can go to the next slide. 21 22 So this summer we contacted fish camps 23 from June 2nd through July 8th. We contacted 70, 24 total, fish camps and on average 30 fish camps were 25 contacted per week. And so when we were out at the 26 fish camps we asked them about their -- any change in 27 relative harvest goal for kings, reds and chums 28 compared to last year. We gathered harvest data, 29 progress information, so how far along were they to 30 achieving their salmon needs for the year, and then we 31 also gathered any comments or concerns that they had 32 with the fish. 33 34 And on that note, with the comments and 35 concerns, we had several fish camps report that the 36 king salmon and then a couple of the red, but mostly 37 with the king had white patches on the flesh, puss 38 pockets, and other things, and so we did send a couple 39 samples to a pathologist and we're still waiting to get 40 results on that and I think Fish and Game, Nick, might 41 be able to speak more to this -- was also looking into 42 that. 43 44 So we can go to the next slide. 45 46 So this is the final fishing progress 47 data we collected during our last visit at the fish 48 camp. For column 1, row 2 we have chinook. So at the 49 end of the season 82 percent of respondents reported 50




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1 having met their king salmon needs, and that's almost 2 double of what we seen -- when compared to 2018 and 3 then also a lot higher than what was observed in 2017. 4 5 And then if we go down to chum we had 6 74 percent of respondents having met their goal which 7 was pretty similar to 2018 and 2017. One of the things 8 that was unique this year is for folks that didn't meet 9 their chum salmon needs they attributed it to a weak

10 and a late chum salmon run. And then for the sockeye 11 salmon, folks did pretty good, 79 percent of 12 respondents met their goals for the sockeye and it was 13 a little bit higher than what was observed in 2018 and 14 2017. 15 16 We have some pictures of our Staff at 17 Robert Lekander's fish camp and then also Mary 18 Peltola's fish camp. 19 20 And for the harvest data, so each 21 salmon fishing opener in June we entered the harvest 22 data that we collected at fish camps at the boat harbor 23 and we sent that over to Gary Decossas at the Refuge 24 here, he then produced a harvest estimate so I think he 25 was going to bring some of the -- copies of the report 26 that includes more detailed information on the fishing 27 activity that ONC and the community-based monitors 28 documented this summer. And then I also brought an in- 29 season pamphlet that has a summary of some of our 30 results from this summer if you guys want to check that 31 out. 32 33 You can go to the next slide. 34 35 For the chinook salmon, age, sex, 36 length sampling program, we did really well this year. 37 We were able to recruit 25 samplers, all of them were 38 from Bethel except one was from Tuntutuliak, and we 39 achieved our sample size goal of obtaining around 1,500 40 samples. And we paid out about $7,000 community 41 members who all did the sampling and helped us out. So 42 we haven't observed recruitment this high since 2011 so 43 this was really exciting. And we're really grateful 44 for all the samplers who took the time to help us and 45 we're hoping that this trend can continue to next year. 46 47 You can go to the next slide. 48 49 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Hey, Janessa, 50




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1 real quick. For your sample size, when you're talking 2 about your ASL, did you get any reports back of the age 3 and the composition of the age coming back yet? 4 5 MS. ESQUIBLE: Not yet. 6 7 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Not yet, okay. 8 9 MS. ESQUIBLE: And then this year we

10 also helped out with otolith sampling, so we remove the 11 otoliths from the king salmon that were caught by the 12 Bethel test fishery and basically the otoliths just 13 help the fish with hearing and balance but for 14 scientists they can be really valuable, it can tell us 15 where the fish traveled in its life, where the fish was 16 born, and then similar to the scale, it can tell you 17 how old the fish is. And so the otoliths were sent to 18 the University of Washington and Danielle Shindler and 19 Sean Brandon will be doing the analysis on that. And I 20 also brought -- one of the other documents that I 21 brought for you all to review is a summary of the 22 results from the 2017 Kuskokwim River chinook salmon 23 otolith analysis they did and then on some of their 24 work in the Nushagak. 25 26 Next slide. 27 28 This year we were fortunate enough to 29 have the BIA tribal youth initiative program, also 30 known as the science and cultural camp, which is where 31 some of these students -- where we connected with them 32 at. And the program was held in July, it was about 11 33 days long, 10 nights, we had 15 students from the 34 communities of Eek, Kong, Kipnuk, Kasigluk, Newtok and 35 Bethel, and we hired five local youth to assist us with 36 the program. They served as youth mentors. We had 37 about 16 instructors and 10 elders helping with the 38 camp. And the students were exposed to a variety of 39 careers in the natural sciences. They also spent a lot 40 of time with elders learning more about Yup'ik cultural 41 values. 42 43 And just to give you an idea of what's 44 happening in these slides here, on the top block, 45 that's from a picture taken, actually here, I think in 46 this room. We had an environmental movie screening. 47 Top right, bottom left, Patrick Snow and Avery Hoffman 48 took the kids out to the ADF&G sonar site so they did a 49 half day tour there. We had Keith Oster, I think, and 50




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1 Patrick Jones lead a session on small game, learning 2 about different types of ptarmigan and grouse. And 3 then on the bottom right, Aaron Moses, and Gary 4 Decossas introduced the kids to the fish preservation 5 project and they were able to go see what was happening 6 over there at the fish racks with the work that they're 7 doing. 8 9 The next slide.

10 11 And the students also spent a couple 12 days at fish camp and an overnight. They learned more 13 about how to remove the otoliths from the fish. They 14 also made medicinal salves using some of the local 15 plants that they collected with the elders and the 16 ethnobotonist. 17 18 And next slide. 19 20 They participated in a management 21 session with the Fish Commission, U.S. Fish and 22 Wildlife Service, they also did an oil spill 23 simulation, went berry picking, were introduced to 24 moose radiotelemetry by Spencer Reardon and Aaron 25 Moses. They did salmon aging with Nick Smith and Ben 26 Gray. They also helped out with our Alaska Youth 27 Litter Patrol Group cleaning up Bethel. They had a 28 couple sessions on that. They went birding with 29 Patrick Snow. And then Alissa Rogers and Karen Hyer 30 led a mock RAC meeting, so that was a really great 31 opportunity for the students. And then we also went on 32 KYUK and spoke some about what they've learned during 33 the program and how they benefitted. 34 35 And with that, we're planning to have 36 another program next summer. So we do have funding to 37 run another program and if any elders and/or 38 instructors are interested in helping out, please let 39 me know we would love to have your help. 40 41 Next slide. 42 43 And this will be my last slide, so this 44 is the update on the post-season subsistence salmon 45 survey project. 46 47 Every fall we partner with Fish and 48 Game to do this project. We focus here in Bethel but 49 then they have surveyors that also go out to the 50




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1 outlying villages. So we hired seven locals this year 2 and we pretty much achieved our sample size goal, we 3 completed about 518 surveys in just a little over two 4 weeks. So this was probably the quickest that we've 5 finished, at least in the past four or five years. So 6 we did pretty well. 7 8 And let's see the other thing here is 9 that we have a summary from 2018 project results. And

10 so this isn't new product that we're working with Fish 11 and Game on, so instead of just having the annual 12 report, which is huge, and probably not digestible by 13 many, or maybe folks don't have the time to read it, 14 there's a front and back page summary that I put on the 15 back table there and it's in English and Yuk'dom, so 16 check it out if you want to see that. 17 18 And next slide. 19 20 Quyana (In Yup'ik) to ONC, you all for 21 having me today, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, ANSEP, 22 LKSD, Fish and Game, the Fish Commission, UAF, and all 23 the community members of the Delta. 24 25 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, 26 Janessa. 27 28 (Applause) 29 30 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Do you guys have 31 any questions. 32 33 (No comments) 34 35 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Question's. 36 37 (No comments) 38 39 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Well, I guess I 40 could ask, our youth, who are sitting up here, what you 41 guys thought about the camp and I'll start with, Sarah, 42 can you start, let us know how it was for you with the 43 camp and what you liked about it. 44 45 MS. LUPIE: It was fun. A lot of 46 experiences. And you learn a lot. 47 48 MR. JIMMIE: We got to learn a lot of 49 cultural values and fish camp life. 50




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1 MR. LUPIE: It was good. 2 3 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Well, thank you 4 so much, I greatly appreciate it. 5 6 Thank you, Janessa. 7 8 Up next, is BLM, Bureau of Land 9 Management. Did you have any presentations we need to

10 hook up in for you? 11 12 MS. MILLION: No. 13 14 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: No, okay. 15 16 MS. MILLION: I do have handouts. 17 Council members have a copy. 18 19 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: And then up on 20 deck we have ptarmigan. We'll be discussing ptarmigan. 21 22 MS. MILLION: Okay. Thank you, so much 23 Madame Chair. Council members. For the record my name 24 is Bonnie Million. I am the Field Manager for the 25 BLM's Anchorage Field Office and with me. 26 27 RANGER GUSSEY: Good afternoon. This 28 is Walker Gussey. I'm the Anchorage based law 29 enforcement ranger pilot, so I cover pretty much all of 30 Western Alaska for the BLM. 31 32 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Welcome. 33 34 RANGER GUSSEY: Thank you. 35 36 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Welcome, new 37 faces. 38 39 MS. MILLION: So, today, for the 40 Council, we did provide just a two page summary of some 41 of the great field work that our Staff was able to 42 complete this past 2019 season. A couple of projects 43 that I did want to give the Council an update on 44 specifically because I know the Council has had 45 interest in them in the past. 46 47 The first is an update on the Bering 48 Sea Western Interior Resource Management Plan project. 49 Currently that project timeline is sort of bumping 50




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1 along, it's not going as quickly as we were originally 2 expecting. So the final environmental impact statement 3 has not been released yet for that project but we'll 4 most definitely let the Council know as soon as we have 5 an updated timeline on that. 6 7 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you. Do 8 you have an estimated timeframe of when we could be 9 looking at this, months, couple years?

10 11 MS. MILLION: Oh, I would -- if I had 12 to guess I would say it's closer to the months side 13 than years. But honestly I don't have any guess as to 14 when that's going to come out. But I did want to just 15 make sure when that final -- when eventually that final 16 EIS comes out it will have in there the proposed 17 resource management plan and once it is published that 18 will start a 30 day public protest period and the 60 19 day Governor's consistency review. 20 21 On this two page handout, at the front 22 there is a link to the project website. In addition to 23 sending out emails there will be press releases, news 24 releases, newspaper updates, radio spots, and then that 25 project website will also be updated with that 26 information. And I will definitely, as I said, ensure 27 that the Council receives an email when that project 28 actually goes out. 29 30 The other project that I know the 31 Council had had interest in in the past, it's on the 32 second page under the hazardous materials update. The 33 Red Devil Mine remediation project, and I know that's 34 outside of this Council's area but it is up stream on 35 the Kuskokwim. We are anticipating that a proposed plan 36 will be completed and it will be going out for public 37 community meetings sometime in February or March of 38 2020. 39 40 So those are the big project updates. 41 42 There are some other great field 43 projects that did occur. 44 45 We had our hydrology and aquatics team 46 went out and did some really great stream surveys 47 around the Goodnews Bay area and up around Aniak, to do 48 some baseline hydrology monitoring. We got some really 49 great cultural resource surveys done out of McCarter 50




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1 Spit, ACEC, and ongoing wildlife work with breeding 2 bird surveys and then some future partnerships with the 3 Togiak National Wildlife Refuge for the Mulchatna 4 Caribou Herd next summer. 5 6 So that's just a really quick overview. 7 8 I wasn't sure if you had any questions 9 or if there's additional information.

10 11 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: I actually have a 12 couple questions. Do you have a map that you guys came 13 up with where it showed the land that you had up for 14 discussion about that's going to be open for mining? 15 16 MS. MILLION: So those maps are 17 available on that project website. The interesting 18 thing about the Bering Sea Western Interior planning 19 area, about 50 percent of that planning area is already 20 open to mining. There's a little bit of a difference 21 between other BLM resource management plans that 22 covered areas that were entirely closed because of the 23 ANCSA 17D(1) withdrawals which were put in place. The 24 Bering Sea Western Interior planning area is kind of 25 unique in BLM Alaska, in that, actually the ANCSA 26 17D(1) withdrawals were largely open to mining in our 27 area. 28 29 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: And correct me if 30 I'm wrong, did you guys take into consideration any of 31 the subsistence land uses area and all the cultural, 32 because I remember there were two different maps that 33 you had, one where all the tribes put together their 34 subsistence use areas and then you guys used that and 35 only, was it -- was it only one percent of that was 36 actually taken into account to protect subsistence 37 areas? 38 39 MS. MILLION: So we definitely included 40 those subsistence use areas in the analysis, in the 41 environmental impact statement and the ANILCA .810 42 preliminary report that was created as a part of the 43 Draft EIS process. I think what you might be referring 44 to is designation of areas of critical environmental 45 concern and for those, those areas that were nominated 46 and were found to meet the relevance and importance 47 criteria, which is a rating system that the BLM has on 48 a national level, those were analyzed under Alternative 49 1 of the three action alternatives; the preferred 50




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1 alternative in the Draft EIS did not have any official 2 designations for areas of critical environmental 3 concern. 4 5 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Go ahead, Mr. 6 Slats. 7 8 MR. SLATS: Just a couple of questions, 9 in the -- your Bering Sea Western Interior Resource

10 Management plan, it's my understanding that this is 11 going to be -- BLM lands are going to be opened up for 12 mineral resource to see -- to see if there's mineral in 13 those areas and with the EIS going on, I'm wondering if 14 how many of the tribes in those immediate areas of 15 where this plan applies to that are tribal communities 16 and if those tribes were ever consulted about this and 17 if any of them knew that the resource management plan 18 was coming out and that any of these environmental 19 impact statements -- that process was being made aware 20 of to any of the tribes that might be affected, you 21 know, with the resources, that they rely on. 22 23 MS. MILLION: Sure. Thank you so much 24 for that question. Yes, this project has been going on 25 since 2013 and since that time there have been letters 26 and newspaper advertisements and newsletters that have 27 been sent out to all of the tribes that are within the 28 planning area and we have a detailed list of that 29 correspondence. We have responded to every request we 30 have received for government to government consultation 31 on the project. 32 33 When the Draft Environmental Impact 34 Statement went out for a public comment period, we 35 originally had scheduled, I believe, 12 public meetings 36 in communities and we received several additional 37 requests throughout that process for meetings, 38 community meetings and government to government 39 consultations and we were able to fit in 17 total, I 40 believe, during that 90 day public comment period. And 41 we have continued to have government to government 42 consultations with tribes within the planning area or 43 very close to the planning area throughout the process. 44 45 MR. SLATS: How many of those being 46 contacted for consultation, how many of those were 47 village corporations because there is a difference, I 48 mean, you know, the corporations are for profit and 49 then the tribes are more concerned with their health 50




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1 and safety -- their health, safety and their well-being 2 of their tribal membership. 3 4 MS. MILLION: Absolutely. That's a 5 very, very good point. And throughout the process we 6 have two separate mailing lists that we send letters 7 out to, well, three, but when it comes to consultation 8 specifically we have a list of Federally-recognized 9 tribes, and then we also have a list of ANCSA

10 Corporation, both village and regional corporations 11 that we sent consultation letters to. 12 13 And I'm more than happy to share that 14 list with the Council if you'd be interested. 15 16 MR. SLATS: Thank you. 17 18 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Also wanted to, 19 on another note that, we just want to make sure that 20 BLM understands that as tribes and voices and advocates 21 of the resources, our subsistence ways of life, our 22 traditional way of life and the people that we adhere 23 to, people that we advocate for, that our 24 sustainability of our traditional way of life is known 25 and that our wishes for -- our uses for those 26 traditional lands are to be protected, and including 27 the watersheds that flow within them. 28 29 We also want to say that to -- engage 30 and have consultations with BLM on a consistent basis. 31 I know it's really costly to have all these meetings 32 everywhere, and like even today we had this nice big 33 meeting planned and weather has gotten in the way so I 34 understand the logistics of it. 35 36 We also do want to understand and let 37 you know we do understand your plan to open up 99 38 percent of that land, which is consistent with 13.4 39 million acres to mining that provides conservation 40 protection, like I said, to only one percent of that 41 land. 42 43 In the difference between the maps that 44 I was shown was that a lot of the land was 100 percent 45 used by Native and traditional ways of life, yet only 46 one percent of that is going to be protected and it 47 kind of startles me and it's kind of scary because if 48 something goes wrong, then, like he was mentioning, 49 there goes that way of life in that area. We may be 50




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1 resilient to certain things, we may be flexible, we may 2 have the ability to adapt to what's coming in front of 3 us, but it is a concern to us that our voices are not 4 just being heard but actually being applied. 5 6 And then on another thing, they wanted 7 to mention that -- I kind of shudder at this, because 8 though everyone's land is -- everyone who wants to live 9 here, who claims home here, who has deep roots here

10 regardless if they're from here or not, this is their 11 home as well, and I just want to make that -- aware -- 12 that it's not only Natives, but it's also people who 13 want to claim this as their home. Our people, in this 14 area, in the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta, including other 15 regions of the area, have always migrated to different 16 parts. We always use different lands, different 17 species, different areas based on what our weather and 18 our conditions of survival are. We were forced to be 19 stationary and because of that a lot of our cultural 20 values and disciplines have faded. We are learning to 21 bring those back and we're learning to migrate again. 22 It's a little hard, it's a little difficult, especially 23 with our weather, but we are learning. 24 25 And we can't stress it enough that we 26 want our lands to be protected, including our 27 watersheds, our way of life, and our sustainability of 28 our people. 29 30 So I know you understand where I'm 31 coming from, it's everyone else above you that needs to 32 understand. 33 34 Thank you. 35 36 Anyone else have anything to say. 37 38 MR. SLATS: Just one more. 39 40 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Yes, go ahead, 41 Mr. Slats. 42 43 MR. SLATS: Thank you for being here. 44 I appreciate -- I remember your being here about a year 45 ago. 46 47 MS. MILLION: Yeah. 48 49 MR. SLATS: And I was given -- well, 50




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1 that presentation, and then when I come to these 2 meetings I let my tribe know that these things are, you 3 know, the agenda and things like this that may be of 4 interest to us. We may not be -- we're out on the 5 coast, 17 miles inland, but anything that is going on 6 in any of our area, especially on the -- we're in 7 between two of the biggest rivers in the state, and all 8 of -- both of those rivers, the waters lead out to the 9 coast and whatever -- anything that happens in those

10 rivers will eventually come to us, it'll be there. 11 12 And then going back to our 13 consultation, when you come to these meetings and then 14 you consult, you know, like you're doing a very good, 15 you know, presentation, informative, and then when I 16 sit here and then I'm taking notes and stuff like this, 17 I go home and do a trip report because my tribal 18 council, or the rest of my tribe cannot be here, is not 19 tribal consultation. It isn't, unless you come out to 20 our tribe and meet with us. And, you know, like let us 21 know that these things are going on because even if I 22 do go home and did a really good trip report it 23 wouldn't be as effective as if you were out there and 24 then consulting with our Council. 25 26 So I just wanted to point that out and 27 I appreciate your being here today. 28 29 Thank you. 30 31 MS. MILLION: Thank you so much. 32 Again, really appreciate the opportunity. And, I, 33 again, 110 percent agree with you that, no, giving 34 these presentations is definitely not the same as a 35 government to government consultation or ANCSA 36 Corporation consultation. Absolutely not. It's just 37 an opportunity to get the word out. 38 39 And my contact information is on the 40 sheet that I handed out. If there are any additional 41 questions, please, do feel free to send me an email or 42 give me a call. We are always, always, always 43 available for government consultation or ANCSA 44 Corporation consultation at any time. And I am 45 relatively flexible in my schedule and I'm willing to 46 come out anywhere and talk to folks, for sure. 47 48 So thank you so much for this 49 opportunity. 50




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1 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, so 2 much. As for you, did you have anything you wanted to 3 present, you just sat there. 4 5 (Laughter) 6 7 RANGER GUSSEY: Nothing specific. The 8 only one message that I share with all the Regional 9 Advisory Council is if you'd like the support of law

10 enforcement, the biggest help that we can give you is 11 if you give us timely reports. So if you see something 12 happening out there, whether it's to a Federal officer 13 or to the Wildlife Safeguard on the back of your 14 hunting regulations to the State, we will be there, we 15 will help you, we will deal with it, but you have to 16 get the reports to us in a timely manner. 17 18 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: What, like give 19 us a process overview really quick. So if something 20 happens out in the field, who do we contact? 21 22 RANGER GUSSEY: I would start with any 23 law enforcement official. 24 25 So if, who you're most familiar with is 26 your State Troopers, you can call the -- on the back of 27 the sporthunting regulations is the Wildlife Safeguard 28 number, it's an 800 number, you can report it through 29 there. They will route it to the correct place. 30 31 If you come across somebody mining 32 where they shouldn't be, or dumping something where 33 they shouldn't be and you think it's on BLM land, 34 you're more than welcome to call me, I'll pass out some 35 of my business cards. 36 37 Fish and Wildlife is also a good 38 contact and they will route it to the correct law 39 enforcement agency. 40 41 But the main message is we will be 42 there to help you as long as we get the report in a 43 timely manner and by timely I mean days or weeks or 44 right when you first get back from the field, don't 45 come back put it on FaceBook and then tell us about it 46 in a few months, you know, get it to us as quick as you 47 can. 48 49 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you. 50




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1 That's what I was asking for. 2 3 RANGER GUSSEY: Thank you very much. 4 5 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Any questions. 6 7 (No comments) 8 9 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: All right, well,

10 thank you so much, I greatly appreciate you guys being 11 here and being very flexible with our agenda that we're 12 kind of throwing together based on who's here and 13 available to give specific talking points. 14 15 Thank you. 16 17 RANGER GUSSEY: Thank you. 18 19 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: All right. We're 20 going to move into ptarmigan. It's a little bubbling 21 topic that we have with our youth. And do we have our 22 agencies to talk about ptarmigan on the phone and in 23 person, anybody that has information or has data on 24 ptarmigan you can come forward. 25 26 MR. MERIZON: On line this is Rick 27 Merizon in Palmer. I work for the Alaska Department of 28 Fish and Game, Division of Wildlife Conservation. And 29 I'm the statewide program coordinator for the program 30 and I'm more than happy to provide any update that 31 might be desired by the group. 32 33 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Rick. 34 Can you say your last name again, and spell it for me. 35 36 MR. MERIZON: Certainly, Merizon, 37 spelled M-E-R-I-Z-O-N. 38 39 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Rick. 40 All right, go ahead, would you like us to ask Q and As 41 or would you like to give a report first? 42 43 MR. MERIZON: Whichever format you 44 prefer. I'm happy to give a quick overview of our 45 program and what specifically we're doing out on the YK 46 Delta, but if you'd rather keep it more informal and 47 focused on what people are most interested in, that's 48 fine, too, whatever you prefer. 49 50




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1 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Anson said that 2 he wants to hear your report first and then we'll do Q 3 and A after. 4 5 Thank you. 6 7 MR. MERIZON: Okay, that sounds great. 8 So, again, my name is Rick Merizon. I'm the statewide 9 small game program coordinator for the Alaska

10 Department of Fish and Game. 11 12 We have a small program but do have 13 statewide responsibility for all the native grouse, 14 ptarmigan and hare species. So over the last many 15 years we've developed quite a bit of survey monitoring 16 efforts towards both grouse and ptarmigan. Because our 17 program is so small and our budgets are relatively 18 small we've focused our efforts primarily along the 19 road system. However, recently, and I'll get to here 20 in a minute, we've started to do some work out on the 21 YK Delta. 22 23 But just to give you a really quick 24 overview of sort of our core programs that we do to 25 assess upland bird populations, including ptarmigan, we 26 have really three or four main efforts that we do on an 27 annual basis. 28 29 So the first one, our spring breeding 30 surveys, which we employ across the road system and are 31 now beginning to develop some surveys off the road 32 system, out on the Seward Peninsula and other 33 locations, we go out to breeding locations and assess 34 the abundance of the breeding populations and set up 35 locations. We follow that up in July with our breed 36 surveys, where we actually estimate overall population 37 productivity between when we assess the population in 38 the spring and just how productive those populations 39 are essentially during the summer. And that's a much 40 better metric for hunters going into hunting season 41 than our spring breeding surveys. 42 43 We also have a statewide wing 44 collection program, where we can further reinforce our 45 estimates of population productivity as well as get a 46 sense of what populations are potentially being the 47 most impacted by harvest, human harvest. 48 49 Sort of the fourth prong, which is 50




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1 potentially the most informative for today's discussion 2 is our research efforts that we've employed across the 3 state. 4 5 So we've now completed a Willow 6 ptarmigan -- a large Willow ptarmigan study in the 7 Alaska range and several rock ptarmigan studies in 8 Central Alaska and in the White Mountains and in the 9 Alaska Range. And what we've learned from those two

10 studies, we've looked at movement, mortality, 11 population productivity, some of the typical vital 12 rates, if you will, sort of, you know, mortality, 13 movement of those populations just to try to get an 14 understanding of some of the basic parameters that are 15 affecting these population and how those inform 16 potential management issues relative to regulations. 17 18 Beginning last year we attempted to 19 deploy or embark, I should say, on a large research 20 study out on the YK Delta, both partnering State 21 government with the Federal partners out there in 22 trying to get out to some remote locations and deploy 23 radio collars on Willow ptarmigan. It was the first 24 year we'd attempted that project and we learned a 25 tremendous amount about logistics and travel and 26 coordinating our efforts out in a large diverse 27 landscape. W e weren't successful in deploying any 28 collars but as I said we learned a lot and we plan to, 29 again, try to deploy collars this coming spring and 30 then, again, on juveniles later in the summer. 31 32 So there's been a lot of concern, a lot 33 of questions that have been asked from rural residents 34 out in the YK about what's happened to the ptarmigan 35 population, where are they, what are they -- you know, 36 what's causing this seeming decline that many folks 37 have observed out there. We're hoping to be able to 38 shed some light on some of those questions through this 39 research and we, ideally, provided funding exists into 40 the future, we hope to continue this research project 41 for several years, to, first, identify some of the 42 primary breeding locations and brood rearing locations 43 as well as learn a lot about the mortality and 44 population productivity of the Willow Kuskokwim 45 population out there. But then, in so doing, my hope 46 is then that we could identify numerous locations 47 across the YK Delta where we would actually begin to 48 develop some spring breeding surveys and potentially, 49 ideally, in the future, even develop some brood surveys 50




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1 out in some of those same locations, which would 2 dramatically improve our situation from where we are 3 now where we really don't have a great deal of 4 information about population productivity, movement, 5 mortality, overall abundance trends. We're trying to 6 get ourselves to the point where we can begin to very 7 seriously inform those questions and potentially, 8 ultimately even at the regulatory process, both State 9 and Federal.

10 11 That, kind of in a nutshell, is about 12 our program and about some of our recent efforts out in 13 Unit 18 and across the YK Delta. But if there's other 14 questions I'm more than happy to try to answer them at 15 this point. 16 17 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Go ahead, Anson. 18 19 MR. JIMMIE: I don't really think if 20 I'm -- went hunting long enough, but how are the Willow 21 ptarmigan populations doing? 22 23 MR. MERIZON: Yeah, again that's a 24 really difficult question to answer. Based on what we 25 know and how many people we've talked to out on the YK 26 Delta, it seems as though both Rock and Willow 27 ptarmigan populations are considerably lower than they 28 historically have been. There are several potential 29 explanations as to why, but, again, we don't really 30 have a good estimate of overall population abundance 31 or, you know, population productivity at this point. 32 33 MR. SLATS: Could I. 34 35 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Mr. Slats. 36 37 MR. SLATS: Thank you. This is Richard 38 Slats from Chevak. Last year there was an item on 39 ptarmigans on our agenda and there was about a decline 40 and the scarcity, and I've seen -- I'm seeing this. 41 Where, in the springtime, normally where it would take 42 me one day to hunt for ptarmigans and be done in the 43 springtime, I can't do that no more. Ptarmigans are 44 our first red meat, you know, in the springtime, you 45 know, after a long winter, that's usually our first red 46 meat, you know, before and then comes the geese. But 47 -- and ptarmigans, in my area, they don't -- well, they 48 don't migrate annually. It's because they burrow 49 themselves in the snow when it gets cold or in the 50




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1 blizzard conditions, and -- when we used to have snow. 2 3 If you see today's weather, they would 4 be out there and then they wouldn't have the snow to 5 burrow themselves in, they would be soaked to the skin. 6 7 I believe that the ptarmigans are 8 victims of the changing conditions that are caused by 9 human activities and now they are scarce.

10 11 And where I live I have it on good 12 authority when I ask, ptarmigans have always been in 13 and around my village and then you can -- even as close 14 to, or even to our old airport, when we would walk the 15 old airport, you know, like in this time right before 16 freeze-up or when the first snow comes then they would 17 be right in and around that area where there are 18 willows. But the elder that I talked to said that they 19 are going further where there are more willows and 20 snow, inland, you know, more inland. And why we're not 21 seeing them in the springtime, right in and around my 22 hometown is that they're not making it all the way back 23 after they go inland. This, I believe, is the cause 24 for our ptarmigan scarcity in the spring and in my home 25 area. 26 27 Thank you. 28 29 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Go ahead. 30 31 MR. MERIZON: This is Rick Merizon on 32 line again. And, yes, I would agree with you 33 wholeheartedly. We've definitely seen some -- through 34 our research with three separate studies right now 35 we've documented the effect of late snow fall and then 36 the color mismatch between the landscape and white 37 birds that have already transitioned into their winter 38 plumage and the predation rates definitely spike pretty 39 considerably during those windows when there's a color 40 mismatch. And then as you alluded to, as well, there's 41 the -- the quality of the snow and the depth of the 42 snow, as far as providing winter roosting habitat, 43 particularly when it gets cold, is certainly another 44 issue associated with that. 45 46 So, yeah, I would echo your sentiment. 47 48 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Any questions. 49 50




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1 (No comments) 2 3 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Rick, 4 for your report on ptarmigan. I got a quick question 5 for you. 6 7 Before you begin your project studies 8 out here, are you going to be reaching out to the 9 tribes and to the people to find out exactly what you

10 might already be able to find out about migration 11 routes, densities between areas, so you know where and 12 when to start your project location, that way you can 13 minimize -- using funding where it can be used better. 14 15 MR. MERIZON: Yeah, and that's a great 16 point. And we have -- Patrick Jones and I have 17 traveled around over the last couple years, traveling 18 to several villages across the YK, not only talking 19 about ptarmigan but also Alaska hare and jackrabbits, 20 with many rural residents and -- but there's certainly 21 room to continue that effort and we definitely want to 22 learn as much as we can from local residents out there, 23 too. And I agree completely, to reduce our efforts 24 trying to locate some potential study sites. 25 26 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Rick. 27 Mr. Ray Born, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, go ahead. 28 29 MS. BORN: Thank you. I'm Ray Born, 30 the Acting Refuge manager at Yukon Delta Refuge. 31 32 Fish and Wildlife Service is working 33 with Rick and the ADF&G in that study. So if people 34 want to talk, please talk to my Refuge Information 35 Technicians, let them know where that's at and we'll be 36 working closely with ADF&G on that project coming 37 forward. So we'll continue to work with them and any 38 time you have information feel free to come into our 39 offices and let us know about that. 40 41 Thank you. 42 43 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Mr. 44 Ray Born. Anything else Mr. Rick. 45 46 MR. REAKOFF: Madame Chair. 47 48 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Go ahead, say 49 your first name, last name, affiliation. 50




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1 MR. REAKOFF: This is Jack Reakoff, 2 Western Interior Regional Council Chair. I'm just 3 listening in to your meeting. Ptarmigan are declining 4 all over Alaska, not just the YK Delta. I see fewer 5 and fewer ptarmigan in the Brooks Range. One thing 6 that I note, when I'm on the tundra there's lots of 7 ravens, and the ravens are hunting those nests. I'm 8 wondering, is anybody doing a study on the raven 9 predation, as the human population builds -- Fairbanks

10 has 2,500 ravens that spread out across all the 11 mountains in the summertime and so the larger the 12 communities the more human garbage there is, there's a 13 larger population of ravens and they're very predacious 14 on snowshoe hares and other small mammals in 15 conjunction with small birds. I watch them hunting 16 duck eggs and ptarmigan eggs on the tundra. 17 18 So is anybody looking at this raven 19 issue? 20 21 Thank you, Madame Chair. 22 23 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Jack. 24 Some great points, especially on that raven. I saw a 25 raven chasing a ptarmigan yesterday evening. 26 27 (Laughter) 28 29 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Did you want to 30 comment on that Rick. 31 32 MR. MERIZON: Another good point for 33 sure. Our program has not specifically looked at 34 overall predation rates as it relates specifically to 35 ptarmigan or to grouse for that matter. More our -- 36 our research is more looked at -- try to identify just 37 the vital rates associated with each population that 38 we've been looking at. But, again, predation is 39 obviously a big part of overall population productivity 40 and the health of each population, so provided we had 41 some funding and some Staff to do it, that would 42 certainly be a worthwhile project. 43 44 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you. Any 45 questions. 46 47 (No comments) 48 49 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Any more. 50




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1 (No comments) 2 3 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Rick. 4 5 We'll go ahead and go to a public 6 testimony and if you do have any public testimony, go 7 ahead and fill out blue cards, we'll just pick you up 8 right off the agenda since our agenda is all over the 9 place today.

10 11 We're going to call to the mic, Vince 12 Mathews, he's going to be discussing youth 13 opportunities and let you introduce yourself. Thank 14 you, Mr. Mathews. 15 16 MR. MATHEWS: Yes, thank you. It's 17 good to be back in Bethel. I failed to pack my hockey 18 skates but..... 19 20 (Laughter) 21 22 MR. MATHEWS: .....that's why I was a 23 little late. I wanted to be here yesterday. 24 25 But I couldn't pass up the opportunity 26 to see Anson, Sarah and Sean up at the table. Real 27 quickly, that's been a dream of mine in my career, to 28 have you guys step into this world. It's a massive 29 amount of information, but the key to the information 30 Sean and Anson and Sarah, is asking the right 31 questions. 32 33 So that's part of why I'm up here. 34 35 The other part I'm up here is the Fish 36 and Wildlife Service has different programs for the 37 youth and we need Alaska youth there. So this is the 38 Native Youth Community Adaption and Leadership 39 Congress. So I'll probably call it the Native Youth 40 Congress. It is at the World Premiere National 41 Conservation Training Center in West Virginia. 42 43 So what is it. 44 45 It's high school age, generally senior 46 high school students that want to spread their wings 47 and become maybe a conservation leader, or a better 48 informed leader about how to help their community along 49 in this changing environment. 50




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1 So what does that mean again. 2 3 Well, for two years I've met youth from 4 as far away as Guam, and as far east as Maine, as far 5 south as Florida and they're high school youth and 6 they're really raring to go. But as you know, as 7 Native youth of Alaska, there's 229 tribes in Alaska, 8 I'm not sure on the next figure, but it's around 550 in 9 the nation, so how many youth did we have from Alaska

10 at the last two Native Congress', eight, and four last 11 year. So we need to have more youth from Alaska there. 12 This is an opportunity to network with people from the 13 Hopi, the Navajo, the Cherokees, wherever you want to 14 make a connection so that's something that she just 15 handed out. And, yes, it's not the best time for you 16 to go out to -- you know, it interferes with fish camp, 17 I understand that, but this is an opportunity to meet 18 up and coming youth at a world renowned training 19 center. 20 21 You also get visits from -- the 22 Congressional Delegation comes by, and then senior 23 leaders from across the whole wildlife management 24 arena. 25 26 And you'll see there in the picture, 27 somewhere I'm in there, so if you can find it I'll 28 congratulate you, but you can see there that there's a 29 lot of youth involved, so that's number 1. 30 31 It's a free ride. 32 33 And there's information there to 34 contact it. 35 36 Maybe the first place, since you 37 younger ones are way better on the web than I am, is to 38 go to that website and check it out. And then from 39 there if you want more information, either get a hold 40 of myself. I am in Fairbanks, but I can be reached by 41 those numbers. 42 43 So that's number 1. 44 45 Number 2, I don't have the materials 46 with me, because -- well, I just don't. 47 48 (Laughter) 49 50




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1 MR. MATHEWS: And so the reason, the 2 next one is one that would be more for college aged 3 students, which is the Student Conservation Association 4 Internships. 5 6 So for the past four years I've 7 supervised interns from, you know, for college careers 8 and that. So it's an opportunity for you to get 9 additional experience, and I know -- I don't know how

10 old you are but when you get to that age, beyond high 11 school and that, this an opportunity to get that 12 experience. The key to these jobs, and you can ask all 13 the people behind me, is, getting that experience and 14 getting it noted in your resume. And your resume 15 reflects the best of you, so don't ever, you know, you 16 know put the truth on there but make sure you share 17 your high qualities. 18 19 Anyways, that's an internship. It 20 usually runs, I think it's 12 or 17 weeks, and there's 21 different positions throughout Alaska. The ones I 22 supervise were in Coldfoot and that was at the 23 Visitor's Center there so they were greeting people 24 from Uruguay, China, Japan, you know, let's see France. 25 We had a person that walked all the way from Argentina 26 to Prudhoe Bay, very interesting gentleman. So, 27 anyways, that's the internships there. 28 29 But our other internships may be more 30 in your line if you want to become a biologist or 31 wildlife management. Those positions are actually 32 doing fieldwork. 33 34 So I apologize I don't have the 35 materials, maybe we could burn some copies off with 36 some information and get them to you tomorrow. 37 38 But all you three youth, it is just -- 39 share with what you've learned today with your other 40 youth. You are the nucleolus of the future. And I say 41 that and you look at me, yeah, boy, this old guy is 42 talking..... 43 44 (Laughter) 45 46 MR. MATHEWS: .....I am talking because 47 of the fact is I've worked with Regional Advisory 48 Councils and State Fish and Game Advisory Committees, 49 great people, great women and men, but they tend to be 50




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1 older and they're carrying the torch, but they can't 2 carry the torch all the time. And so we need to have 3 younger ones come in because you guys know how to use 4 these things to their full max, I just text. 5 6 (Laughter) 7 8 MR. MATHEWS: You guys do a lot more. 9 So you are the link there to that.

10 11 And so I'm really preaching to you 12 guys, but share what you learned, share what you 13 enjoyed about this, and share what else that you would 14 like to know more about sitting in these chairs. There 15 are people behind me that have been in the trenches on 16 this whole subsistence world of multiple regulations 17 that can give you a lot more insights on that. 18 19 So with that I'll let that go unless 20 there's some questions. 21 22 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: You guys have any 23 questions. 24 25 Go ahead, Sarah. 26 27 MS. LUPIE: Where will this happen? 28 29 MR. MATHEWS: Oh, okay, the Youth 30 Congress will be June 27th to July 2nd, so you know 31 you're going to be taking a couple of days to get there 32 because it's way, way over in West Virginia. And if 33 you do get selected, you can be in my raft..... 34 35 (Laughter) 36 37 MR. MATHEWS: .....because we raft the 38 Potomac River. So you're going to be at a premiere 39 river. So that's that one. 40 41 The internships, we're going to try to 42 get that information out, that's part of the challenge, 43 we're pushing real hard, Joanne and myself, to get that 44 stuff available in January, it is an online 45 application, so you need to have your notes ahead of 46 time so maybe it's good to talk with an older person, 47 or a parent or a teacher because once you start filling 48 out the application you have to complete it on line. 49 50




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1 So I don't know if I answered your 2 question. 3 4 MS. LUPIE: Thank you. 5 6 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: You said it's at 7 West Virginia, that's the location? 8 9 MR. MATHEWS: Yes, West Virginia.

10 You're right there on the Potomac River, you're a 11 stone's throw away from, you know, Washington, D.C., 12 it's very beautiful country there. It's going to be 13 different for you I'll tell you that much, but it's 14 really neat. And, again, the main point is, you're 15 going to be interfacing with up and coming Native youth 16 from Guam, Hawaii, Arizona, New Mexico. I can go on 17 and on. And that's a network that will help you 18 understand but also a network for your careers. And if 19 you bring your Native garbs, on the last night, your 20 Native dance, you know, all the groups bring in their 21 regalia and then there's a -- it goes until like 2:00 22 in the morning -- well, you know, when you have that 23 many dance teams there, it goes. But, anyways, you'll 24 be able to see dancers from across America. 25 26 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Yes, go ahead. 27 28 MS. LUPIE: You came from all the way 29 over there? 30 31 MR. MATHEWS: No. No, my roots are in 32 the midwest. I started out on the flat lands, the 33 prairies. And why am I here in Bethel, well, we would 34 have managed those prairies for pre-contact, but there 35 was no pre-contact people left, so I wanted to see 36 where indigenous groups were involved in the 37 environment, where, ta-da, Alaska. So my office is in 38 Fairbanks. I'm serving two jobs now. My real job is 39 I'm the Refuge Subsistence coordinator for Arctic, 40 Kanuti and Yukon Flats. I know that's very far away 41 from you. But those salmon, they really don't know 42 these boundaries between these units and stuff, if we 43 could just get them to realize when they cross from one 44 water to the other..... 45 46 (Laughter) 47 48 MR. MATHEWS: .....we have the same 49 problem with moose meetings, they never show up. I 50




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1 don't know what else we could do about it. But, no, 2 that's what I do there. So I basically work with 13 3 tribes, three Native consortiums and then a variety of 4 Native village corporations and then Tanana Chiefs 5 Conference, Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments. 6 7 The job I'm filling in for is 8 InterAgency Staff Committee which is the advisor to the 9 Federal Subsistence Board member, Regional Director,

10 Greg Siekaniec, so in a way I'm representing the 16 11 Refuges. And I think you're going to be talking about 12 or you may have already, talked about the recent Board 13 actions on issues that relate to your area. 14 15 MS. PATTON: Madame Chair. If I may. 16 17 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Go ahead, Eva. 18 19 MS. PATTON: To let the students know, 20 too, so Vince is part of the program, and then Joanne 21 Bryant, who's from Arctic Village, she's a fabulous 22 mentor too. So she has worked, both, through a similar 23 program that's here at Yukon Delta National Wildlife 24 Refuge with the Refuge Information Technician Program, 25 and as a community liaison for all of the communities 26 and tribes in her area. So Joanne Bryant from Arctic 27 Village has been a participant in the youth mentorship 28 programs, she's wonderful, so she's part of that team 29 too. She's not here today, but she's part of that team 30 that will be working with students from Alaska. 31 32 So, yeah, and her contact is on there, 33 too, so if you have questions for Joanne, you can call 34 or give her an email, too. 35 36 Thank you. 37 38 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Any questions. 39 40 (No comments) 41 42 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, very 43 much Mr. Mathews. I greatly appreciate you being here 44 and presenting this to the youth. And it is a sight 45 that I've never seen in my life, to have youth this 46 young up here on this Board, so thank you. 47 48 All right, we'd like to entertain that 49 we take a lunch break and then we have on deck, would 50




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1 be, ONC, and then we'll dive right in, as she'll 2 bringing us into the Mulchatna Caribou herd, would be 3 next after her. 4 5 Break for an hour. 6 7 MS. PATTON: And, Madame Chair, if I 8 may, just to touch base with our folks that are on 9 teleconference and those that are here in the room.

10 11 So our strategy this afternoon would be 12 to continue with the informational updates for the 13 Council. We still have folks weathered out but we're 14 hoping while they're waiting for their flight that we 15 might be able to connect some of our Council members by 16 teleconference. 17 18 So I know we do have Gerald Maschmann 19 here for the Yukon River update and Deena Jallen was on 20 teleconference. 21 22 So I just wanted to touch base with 23 folks on teleconference, too, that we are hoping to get 24 to some of those other informational updates later this 25 afternoon so we make sure we get everybody who's 26 traveled and on line for that. 27 28 So -- and what time shall we reconvene, 29 Madame Chair. 30 31 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Maybe we'll go an 32 hour and 15 just based on road conditions because I 33 want to make sure people are walking safely not rushing 34 on the ice, so an hour and 15 would put us at -- let's 35 say maybe everyone be back here at 2:30 at the latest, 36 2:15, 2:30 at the latest -- 2:30, 2:45 at the latest. 37 We'll start at 2:45 at the latest. Is that time right 38 back there. 39 40 MS. PATTON: Madame Chair. Yeah, if I 41 could suggest, maybe if folks gather -- plan to gather 42 at 2:30 just so we give everybody on teleconference a 43 good time to join us again, so if 2:30 to reconvene 44 would work. 45 46 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: We'll gather by 47 2:30 and then we'll start up at 2:45 -- yeah. 2:45. 48 49 Thank you folks, for those on line, on 50




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1 teleconference, we're going to go ahead and recess this 2 meeting and we'll be back at 2:45. 2:30 we'll have the 3 lines up and running, 2:45. 4 5 Thank you, very much. 6 7 (Off record) 8 9 (On record)

10 11 MS. PATTON: Maybe if we can it would 12 be helpful to have an update of who has joined us back 13 on teleconference this afternoon. And a reminder to 14 folks that have joined us on teleconference, if you can 15 please mute your phones, push star six or your mute 16 button, there's a lot of background noise and that 17 would be helpful. 18 19 So as we're finishing gathering folks 20 here, if we could recognize who's joined us on 21 teleconference again this afternoon, if you could state 22 your name. 23 24 MR. SMITH: Hello. This is Nicholas 25 Smith with Alaska Department of Fish and Game, 26 Kuskokwim area management biologist. 27 28 MS. STUBE: And this is Lisa Stube, 29 Yukon Sportfish Division area management biologist. 30 31 MR. WEBBER: Aaron Webber, U.S. Fish 32 and Wildlife Service. 33 34 MR. ANDERSON: This is Jeff Anderson, 35 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Kenai Fish and Wildlife 36 Conservation Office. 37 38 MR. ADERMAN: This is Andy Aderman and 39 Pat Walsh with the Togiak Refuge in Dillingham. 40 41 MS. PATTON: Anyone else on 42 teleconference this afternoon. 43 44 MS. PELTOLA: This is Mary Peltola, 45 InterTribal..... 46 47 MS. PATTON: Hi, Mary. Great, thank 48 you, Mary. 49 50




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1 MS. PELTOLA: .....Fish Commission. 2 3 MS. PATTON: Anyone else this 4 afternoon. 5 6 (No comments) 7 8 MS. PATTON: Okay. And a little status 9 update for folks. So we still have Council members on

10 weather hold. Grant flights were cancelled for today 11 and tomorrow. There's still some hope the Ravn flights 12 would honor the morning and they're thinking they might 13 fly this afternoon or evening yet, so we are going to 14 continue the rest of this afternoon and evening, to 15 cover agency reports, and informational updates for 16 everyone that's gathered here. So we're going to try 17 to include everybody that would like to provide their 18 update this afternoon. 19 20 As we discussed earlier, we did have a 21 couple of public comments for public testimony and then 22 we'll go right to ONC natural resources report, and 23 then the Mulchatna Caribou, and we'll work our way down 24 -- to the presenters from there -- and I'll turn it 25 over to Chair Alissa Rogers. 26 27 Thank you. 28 29 MS. PATTON: Thank you, Eva, for 30 getting us started. We're going to go ahead and call 31 this meeting to order. The time now is 2:45 on the 32 dot, and we're going to start off with public 33 testimony. 34 35 Our first public testimony is -- we 36 have a couple of them. 37 38 REPORTER: Could you ask the folks, 39 Alissa, to mute their phone. 40 41 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: And for those of 42 you that are joining us on teleconference land, please 43 star six to mute your phones, star six -- is it star 44 six? 45 46 REPORTER: Six. 47 48 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Star six to mute 49 and star six to unmute your phones. We are getting 50




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1 some background noise and we want to be respectful to 2 the people that are currently listening on other parts 3 of the line and also people here who are speaking. 4 5 We will beginning off our public 6 testimony with Ben Charles. 7 8 MR. CHARLES: Good afternoon, my name 9 is Ben Charles. I am one of the six youth -- Inuit

10 youth leaders for Inuit Circumpolar Council. And each 11 of us have been tasked with addressing the 10 Articles 12 and 58 declarations and our six priorities for Alaska. 13 14 Today I would like to address this 15 board regarding indigenous knowledge and indigenous 16 world leaders and how it impacts wildlife management. 17 18 Indigenous Inuit issues of concern and 19 priorities must be at the forefront of discussions that 20 impact policy development when infecting Inuit life, 21 and Inuit culture and traditions and information to 22 consider during such decisions include but not is 23 limited to indigenous knowledge and world views, 24 involvement in participatory engagement of community 25 members and communities as a whole. And such 26 implementation of information factor into data 27 collection, methodologies and approaches and intended 28 scales of information and the use and data management 29 when considering how Inuit lives are affected by 30 wildlife management. 31 32 Wildlife management meetings such as 33 these require the perceived need for data and empirical 34 observations that could support decisionmaking in the 35 context of socio, environmental change. Many of the 36 underlying matters of concern Inuit face, and testimony 37 given today by the youth to this body and participants 38 that are here have led to many initiatives across 39 Alaska, the United States and across international 40 borders. But throughout Inuit country this includes, 41 which are all intra-linked amongst each other, so 42 wildlife management, climate change, the introduction 43 of heavy fuel oils and contaminants, the reduction of 44 ice sheets and ice formations in the cryosphere. 45 46 So in order for wildlife management and 47 decisionmaking to happen, we must consider monitoring 48 impacts of development and extractive industry leading 49 to a progressively changing cryosphere. Contaminants 50




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1 such as heavy fuel oil, which are a source for industry 2 developing military installations located near 3 communities leading to terrestrial and aquatic. 4 Biodiversity population fluctuations, which also 5 affects species populations, monitoring in the Arctic 6 -- sorry -- species population monitoring the Arctic 7 environments affecting food security and food 8 sovereignty for Inuit across international borders. 9

10 Each of these issues and concerns and 11 our priorities are among many examples of why programs 12 across international borders are beginning to have -- 13 beginning or have begun utilizing indigenous knowledge 14 that is documented to better equip communities with 15 information that they need to respond and remedy our 16 priorities and our concerns such as wildlife 17 management. 18 19 Today I ask that Fish and Wildlife 20 please consider the following before deciding on 21 regulatory policy and laws that are implemented that 22 affect food sovereignty and food security, of the 23 communities in which you serve: They are:" 24 25 Building capacity and cohesiveness 26 among communities, particularly with indigenous 27 knowledge holders and experts, our elders, co-produce 28 scientific methodologies, observations and utilizing 29 indigenous knowledge that build upon conceptual 30 frameworks for wildlife management that benefit at the 31 community level that builds upon food security. 32 Recognize and engage diversity within communities that 33 focus more involvement of land based activities and 34 indigenous and animal relationships. Engage and 35 involve youth that creates opportunities for skill 36 building in environmental research and management for 37 transmission of indigenous knowledge between 38 generations. Scale observations on the community level 39 and support network building between the Federal 40 agencies, Fish and Wildlife and other agencies within 41 the State of Alaska. 42 43 Sorry, I lost my place. 44 45 By developing community and monitoring 46 needs and purposes. Providing this framework allows 47 for responding to the Arctic and the cryosphere across 48 the scales that can inform regional, national and 49 PanArctic decisionmaking regarding wildlife management. 50




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1 Develop protocols for data management integrate 2 indigenous knowledge and support scientific research 3 leading to proper and ethical wildlife management that 4 can span across the cryosphere. And advocate for long- 5 term funding that builds upon these models for 6 incorporating indigenous knowledge and scientific 7 research that leads to a sustainable PanArctic 8 community and the wildlife that resides in the 9 cryosphere.

10 11 Thank you. 12 13 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Ben. 14 Any questions for Ben. 15 16 (No comments) 17 18 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Do you have a 19 copy of your outline of what you said. A lot of the 20 words that I heard and a lot of it was repetitive and 21 different language throughout your whole entire speech. 22 23 MR. CHARLES: I could forward that to 24 you. 25 26 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Yeah. And then 27 maybe you would be able to put it in a format that 28 people can understand a little easier, in the way it 29 was said, because a lot of it is a lot of technical 30 language. And I understood what you were saying, and 31 great speech by the way. 32 33 I did want to ask you, for all the 34 requests that you're asking, is the ICC looking into 35 getting funding, in the ability to do start ups for 36 building capacity, start ups for projects in different 37 methodology, start ups in looking into security, 38 harvest monitoring, and also any -- and is there any 39 like youth opportunity programs where we could all work 40 together like a co-management circumpolar, and then 41 also in the request for working with different agencies 42 in Alaska, if there is a possibility that ICC can maybe 43 run those meetings specifically since they are a single 44 identity. 45 46 MR. CHARLES: As far as funding and 47 capacity are concerned, for your first question, I do 48 not believe ICC is in a position to -- or I'm not in a 49 position to make that -- speak on behalf of ICC but a 50




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1 lot of the issues that I raised at the very beginning, 2 they are all being worked towards for Inuit peoples. 3 4 And to answer your follow-up question 5 regarding youth, currently right now, there is a two 6 year initiative where we would like to involve as many 7 youth across Inuit communities to provide their 8 perspective, from their personal views as to how a lot 9 of the six priorities that we would like to address

10 here in Alaska, and then the 10 Articles and 58 11 clauses, or 56 clauses across Inuit country and the 12 four participating countries. 13 14 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: And do you have 15 any data or information about ice sheets formation, I 16 know we're having a huge differentiation in our ice on 17 the coastlines of our areas, especially ranging all the 18 way down to the Hooper Bay area, I know Chevak, the 19 mouth of Chevak is starting to have ice issues there 20 too, but I know in our areas it's really kind of scary 21 because when we got seal hunting on the ice, we're 22 starting to poke through a lot these years than we did 23 in the past and we used to crawl out and then like 24 station ourselves but you could see the ice forming as 25 it's going like this. So one of my concerns is that 26 I'm worried about, since it's getting so thin and the 27 information on ice sheets and ice formation, for 28 minimal, it would be maybe a big project or at least 29 some kind of project that maybe we can work together 30 since this is a circumpolar type of issue than just in 31 one of our areas. 32 33 MR. CHARLES: Thanks for that empirical 34 observation of being able to poke through the ice than 35 in the past. That is a message that is being conveyed 36 by a lot of Inuit hunters across the Arctic. 37 38 As far as the research that's being 39 done, ice formation and ice sheet solidification, the 40 Arctic Council is forefronting a lot of that heavy 41 work. The Inuit Circumpolar is providing Staff 42 capacity for research purposes in collaborating with 43 other scientific bodies and it's also being addressed 44 on the World stage as well. 45 46 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Ben. 47 That's great news. 48 49 Any other questions. 50




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1 (No comments) 2 3 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: All right, thank 4 you very much. 5 6 MR. CHARLES: One last statement, I 7 really want to advocate and thank the youth that spoke 8 up today. So Sean, Anson and Sarah, in the near 9 future, ICC is continually looking to engage youth so

10 encourage your peers to do the same, to be able to 11 speak up as far as issues that hit close home to you in 12 your heart. So continue to do so and encourage your 13 peers. 14 15 Thank you. 16 17 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Anything else. 18 19 (No comments) 20 21 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Okay, so..... 22 23 MS. PATTON: Madame Chair. A quick 24 question. 25 26 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Go ahead, Eva. 27 28 MS. PATTON: Ben, do you work here in 29 the building as the manager for the cultural museum? 30 31 MR. CHARLES: Yeah, so I work for the 32 Association of Village Councils and I manage the 33 museum's business operations. 34 35 MS. PATTON: I was just thinking if the 36 students wanted to follow up on the ICC youth 37 opportunities, can they find you here at the museum or 38 are you over at AVCP? 39 40 MR. CHARLES: Yeah, I'm just down the 41 hall in the museum offices that are at the very end of 42 the building. 43 44 MS. PATTON: Thank you. 45 46 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you. 47 48 MR. CHARLES: You're welcome. 49 50




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1 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Do we have any 2 more public testimony. If you can fill out a blue card 3 then bring it to Eva, we'll go ahead and take you up as 4 soon as our next subject line comes in. 5 6 Anyone on teleconference, do you have 7 any public testimony or any comments. 8 9 (No comments)

10 11 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: All right, 12 hearing none, we'll go ahead and move on. 13 14 ONC's natural resources report by Mary 15 Matthias. And then on deck, we're going to start up 16 the Mulchatna Caribou Herd, and I know it's a variety 17 of agencies out there who are all working on this so 18 that's why I put et cetera. 19 20 Thank you, Mary, go ahead. 21 22 MS. MATTHIAS: Thank you, Madame Chair. 23 Members of the RAC. 24 25 So today I am going to report on three 26 items here. One is Donlin Gold. The other is BLM. 27 And the other is elder assistance with moose proxy 28 hunts. 29 30 So I will start with the elder's moose 31 proxy hunts. This recent moose season we provided 32 assistance to six elders and one disabled person. And 33 out of the six elders, two elders wanted to share half 34 of their moose with needy families and half of their 35 moose went to 22 families, and it was very successful. 36 We had three hunters. One was Oscar Shamey, he caught 37 like maybe three or four moose. And the other was 38 Michael Merculief, he caught one. And the other was -- 39 I forgot his name -- Albert Hoffman's son -- Alvin, I 40 think. And so, yeah, we're also planning on providing 41 assistance again next year and, if needed, you know, 42 during the winter. 43 44 Moving on to the next item -- do you 45 guys have any questions before I move on. 46 47 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Moose proxy, 48 questions. 49 50




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1 (No comments) 2 3 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Go ahead. 4 5 MS. MATTHIAS: Okay. The next one is 6 Donlin Gold. ONC has rallied in opposition of the 7 Donlin Gold Mine project to protect the Kuskokwim 8 region and the Kuskokwim River. Since last year 18 9 tribes joined the opposition against the mine. We

10 continue to reach out to all neighboring tribal 11 communities within the region through sharing 12 information about the potential impacts this mine will 13 have on the Kuskokwim region. 14 15 And then during the 2019 AVCP 16 Convention, we gained 17 more tribes making it 35 17 tribes in opposition of the Donlin Gold Mine. The 18 success in overturning the resolution was that once 19 supported Donlin has now led us to challenge the Native 20 Corporations who share contracts with Donlin. 21 22 So following after that, during this 23 fall season, we found out that BLM issued a Bering Sea 24 Western Interior Resource Management Plan, and in that 25 plan it's called the Wild and Scenic eligibility report 26 -- let me rephrase that. 27 28 The Bering Sea Western Interior 29 Resource Management Plan on Wild and Scenic River 30 eligibility determination report, Chapter 2-Phase 1, 31 the eligibility determination, Chapter 2-Section 7, and 32 that chapter is for the Kuskokwim region. And in that 33 chapter it states that..... 34 35 (Teleconference interference - 36 participants not muted) 37 38 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Mary, just a 39 minute, sorry. 40 41 Sorry, Mary, to interrupt you. 42 43 For those of you on teleconference, can 44 you please star six to mute your phone, I'd greatly 45 appreciate it. Again, star six to mute your phone, we 46 are hearing some background noise and we wish that we'd 47 be respectful to the speakers and to those who are 48 listening on line. 49 50




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1 Again, that's star six to mute your 2 phones. If you can't mute your phone, please call us 3 back and hit the little mic button on your cell phone, 4 thank you. 5 6 Go ahead, Mary, I apologize for that. 7 8 MS. MATTHIAS: Thank you. It states 9 that there is no local interest in wild and scenic

10 river designation and management for the Kuskokwim and 11 in that report, which was drafted in 2015, we feel that 12 it is inaccurate because of what is stated in that 13 report and we feel that it is important that BLM, you 14 know, carries out the government to government 15 consultation with all the tribes within the region of 16 the YK Delta, because we would rather have local 17 interests, you know, included in the wild and scenic 18 river designation and management and protection of 19 cultural and traditional subsistence usages. 20 21 And so today we're scheduled to have a 22 meeting with BLM this evening as a start, and 23 reencourage, you know, the other tribal communities 24 within the region to request government to government 25 consultation. 26 27 So that's all that I have. 28 29 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Mary. 30 31 Any questions. 32 33 (No comments) 34 35 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: No. All right, 36 thank you so much, Mary, and I look forward to hearing 37 a report after your meeting this evening. 38 39 MR. LANDLORD: This is James Landlord, 40 Mountain Village. 41 42 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: (In Yup'ik). 43 44 MR. LANDLORD: James Landlord, Mountain 45 Village. 46 47 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Mr. 48 Landlord, for joining us, I greatly appreciate your 49 presence even though it might be through 50




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1 teleconference, I greatly appreciate it. 2 3 Thank you for joining us. 4 5 MR. LANDLORD: Okay. 6 7 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: At this time I'd 8 like to ask if there's any more Council members who are 9 on line.

10 11 MR. REAKOFF: Jack Reakoff, Western 12 Interior is on the line. 13 14 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Jack. 15 All right, we'll go ahead and move on to the Mulchatna 16 Caribou Herd. All agencies and everyone who has their 17 hands in the cookie jar, can you please come forward, 18 we're going to be talking about all things Mulchatna 19 Caribou Herd at this time. 20 21 It might be in deference to your 22 reports, but anything that has to do with Mulchatna 23 Caribou Herd, we're going to put it on right now. 24 25 (Pause) 26 27 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: For those of you 28 on teleconference, we're just waiting for the 29 PowerPoint to show up. 30 31 (Pause) 32 33 MR. BORN: Madame Chair, thank you. 34 I'm Ray Born from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 35 Yukon Delta Refuge along with Togiak National Wildlife 36 Refuge initiated a Federal special action, 19-07, to 37 reduce caribou harvest from two to one. And that's due 38 to, you know, a reduction in herd size. 39 40 The PowerPoint and slide indicates the 41 caribou herd is down to 13,500 from an objective of 42 30,000. Kind of the key point we'd like to emphasize 43 is registration and reporting is really important, and 44 from a Refuge perspective, Fish and Wildlife Service 45 will have increased enforcement activities going on 46 this year. 47 48 I'm going to turn it over to Suzanne, 49 she dealt with the Federal Subsistence Board who met 50




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1 yesterday and I'll let her kind of talk about the 2 Federal Subsistence Board side of it. 3 4 Thanks. 5 6 MS. WORKER: Thank you, Madame Chair. 7 I'm Suzanne Worker from the Office of Subsistence 8 Management. And I want to start by just giving an 9 overview of the process that we engaged in for this

10 special action. 11 12 This is a temporary wildlife special 13 action and so what that is is an out of cycle 14 regulatory change request. So that's a way that the 15 Federal Subsistence Board can be responsive to changes 16 like in population size, for instance, that might be 17 important to hunters and fishers. 18 19 So we got this request from the Togiak 20 National Wildlife Refuge and the Yukon Delta National 21 Wildlife Refuge, and as part of our process we hold 22 public meetings on these to try to understand what 23 subsistence users need from us. So we held a public 24 meeting in Bethel, here, and we held one in Dillingham 25 as well. Those are the two big communities that would 26 be affected by this special action. And like Mr. Born 27 said, the request was to reduce the harvest limit from 28 two caribou to one caribou and that followed an 29 emergency order that was issued by the State of Alaska, 30 I believe in August to make this change. 31 32 (Teleconference interference - 33 participants not muted) 34 35 MS. WORKER: So the Federal Subsistence 36 Board..... 37 38 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Hold on Suzanne. 39 Sorry, I apologize for that. Thank you. She is going 40 to talk to the people on line. 41 42 MS. WORKER: so the Federal Subsistence 43 Board met yesterday to take action on this and they 44 deliberated it for quite a long time, I would say they 45 talked about it for at least a couple of hours trying 46 to understand the best way to move forward because 47 there was a lot of public input. 48 49 And what they decided was that on the 50




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1 eastern portion of the range, so the affected portions 2 of Units 9 and 17, they would change the harvest limit 3 from two caribou to one caribou. That was the request 4 that was made to the Board. 5 6 In the western portion of the range, 7 which includes the YK Delta area, the affected areas of 8 Units 18 and 19, they closed Federal public lands to 9 the harvest of caribou except by Federally-qualified

10 subsistence users. So what that will do is that will 11 limit non-local hunters who might be coming to hunt for 12 sport, or coming from other areas of the state, they 13 will not be able to hunt on Federal public lands. 14 15 They also voted to change the harvest 16 limit from two caribou to one bull, so that's another 17 additional restriction. 18 19 For all units they delegated authority 20 to the manager of the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge 21 to take additional management actions, if those are 22 required. 23 24 So that's a summary of what the Federal 25 Subsistence Board did yesterday. 26 27 And I can take any questions if you 28 have any. 29 30 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: I kind of do but 31 they're kind of long-winded. 32 33 Okay, so do you have the current 34 population of Unit 18, Unit 19 and Unit 9, do you have 35 the population, the human population, not caribou? 36 37 MR. BORN: Madame Chair. I'm going to 38 pass our my packet, it has the OSM analysis, while 39 she's looking it up and I'll pass it out to members 40 right now. 41 42 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Mr. 43 Born. 44 45 (Pause) 46 47 MS. WORKER: Madame Chair. I don't 48 have that information. I thought it might be included 49 in the analysis, but it's not. 50




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1 I tried. 2 3 MR. BORN: So, people, I handed to you 4 a packet that's my briefing packet, but about the 5 second, so yellow slides, actually is the caribou 6 special action request as well as the analysis that 7 went into all this and Suzanne is looking at. So maybe 8 a couple key points on the analysis. 9

10 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Do you have a 11 page where we can look into or where are we looking at? 12 13 MR. BORN: I didn't put any page 14 numbers on there. When you see a yellow page, it's the 15 second yellow page in there, it's after that -- I'm 16 sorry, the first yellow page and then you'll see the -- 17 oh, second, third, it essentially has numbers on it so 18 it's a page, it looks sort of a Page 1, that will the 19 start of the Staff analysis, on the bottom of it. 20 21 MS. WORKER: So I think the highlights 22 of the analysis are -- so the first obvious thing is 23 that the population has declined..... 24 25 (Pause) 26 27 MS. WORKER: .....between 2019, when 28 the last survey was completed and 2016, which, I 29 believe was the survey before that. 30 31 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Wait, you want to 32 just hold on just a minute while we get everyone 33 situated up here. 34 35 MR. BORN: Yeah. She's looking at Page 36 14 by the way, if that will help a little bit. 37 38 (Pause) 39 40 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Sorry about the 41 delay, we're just about there. 42 43 (Pause) 44 45 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: All right, dear, 46 well, thank you for your patience, go ahead. 47 48 MS. WORKER: Sure, no worries. 49 50




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1 So the takeaways from the analysis are 2 -- the first is that population is much smaller than it 3 was three years ago, the last time the population was 4 estimated. So in 2016 the population estimate was about 5 27,000 caribou, and this last summer it was at about 6 13,500 approximately. So that's about, you know, it's 7 about half of what it was three years ago, and that is 8 alarming. 9

10 I think the other takeaways are related 11 to harvest. 12 13 Most of the harvest from this herd 14 comes from local users so we define that as people who 15 have a customary and traditional use determination 16 somewhere within the range of the herd. 17 18 Since 2009 84 percent of the reported 19 harvest has been by local users. 20 21 Another important factor -- or thing to 22 consider is that harvest is not evenly distributed 23 across the range of the herd so since 2009 about 54 24 percent of the reported harvest occurred in Unit 18, 25 and 17 percent occurred in Unit 17C, so most of the 26 harvest is occurring in sort of the western portion of 27 the range, and there is less harvest occurring in the 28 eastern portion of the range. 29 30 The other thing is that most of the 31 harvest occurs in the winter, and I'm sure that this is 32 not a surprise to any of you. 81 percent of the 33 reported harvest occurred between December and March, 34 with March being the busiest month. 35 36 So those are just some trends that the 37 Board considered when they were deciding what action to 38 take on this special action request. 39 40 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: So you're telling 41 us that there's 13,500 caribou left, and just looking 42 on Google really quick, our current population in this 43 area, since 2010 is 17,013, and now you're asking us to 44 put how many caribou down and how much of that herd is 45 going to be sustained and how much of that herd is 46 going to be left over if we have just one caribou 47 versus shutting this herd down altogether? 48 49 MS. WORKER: I understand your point. 50




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1 The Federal Subsistence Board, as evidenced by the 2 deliberations that they had yesterday, thought really 3 hard about this, and they're concerned about the 4 population, too. They're also concerned about moving 5 forward in a very dramatic way. 6 7 One thing to consider is that this is 8 probably going to be the first step of many at when it 9 comes to adjusting the regulatory structure for this

10 population. This special action request that the Board 11 made a decision on yesterday is valid only through the 12 current regulatory year and so in this case it means 13 through March. So next year, we're assuming that we're 14 going to get another request to do something similar or 15 maybe something more dramatic. We're not sure, we'll 16 just have to wait and see what that request is. And 17 then after that it's likely that we'll get a wildlife 18 regulatory proposal, and when that happens that will 19 actually change the regulation in the book. So that 20 will be a more permanent change. 21 22 But we anticipate that there's going to 23 be a series of temporary changes before that happens. 24 25 So I don't want to put words into the 26 Board's mouth but I do think they were interested in 27 taking a step-wise approach to this to see how it goes. 28 29 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Do we have a 30 trigger point of the harvest numbers as they're rolling 31 in, if we get to a certain number, are we going to 32 completely shut down this herd altogether or are we 33 going to work in a certain way that we get to maybe, 34 1,000 caribou left and then we're kind of screwed for 35 the next 10 years until this herd can repopulate? 36 37 MR. BORN: Yeah, this is Ray Born, 38 Acting Refuge Manager of Yukon Delta. Kind of the 39 discussion is that the in-season manager from Togiak 40 has the ability to stop at any given point. So the 41 expectation is, again, the RAC will provide him some 42 additional information or local users will provide the 43 information to him, or will provide to the Refuge here 44 and we'll refer that to the in-season manager to talk 45 about, okay, February 1 is the cut off date now, should 46 we do it earlier. If we see a big harvest and then I 47 would say, you know, we're talking somewhere between 48 three to four, or 500,000 caribou, we think that may be 49 a reasonable number, but, again, we'll be depending 50




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1 upon everybody here to help us with that, what does 2 that number look like. 3 4 We suspect, and I know Suzanne had some 5 initial analysis, it looks like the harvest may have 6 been reported at 243 or something like that, if I 7 remember right, and the actual harvest is probably 8 going to be double, maybe triple that, so we're 9 concerned and, again, the emphasis I want to put out

10 there is, please, everybody register, everybody report 11 so we can be smart about how we do the management, and 12 that's going to be real key because without good 13 reporting we're going to have to make some estimates as 14 to when to shut that down. And I'd rather not take 15 away the opportunity for people to have a caribou 16 unless I have to. 17 18 Thank you. 19 20 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: What about doing 21 a specific timeframe, in other words, having it closed 22 currently now and then opening it up for a certain 23 amount of time and then closing it for the rest of the 24 season? 25 26 MS. WORKER: So all of these are 27 potential alternatives and the Board discussed quite a 28 few alternatives, but they chose to select an in-season 29 manager to make those decisions based on what that 30 manager was gathering from the field and from local 31 observations. 32 33 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Is he on line 34 right now? 35 36 MS. WORKER: Who? 37 38 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: The Togiak Refuge 39 manager. 40 41 MR. BORN: Kenton Moos, I thought he 42 was going to try and call in, I'm not sure if he made 43 it on line or not. 44 45 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: You want to give 46 him a call and give him a head's up to call in, that'd 47 be greatly appreciated. If he's going to be managing 48 this herd he should hear what we have to say. 49 50




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1 MS. PATTON: Madame Chair. 2 3 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Go ahead, Eva. 4 5 MS. PATTON: Madame Chair. I believe 6 we had Pat Walsh on line earlier with Togiak National 7 Wildlife Refuge. Are you on, Pat, or others from 8 Togiak. 9

10 MR. WALSH: Yeah, Pat Walsh and Andy 11 Aderman are both on line. 12 13 MR. ADERMAN: Kenton is not on line, 14 he's in a meeting with Fish and Game right at the 15 moment, I'm sure discussing this very topic. But Pat 16 and I are here. 17 18 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Pat 19 for -- and who -- Pat Walsh and who? 20 21 MR. ADERMAN: Andy Aderman. 22 23 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Andy Aderman. 24 25 MR. ADERMAN: Right. Pat's the 26 supervisory biologist for Togiak Refuge and Andy's the 27 wildlife biologist. 28 29 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Any idea what 30 your plans are, if you guys have a trigger point of 31 when you're going to pull it and close the caribou 32 altogether, or what is your overall plan or discussion 33 that you guys are going to do with this herd? 34 35 It's very concerning that in our unit 36 alone we can wipe out this herd in just this year, 37 given the numbers that there's 17,000-plus people here, 38 that includes the Bethel area census area and that's 39 not even including Unit 9, Unit 17 and Unit 19. 40 41 MR. LANDLORD: Madame Chair. 42 43 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Is this Mr. 44 Landlord? 45 46 MR. LANDLORD: Yes, they just called 47 the Bethel flight, so I'm going to go up to the 48 airport. 49 50




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1 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Mr. 2 Landlord. We'll be greatly appreciative when you land 3 here. 4 5 MR. LANDLORD: Okay. 6 7 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you. 8 9 MR. LANDLORD: Okay. All right, okay,

10 thank you, bye. 11 12 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Go ahead, Mr..... 13 14 MR. WALSH: Yeah, Madame Chair, this is 15 -- yeah, I'm sorry, I'm talking over you, Madame Chair. 16 I hear exactly what you're saying and we agree with you 17 that we need to think through what we're going to do 18 this upcoming year but we have not done that yet. We 19 have not been put in the role of being the in-season 20 manager of this herd until yesterday. We've worked 21 closely with the State for years on managing this herd 22 so we have a good understanding of what the situation 23 is right now but we're going to have to work through 24 some sort of plan and whether it results in thresholds, 25 as what you're asking for -- I'm -- I'm not really sure 26 at this point in time. 27 28 One thing that we do know is that we 29 have a little bit of time before most people are going 30 to be harvesting caribou, because most people don't do 31 it until around February or March, so the greatest 32 harvest potential is not immediately on us. 33 34 So that's where we are with this,Madame 35 Chair. 36 37 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: I would like to 38 inform you that hunting season is upon us. Those who 39 can go hunting will go hunting, either by walking, 40 they'll run out to the areas that they do have caribou 41 in their backyards. Also hunting season for our area 42 happens between the timeframe of December, January. 43 It's occasional we can go hunting in February or March 44 but that's all weather permitting just like our weather 45 permits today. It's rain, it's icy and areas are 46 unconditional at that time. 47 48 So it's creeping up on us. You got 49 weeks -- just a couple weeks, or three weeks before 50




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1 hunting season actually really starts out here for 2 caribou. 3 4 MR. WALSH: So what percentage of the 5 harvest do you think takes place in the month of 6 December? 7 8 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: I would probably 9 say a good portion, at least 30 percent of the Bethel

10 area and the majority of the herd -- of the population 11 that's going after the herd at that time will be closer 12 to the villages that are closer to the mountains, and I 13 don't know what the percentage is because I don't live 14 in those village areas, but we can definitely be 15 calling them and asking them how many people do they 16 believe or think when they're going hunting. But as 17 far as I know people who have access, who have those 18 back trails from those villages, have access to this 19 herd through different trails, so if you go on one 20 certain -- if the herd comes to a certain part of the 21 area they have access to that by land because there's 22 no -- they're not water-locked out so they can travel 23 on land. 24 25 MR. WALSH: Yeah. Well, you mentioned 26 that you could provide information by talking with 27 villages and you can probably do that in a way that we 28 can't. If there's anything you can gather in that 29 regard would definitely be used in any decision that we 30 make. So, yeah, we definitely hear what you're saying 31 and are going to make this a priority. 32 33 MR. SLATS: Madame Chair. 34 35 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Go ahead, Mr. 36 Slats. 37 38 MR. SLATS: Okay. This is Richard 39 Slats, Council member. Just from what I had read and 40 these might be a little off, but these are questions 41 that I wanted -- or comments that I want to make. 42 43 Is that from 2015 now up until now, 44 that the population had been cut down in half and the 45 question was -- that there was a question about hoof 46 disease -- hoof -- I don't know what the biological or 47 the term is for that -- because looking in the recent 48 years we've had to deal with the weather we're having 49 today, is that, there's ice and the caribou has to cut 50




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1 through ice in order to eat. And a question about how 2 -- if it is known about how much of the caribou had 3 been -- how much has to do -- how much of the reduction 4 has to do with predation by wolves, and over population 5 -- over grazing. Mainly because -- I raise this mainly 6 because in the month before or in and around August 7 there were 200 reindeers that were said to be -- that 8 had died off in Norway and those were said to be from 9 starvation, from, you know, having over populated and

10 then, you know, eating everything that they had and how 11 much do we know is taken through registration and from 12 harvest. 13 14 MR. WALSH: There was a number of 15 elements to your question so I'm not sure I'm going to 16 be able to recall all of them. But you started out by 17 asking about hoof disease, which has been known to 18 affect the Mulchatna Caribou Herd. In the late '90s -- 19 let me let Andy Aderman answer this, he's better up on 20 the biology of that hoof disease than I am. 21 22 MR. ADERMAN: Yeah, so in 1998 -- this 23 is Andy Aderman, by the way. In 1998 there was a lot 24 of Mulchatna Caribou Herd observed limping and had 25 swollen feet and it was determined that they had what's 26 called hoof rot and it occasionally occurs, not every 27 year, in fact most years it doesn't. But it's due to a 28 bacteria that's in the soil and it generally happens 29 when you have a really wet summer or fall and the 30 caribou get little cuts in their lower feet and that 31 bacteria gets in there and it causes the swelling. It 32 generally doesn't kill the caribou but it makes them 33 not as able to get away from predators, like wolves and 34 bears or other potential predators. 35 36 It was noticed the following spring 37 that there weren't as many calves being born. So 38 that's another probable cause and effect of hoof rot 39 but by a couple years after that, nobody's seen any 40 limping caribou that I'm aware of. 41 42 MR. WALSH: This is Pat Walsh. You 43 also asked about what are the other factors that cause 44 the population to go down and you asked whether it's 45 likely to be predation or over grazing. And the 46 State's assessment, based on what I've heard from them 47 is that neither seem to be as big of driver as human 48 harvest. It seems that human harvest has been the most 49 powerful cause for the population to decline. 50




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1 (Pause) 2 3 MR. WALSH: And that's all I have 4 unless there's more. 5 6 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Do you have any 7 updated information on the calving -- the birth and the 8 calving success rates? 9

10 MR. ADERMAN: I believe there may be 11 somebody with the State that has that. I can -- I know 12 there was a composition survey this fall, that might be 13 a little bit different than what you're asking, as far 14 as number of calves being born. I think it was pretty 15 good. I know there was talk of two year old females 16 having a calf or -- which is the earliest they could 17 have a calf and if they're having a calf at two years 18 old they're eating really well. They're in good body 19 condition. I believe most of the three year old 20 caribou, and these are collared caribou so they're a 21 known age, I think around 90, 92 percent of the three 22 year olds had calves. 23 24 The other side of that is how many of 25 them are surviving to this -- this time of year, we 26 generally look at it in October but how many of those 27 that were born in the spring are still out there six 28 months or five months later. And I will have to look 29 real quick unless Patrick -- if Patrick Jones is there 30 he might have that information. 31 32 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: He's shaking his 33 head no. 34 35 MR. ADERMAN: Okay. So for -- I found 36 it -- and this is from the area biologist in Dillingham 37 that was involved with the composition survey. For the 38 entire Mulchatna Herd there were 24.6 calves per 100 39 cows and 41.7 bulls per 100 cows. But the calf to cow 40 ratio had declined from the previous year whereas the 41 bull to cow ratio had increased. And then she also 42 provided information, so they looked at caribou both in 43 the eastern portion of the herd and in the western 44 portion of the herd. So for the western portion of 45 the herd, where you guys are at, it was 18.2 calves per 46 100 cows, whereas in the east it was 31 calves per 100 47 cows; so pretty big difference between the amount of 48 calves, fewer in the west than in the east. 49 50




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1 The number of bulls were pretty close. 2 I believe in the west it was 41.3 bulls per 100 cows, 3 and in the east it was 42.1 bulls. 4 5 So I hope that answered your question. 6 7 (Pause) 8 9 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Another question

10 I have is have you guys discussed anything with the 11 Board of Game? 12 13 MR. WALSH: Could you please repeat the 14 question? 15 16 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Have you guys had 17 any discussions about the Mulchatna Caribou Herd with 18 the Alaska State Board of Game? 19 20 MR. WALSH: Not yet -- or nothing 21 recent, yeah, not since yesterday, that's the Federal 22 Board. 23 24 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: How much of the 25 percentage of the harvest of the caribou actually 26 occurs on Federal versus State land? 27 28 MR. WALSH: We don't have those exact 29 numbers but the majority. 30 31 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: So even if we did 32 anything on the Federal side, the majority of the 33 harvest wills till occur on the State side? 34 35 MS. WORKER: Pat, I can take a shot at 36 that, this is Suzanne. 37 38 MR. WALSH: Yeah. 39 40 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you. 41 42 MS. WORKER: So I don't have harvest 43 broken down by State land and Federal land, but I can 44 tell you that over half of the reported harvest, we're 45 only talking about reported harvest now, we don't know 46 what is happening unreported, so in terms of reported 47 harvest, 54 percent occurs in Unit 18 and Unit 18 is 48 mostly State land. 49 50




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1 MR. BORN: Mostly Federal land. 2 3 MS. WORKER: Sorry, mostly Federal 4 land. 5 6 (Laughter) 7 8 MS. WORKER: If you look over on the 9 eastern portion of the Mulchatna Caribou Herd land,

10 it's mostly State land and the harvest is lower over 11 there. So I can't tell you how much occurs on Federal 12 land versus State land, but you could make some 13 assumptions about that. 14 15 (Teleconference interference - 16 participants not muted) 17 18 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: For those of you 19 that are on teleconference, please star six to mute 20 your phones. Again, star six to mute your phones, we 21 are hearing some background noise. 22 23 Thank you. 24 25 Is there anyone else on teleconference 26 that would like to discuss caribou issues at this time. 27 28 MR. REAKOFF: This is Jack Reakoff. 29 30 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Jack 31 for being here. Go ahead. 32 33 MR. REAKOFF: I listened to the Bristol 34 Bay presentation by the area biologist and they got a 35 really accurate comp. They had surveyed 10 to 10 36 percent of the herd, they got 3,496 caribou they 37 counted, that's how they come up with these cow/calf 38 ratios, these bull ratios. The parturitions were 23 39 percent of the cow/caribou were having calves at two 40 years of age, three year olds were having -- 92 percent 41 of three year olds are having calves and 75 percent for 42 four and five year olds. 43 44 The bull/cow ratio goes way up. It had 45 been below 30 bulls per 100cows. The bull/cow ratio 46 goes way up when there's heavy cow harvest. That's a 47 bad sign, when the bull/cow ratio jumps like 10 or 12 48 bulls per 100 cows; that's showing that there's heavy 49 cow harvest. 50




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1 The calf recruitment was really bad at 2 18 calves per -- in the fall survey -- of only 18 3 calves in the western component. 4 5 There's biological parameters for 6 harvesting caribou and you're asking them what is the 7 trigger point. The trigger point are percentage of 8 harvest. When you're harvesting both sexes, then you 9 have to harvest at two to three percent. And at 13,000

10 in just strictly numbers, 13,500 at a three percent 11 harvest rate is 450 caribou. At a harvest rate of two 12 percent it's 270 caribou. I think we're even really 13 close to -- on a declining herd, two percent harvest 14 rate, we're at a real close to the maximum harvest for 15 sustained yield. We don't know what the entire harvest 16 is but we know that there's a lot of unreported 17 harvest. And so the in-season manager has to start 18 doing a more -- they have subsistence coordinators on 19 both of the Refuges, Togiak and Yukon Delta, those 20 subsistence coordinators should be sent out to the 21 villages and try and find from the tribal councils what 22 kind of harvest they've had this past year. They have 23 to stay within those harvest caps. That's what you're 24 requesting, Madame Chair. The harvest cap, and there 25 is no calculation of the incidental harvest mortality, 26 which is wound loss rate. 27 28 I talked to an area biologist from 29 Fairbanks, and on the Fortymile they said there's a 30 minimum incidental harvest mortality of 30 percent, 31 that's the rule of thumb that they use. Fortymile 32 Caribou Herd is being harvested at three percent of the 33 herd. The Mulchatna Caribou Herd is falling. There 34 should be at least a two percent maximum harvest rate. 35 We don't have that many caribou to give this year. 36 There's already been 210 caribou killed or something, 37 reported harvest. 38 39 The State of Alaska and the in-season 40 manager have to work together to figure out, do we have 41 40 caribou left, 50 caribou left we could take this 42 winter, we don't have very many caribou -- not by guess 43 and by golly, it's actual numbers. 44 45 And so I'm real concerned that the in- 46 season manager discussion that he's having with you is 47 not real -- the biologists are not real clear about 48 what they're going to do. 49 50




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1 The other issue that has to be brought 2 up is that all of the subsistence coordinators for 3 subsistence management and the Refuges need to go out 4 to the villages -- the Board of Game just closed cow 5 caribou season in Unit 18, 19A and 19B, there is no cow 6 caribou season right now on Federal land. There is a 7 bull only harvest in 18, 19A and 19B. The subsistence 8 coordinators need to notify the tribes that there has 9 been a big regulatory change in 18, 19A and 19B.

10 11 Thank you, Madame Chair. 12 13 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Jack. 14 15 Anyone else have any questions. 16 17 (No comments) 18 19 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Anything else. 20 21 (No comments) 22 23 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: I feel like we've 24 been talking about caribou ever since fishery season. 25 26 (Laughter) 27 28 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Is there anyone 29 else on teleconference that would like to discuss 30 caribou further or have questions about caribou. 31 32 (No comments) 33 34 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Well, I guess for 35 you guys, who are sitting here, thank you guys for 36 being here. 37 38 I also have a question, what is your 39 plan of actions for our caribou herd or are you guys 40 going to be discussing further planning management with 41 Togiak or are we going to put something forth to the 42 Board of Game requesting them to close it or what's the 43 next plan of action here? 44 45 MR. BORN: Thank you, Madame Chair. 46 Ray Born, Acting Refuge manager. Our next plan of 47 action is, again, to work with the State and the Togiak 48 Refuge manager to come up with some plan that we can 49 share with everybody. Again, the Federal Subsistence 50




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1 Board decision was about 5:00 o'clock yesterday so 2 we're still playing catch up on this. But we have been 3 talking about it, we have some thoughts and, again, 4 we'll have to coordinate that with the in-season 5 manager how we want to move forward with that. But I'm 6 sure we're going to have a lot of discussions coming 7 up. 8 9 Thank you.

10 11 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: All right, I 12 guess that's all for now on caribou. 13 14 Do you guys have any -- if we have any 15 more questions or anything, who do we contact or who do 16 we talk to? 17 18 MR. BORN: You can call either one of 19 the Refuges, Togiak or Yukon Delta and we'll answer the 20 questions or we'll find the answers for everybody. 21 22 Thank you. 23 24 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you folks 25 for coming in today, I greatly appreciate it. Great 26 presentation. 27 28 MS. WORKER: Thank you, Madame Chair. 29 30 MR. BORN: Madame Chair. Next on the 31 agenda is Yukon Delta Refuge report and the Kuskokwim 32 River. I'd like to have Nick Smith go ahead and do the 33 State side first and then I'll take over and go into 34 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's report. 35 36 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Mr. 37 Ray Born. I also wanted to say thank you to Pat and, 38 sorry, correction if I'm saying it wrong, Pat Walsh and 39 Andy Aderman for being here to discuss caribou issues 40 with us. Greatly appreciate you guys giving us a 41 head's up on what your next action plan is once you 42 guys get done talking with the Alaska Department of 43 Fish and Game, and also let us know if there's any way 44 we can help and assist you in getting information and 45 really diving into this because this caribou is less 46 than half of the ADF&G objective, and I was looking 47 more forward to seeing that there was going to be more 48 restrictive actions taking place on subsistence's 49 behalf so that they can protect the herd for 50




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1 subsistence use in the future. 2 3 Thank you. 4 5 (Pause) 6 7 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: All right, we'll 8 go ahead and, Mr. Smith, are you on line? 9

10 MR. SMITH: Yes, I am. 11 12 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: All right, thank 13 you, Mr. Smith. Do you have any presentation or 14 handouts at this time? 15 16 MR. SMITH: I do not at this time. I 17 know Ray has got a PowerPoint slide or two and I was 18 just going to give an oral update on the last season, 19 Kuskokwim area salmon, and kind of from the State's 20 perspective on kind of what we did and then talking 21 about kind of where escapement lands out on all 22 species. 23 24 If everybody's good with that I will 25 take the floor and give the assessment update. 26 27 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Go ahead, Mr. 28 Smith. 29 30 MR. SMITH: Okay. So for the record my 31 name's Nicholas Smith. I'm the Kuskokwim area 32 fisheries management biologist for the Alaska 33 Department of Fish and Game so I manage subsistence and 34 commercial fisheries out in the Kuskokwim area. 35 36 So to lead off with how the season 37 progressed is on May 17th we had the first Kuskokwim 38 River Salmon Management Working Group meeting and that 39 was held in Bethel. And at that meeting we discussed 40 our preseason management actions and they were voted 41 upon by the working group. So some of the actions 42 included early season subsistence fishing closures, 43 tributary closures, time and area restrictions, gillnet 44 and mesh size and length restrictions and life release 45 requirements for fishwheels and dipnets and beach 46 seines. Those kind of live release types. 47 48 So going into the salmon season, for 49 the last number of years we've had a front end closure, 50




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1 and that front end closure was initiated on May 28th, 2 this year, from the Yukon River -- or the Yukon Delta 3 National Wildlife Refuge boundary at the mouth of the 4 Kuskokwim River up to the Tuluksak River. We then 5 step-wised this closure up the rest of the river so on 6 June 1, from the Tuluksak River up to the Yukon Delta 7 Refuge boundary at Aniak, that was then closed, and 8 then on June 6th, from Aniak up to the Holitna River 9 mouth was closed, and then finally on June 11th from

10 the Holitna River mouth up to the headwaters was 11 closed. So this is kind of how it's been in the last 12 couple of years where we've staggered this front end 13 closure up the river as chinook salmon start to enter 14 the Kuskokwim River. During that front end closure 15 there were two 12 hour set gillnet opportunities with 16 four inch or less mesh to allow subsistence fishers 17 time to harvest non-salmon species, and those openings 18 occurred on June 1 and June 8. So beginning June 1, 19 the Federal Subsistence Board adopted a special action 20 to close the Kuskokwim River chinook salmon fishery to 21 non-Federally-qualified users within the boundary of 22 the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, and that's 23 what Ray will be giving his update on so kind of what 24 were the Federal actions during that time. 25 26 So now for the rest of this overview, 27 I'm pretty much going to be talking about Aniak up and 28 then also chum and sockeye. 29 30 So on June 12th, the Alaska Department 31 of Fish and Game opened up from the Refuge boundary at 32 Aniak to the Holitna River mouth and also from the 33 Holitna River up to the headwaters to subsistence 34 fishing until further notice with six inch or less mesh 35 and then 25 fathom gillnets. The last subsistence 36 management action that occurred was on June 23rd, chum 37 and sockeye salmon began to outnumber chinook salmon 38 abundance in the Lower Kuskokwim River and the Alaska 39 Department of Fish and Game on June 26th opened up from 40 Aniak down to the mouth of the Kuskokwim River to six 41 inch or less, 25 fathom length gillnets by emergency 42 order for the harvest of chum and sockeye. 43 44 So that's kind of an overview of the 45 management actions that took place from the State side. 46 47 So I'm going to move on to kind of 48 where the escapement turned out. 49 50




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1 So the first one I'm going to focus on 2 is chinook salmon. So for chinook salmon we do have 3 the run reconstruction model, that gives us a total run 4 and a total escapement estimate for the drainage-wide 5 abundance of chinook salmon. We've produced a 6 preliminary estimate from that model and the 7 preliminary total run of chinook salmon coming in the 8 Kuskokwim River in 2019 was 233,000 chinook salmon. So 9 to kind of put that in perspective for everyone, we

10 have data going back to 1976 of total run estimates and 11 if we were to look at an average across all those years 12 going back to 1976, it's about 220,000 fish would be 13 our long-term average. So 233,000 in 2019 is right at 14 average, so we pretty much had an average run from our 15 preliminary estimate. We also got estimated 16 escapement, which was 180,000 fish. The drainage-wide 17 escapement goal for the Kuskokwim River for chinook 18 salmon is 65,000 to 120,000 fish, so we greatly 19 exceeded that upper bound of the escapement goal for 20 the drainage-wide. 21 22 Now, moving on, we have a number of 23 escapement monitoring projects throughout the Kuskokwim 24 River that also have escapement goals, and all of those 25 goals were met or exceeded. 26 27 So for specific goals, we have a range 28 of -- so the Kugrugaluk River goal was exceeded with 29 10,200 fish. The George River goal was exceeded with 30 3,600 fish. And the preliminary counts from Kwethluk 31 River weir were right at about 7,000 fish which is near 32 the upper end of their established escapement goal 33 range. There are six tributaries that have aerial 34 escapement goals and all six of these tributaries 35 either met or exceeded their specific goals and then 36 for tributaries without escapement goals, chinook 37 salmon counts were above their respective 10 year 38 averages. 39 40 So moving on to sockeye salmon. So 41 this was another year of above average sockeye salmon 42 escapements throughout the Kuskokwim area. There's one 43 river -- or one escapement monitoring project, that's 44 the Kugrugaluk River weir that has an escapement goal, 45 and the total escapement on Kugrugaluk was right at 46 32,000 sockeye, which the upper bound of the escapement 47 goal is 17,000 fish so it almost doubled the upper 48 bound of the current escapement goal. And then for 49 lake type sockeye, we have the Talakana River weir that 50




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1 numerates fish moving into Talakana Lake, and they had 2 their second highest escapement of sockeye since the 3 project was established in 2010 with a count of 4 approximately 190,000 fish. So sockeye salmon were -- 5 we had a very healthy run this year. 6 7 For chum salmon, chum salmon showed 8 above average runs at Kugrugaluk, George and Kwethluk 9 River weirs. The preliminary count at Kugrugaluk River

10 weir was 70,500 fish which exceeded the upper bound of 11 49,000 fish for the escapement goal so that almost 12 doubled their escapement goal there, too. So chum 13 escapements were healthy throughout the drainage. 14 15 And then lastly we have coho salmon. 16 And coho salmon passage at the Kwethluk River weir was 17 24,000 fish, which exceeded the lower bound SEG of 18 19,000 fish and Kugrugaluk River weir had an escapement 19 of 14 right around 15,000 coho salmon, which met the 20 SEG so the escapement goal range of 13,028 so unlike 21 all the other species, coho salmon, while they met 22 their escapement goals and we provided a full fishery, 23 they were below the recent 10 year average. So this 24 was observed not only in the Kuskokwim but kind of 25 around the state, that there were lower than average 26 coho returns this year. 27 28 And overview -- so now I'm going to 29 shift from the river, and now I'm going to jump down 30 into Kuskokwim Bay. So there's two areas that we 31 monitor down there, the Kanektok River and the Goodnews 32 River. So I'm going to start with Kanektok River. 33 34 An aerial survey was flown on the 35 Kanektok River and we had an estimate of 7,000 fish in 36 that aerial survey. The escapement goal for the 37 Kanektok River is between 3,500 and 8,000 fish so we 38 were near the upper end of the established escapement 39 goal range for chinook salmon. 40 41 Sockeye salmon has an aerial survey 42 escapement goal range of 14,000 to 34,000 fish, and the 43 aerial survey estimate was 350,000 fish, so we greatly 44 exceeded the upper bound of the current escapement goal 45 range for Kanektok River. 46 47 Now, moving just slightly south to the 48 Goodnews River. So the MiddleFork Goodnews River weir, 49 operated this year from June 22nd to July 31st, counts 50




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1 of chinook were 6,400 chinook, 167,000 sockeye, and 2 38,000 chum salmon. So all of these numbers exceeded 3 the escapement goals that are established for the 4 MiddleFork Goodnews River weir. 5 6 We did not get coho salmon escapement 7 because that weir ceased operation before coho really 8 became dominant in the river. 9

10 And then lastly an aerial survey was 11 flown on the NorthFork Goodnews River weir, or 12 NorthFork Goodnews River and it has an escapement goal 13 range of 600 to 3,300 chinook salmon and that 14 escapement goal was achieved with an aerial count of 15 2,600 fish. 16 17 And then there is a sockeye salmon 18 escapement goal from 9,600 fish to 18,000 fish and that 19 was also exceeded with a total count of 162,000 fish. 20 So sockeye, not only being abundant in Kuskokwim River 21 were also very abundant in Kuskokwim Bay. 22 23 And so that was kind of a quick 24 overview of kind of that the State's management actions 25 were and then assessment overview. And a lot of this 26 information is contained in our post-season summary, 27 which can be accessed on our Alaska Department of Fish 28 and Game website under the news releases. News 29 releases get sent out with all of this information so 30 it's not just I'm going to write it down here, it is 31 available on line. 32 33 So I will turn it over to Ray, and then 34 I think we could probably both answer questions at once 35 unless you guys want to ask questions right now. 36 37 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Any questions. 38 39 40 (No comments) 41 42 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Go ahead, Mr. 43 Born. 44 45 MR. BORN: Thank you, Madame Chair. I 46 have with me Gary Decossas, my fisheries biologist. In 47 the packet I handed out to you, you have a summary of 48 all these slides that we'll be showing and you should 49 be able to look at that if you want to kind of do a 50




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1 quick reference. 2 3 We're going to talk about..... 4 5 If you could go to the next slide 6 Robbin, please. 7 8 I'm going to talk about Kusko fish 9 first, and then I'll talk a little about the Kwethluk

10 weir, we talked about caribou, I'll talk about 11 waterfowl, and the BIA site, and what's going on out 12 there, and then some Staff updates. 13 14 So next slide on Kusko fish. 15 16 Okay. Kind of the overall picture, all 17 objective from that, you'll see there on one side, pre- 18 season estimate was 132 as you heard Nick talk about, 19 the actual run size is about 233,000 so the run size 20 was great, it was awesome this year. Our escapement 21 objective that we agreed upon preseason was 110,000, 22 the actual was 181; so, again, good news, everything 23 worked well. Our harvest objective was 22,000 and on 24 the Refuge lands it was about 40,000, so, again, we 25 exceeded that objective. 26 27 Overall we had 10 Federal special 28 actions. And then I also included in your packet the 29 actual full Federal Subsistence Board report that was 30 sent out and you have a copy of that. 31 32 But kind of the in summary, we had two 33 openers that were set net opportunities, those were the 34 times the State had their openers. We used six inch 35 setnets when they were using four inch to give people 36 more opportunity. That seemed to work well. And then 37 we had several other openers, you know, kind of drift 38 nets. Again, it worked well until we got to the end of 39 the season. Toward the end of the season, the State 40 opened up their chum and sockeye before the Federal 41 closure was finished, but at that time we'd already 42 over achieved all of our goals so we had limited 43 concerns on the Federal side on there. 44 45 That's kind of a quick summary. 46 47 Any specific questions for Fish and 48 Wildlife Service or the State on Kuskokwim River. 49 50




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1 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Any questions. 2 3 (No comments) 4 5 MR. BORN: Well, awesome, thanks. Any 6 questions on line maybe. 7 8 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: She's got a 9 question for you.

10 11 MR. BORN: Okay. 12 13 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Well, she asked 14 it earlier during her public testimony..... 15 16 MR. BORN: Okay. 17 18 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: .....so she has a 19 question for you. 20 21 MS. LUPIE: My name is Sarah Lupie. I 22 am a RAAC student. Please, can fishing managers, both 23 ADF&G and USFWS, consider having fishing openers after 24 work hours. Our families work and many can't go 25 fishing during opening. 26 27 MR. BORN: Thank you for that question, 28 Ms. Lupie. I guess my concern is when you say, after 29 work hours, because openers were typically 6:00 a.m., 30 to 6:00 p.m., so that gave people an opportunity. And 31 we also focused to have one of the openers on Saturday, 32 every week. So that was our intent when we started 33 that, and did that not meet your family's needs to have 34 those openers? 35 36 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: I believe there's 37 no questions at this time, Ray. 38 39 MR. BORN: Okay. 40 41 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Go ahead, 42 continue. 43 44 MR. BORN: Thank you, Madame Chair. 45 Next slide, Robbin, if we could talk about the Kwethluk 46 weir briefly. 47 48 The weir operated, as you can see, with 49 carryover money, you know, kind of combined money from 50




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1 the Kwethluk, Tuluksak, the Refuge, FES and OSM all 2 contributed to run that weir this year. We made a 3 concentrated decision that that's an important weir 4 that let us know what's going on with the chinook 5 salmon and the other salmon species. 6 7 This year all the employees were from 8 the Kwethluk village. The crew leader and four 9 technicians. And as we're looking at going forward on

10 that program, eventual transition to the management of 11 that weir with Kwethluk, and with Fish and Wildlife 12 Service providing a technical advisory, technical 13 support for it. You heard briefly, Nick, talk about 14 chinook numbers, again, 7,000, the escapement goal was 15 4,100 to 7,500, great job. Real low water this year, 16 that kind of helped us to run the weir. Last year we 17 had a lot of high water so we didn't have as good of a 18 turn out. And also we have a proposal for the weir to 19 be funded for the next four years, we'll find out late 20 in January if that is funded. 21 22 And I think Aaron Webber is on line 23 also, he can answer any additional questions on the 24 Kwethluk weir. 25 26 (No comments) 27 28 MR. BORN: Any other questions. 29 30 (No comments) 31 32 MR. BORN: Okay. Next slide, Robbin, 33 please. 34 35 We talked about caribou -- go ahead and 36 go to the next slide after that, we covered that 37 already. 38 39 Waterfowl update. 40 41 Okay. So this comes from our waterfowl 42 crew. Their season is from May 15th to the middle of 43 August. They did all kinds of projects, emperor goose 44 nest ecology and survival. There's a flier in your 45 handout also that talks about that. So if you look 46 kind of back past those reports and all that, you 47 should see a flier that talks about emperor goose and 48 then all those things, it's after one of the yellow 49 pages there. 50




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1 There we go. It says the waterfowl 2 update. You'll have this kind of update in your packet 3 and it tells most of the stuff I'm going to talk about 4 so you have a copy of that as well. 5 6 But as you can see there, they did -- 7 they found on emperor goose, 5.4 eggs per nest, which 8 is pretty successful for emperor geese. Mark/recapture 9 program. They also tested this year on their aerial

10 systems -- or UAS (ph) disturbance effects on the 11 nesting waterfowl, and we found that it was really 12 successful, there wasn't as much disturbance as we 13 thought we might have. So we're going to continue to 14 work with that. Right now we just got a message that 15 all of our UAS systems are grounded so until that 16 changes we'll have to wait and see what happens with 17 that. But pretty successful year with UAS, more 18 effective ways to do monitoring. We did some coastal 19 water birds nest pot surveys. They -- black brandt 20 banding was really successful, 940 birds this year, 21 again, that's a key objective for us. Cackling goose, 22 this year we used helicopters to do the banding and we 23 went from 200 last year to 551 this year with a smaller 24 crew of people. We coordinate that with the Waterfowl 25 Conservation Committee -- Commission -- and they 26 actually had a person out there that helped us with 27 that project and really good success, kind of 28 pioneering some of the ways to go things smarter. 29 Goose telemetry, we haven't done that for awhile. 22 30 found and we observed -- they actually had telemetry 31 bands on them already, or (indiscernible) resight and 32 500 were observed. And then Kugan Lake duck banding, 33 1,200 ducks were banded, that's our highest number in 34 the last several years. So waterfowl program did a 35 great job this year. 36 37 And you do have a quick summary sheet 38 of what that looks like, it's in your handout as well. 39 40 Any other questions on that. 41 42 (No comments) 43 44 MR. BORN: And you also have something 45 about the emperor goose declines and things like that, 46 things we want to pay attention to is that flier that 47 we've sent out as well. 48 49 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: I was just about 50




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1 to ask if you could speak a little more to the emperor 2 goose decline and what we should be looking out for, 3 and what are you recommendations and how's your 4 education and outreach to the villages? 5 6 MR. BORN: Thank you, Madame Chair. 7 Emperor goose is -- we're going to do a targeted 8 outreach effort on that to identify the concerns with 9 that. It's open for the first time in 30 years, just

10 two years ago, and we've seen, of course, an increase 11 in the hunting of that, but we've also seen a decrease 12 in the population, so the AMBCC will be having that 13 discussion next spring as to how we go forward in the 14 management of the emperor goose. Right now the Native 15 Caucus has assured us that they're going to work 16 carefully to ensure that that is a sustainable harvest, 17 we're working together with them and a big outreach 18 from AMBCC this fall, wants to do more outreach and 19 talk to more villages. To do that we are actually -- 20 enlisted our Refuge Information Technician team to 21 actually get out and start talking to all the people in 22 the villages about harvesting emperor goose and we're 23 making a concerted effort on that, to talk more about 24 that. 25 26 Thank you, Madame Chair. 27 28 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Any other 29 questions. 30 31 Go ahead, Mr. Slats. 32 33 MR. SLATS: I was just curious about 34 any of these waterfowls that you -- if there are any 35 unusual mortality events, you know, that might be 36 associated with the sea bird die-offs? 37 38 MR. BORN: Thank you, Mr. Slats. Yeah, 39 I didn't talk about sea bird die-off. That's been a 40 big concern, you know, our waterfowl crew -- folks on 41 the waterfowl sea bird die-offs is kind of a focal 42 point region-wide actually and it's being managed off 43 of Alaska Maritime and we've seen an increase in die- 44 offs, that's one of the reports that I can provide to 45 everybody but I did not bring any of those to this 46 particular meeting. But there is an increase in die- 47 off. Some of the science suggests that it's mostly 48 starvation related. And talking to some of the 49 fisheries biologists from NOAA they indicate that the 50




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1 fish are moving further north due to the change in some 2 of the ocean water temperatures and that's changing 3 where the birds have a chance to feed at. So that 4 whole dynamic is starting to change and kind of, as you 5 mentioned, you put your hand in the water, it's warm, 6 it's like that in the ocean as well so some of the 7 changes we're seeing over time. 8 9 Thank you.

10 11 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Any comments or 12 questions on the teleconference. 13 14 (No comments) 15 16 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Do you guys have 17 anything. 18 19 MR. SLATS: No. 20 21 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: All right, 22 contin..... 23 24 MR. BORN: Next slide, Robbin. 25 26 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: .....continue on 27 Mr. Born. 28 29 MR. BORN: Bird banding report. USGS 30 and Fish and Wildlife Service is working together to 31 try to get more bird band reports. The bands help us 32 tell about the migration and the population health of 33 the birds overall, and you should have a flier that 34 kind of looks like this as well, that talks about this. 35 We're trying to make an effort to get more reporting in 36 because that helps us to do a better job of managing 37 birds. It's not illegal to shoot these birds. If you 38 have bands laying around your villages, take them to 39 the school and the kids can report them on the website 40 that's on the flier and you'll actually get a report 41 back as to where that bird was banded at, how old it is 42 and a bunch of really good information like that as 43 well. And you'll also get entered in for a prize for 44 reporting all the bands. 45 46 So, again, it's a free reporting 47 system, it's a great project for schools, and things 48 like that, but please report all the bands, it helps us 49 -- tells us about the population of bird banding, this 50




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1 is, again a USGS and Fish and Wildlife Service effort 2 right now to get more band reporting. 3 4 Any questions on band reporting, how 5 important that is. 6 7 (No comments) 8 9 MR. BORN: Okay. Next slide, Robbin,

10 please. 11 12 I'm going to talk about something more 13 local here, the BIA sites have been kind of a challenge 14 for Fish and Wildlife Service over the years. So we've 15 come up with a plan to demolish that particular site. 16 It's a multi-year process. We've worked together with 17 Alaska DEC and as well as with our anthropology system 18 and the State Historic Preservation office, they kind 19 of look at all of that area. 20 21 As you're looking at this right now, 22 we're fencing in buildings 413 and 414. You'll see 23 kind of a map on your handout there. Those two 24 buildings, specifically, have asbestos, PCB and lead- 25 based paint contamination so we're fencing them off, 26 we're asking people to stay away from there. 27 28 We're supposed to have the cultural 29 survey due the end of December and they'll tell us -- 30 we'll go ahead and start doing demolition. I saw the 31 draft and that may be done a little earlier than that. 32 By the end of December we'll have a plan as to when 33 we're going to demo which buildings and how we're going 34 to tackle that. 35 36 The good news on this -- and you have a 37 copy of the contamination report in your report as well 38 -- we found out is there's no asbestos in any of the 39 concrete, which is great news, because that way we can 40 crush that concrete and use it here in Bethel for 41 construction projects and things like that, local reuse 42 of that concrete. 43 44 Next year, again, request for proposal, 45 the demo will be this spring, we'll probably start 46 doing hazardous mat -- HAZMAT mitigation this summer, 47 which will be taking out lead based paint and any kind 48 of asbestos remaining, a little bit of that and then 49 start dealing with the PCBs. So that's kind of our big 50




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1 objectives. 2 3 And, Robbin, go to the next slide 4 please. 5 6 Here's a quick summary of -- talk about 7 contamination, asbestos, lead paint and PCBs. So 413's 8 the big main building out there that you'll see, and 9 that has the most of that. It has generators,

10 refrigerators. And, 414 again. The rest of these 11 buildings with the lead paint and the PCBs, that's 12 something we can mitigate pretty easily. And that 13 concrete will probably actually, again, crush and try 14 to sell that. 15 16 One of the good news is we're going to 17 go ahead and try and sell -- there's a couple -- 18 there's like three wooden buildings out there, we're 19 probably going to go and try to sell those on a GSA 20 sale for somebody here locally to repurpose and use for 21 other methods of things here, so we'll get something 22 like that coming out really soon. 23 24 I guess the key message is stay away 25 from that BIA site, again, it has contamination on it. 26 We've got a couple buildings fenced off, those are the 27 worst. Please definitely stay away from all of those, 28 but we're moving forward. It looks like we'll have all 29 the buildings demolished in the next five years and at 30 that point we'll be able to repurpose that land out 31 there. 32 33 That's kind of a snapshot of what's 34 going on with the BIA, if you're from this area, that's 35 familiar to everybody, if you've been here for awhile 36 you'll kind of understand what that looks like. But 37 we've been working on it a long time and now we're 38 making some headway. 39 40 Any questions on BIA. 41 42 (No comments) 43 44 MR. BORN: Okay, next slide, Robbin, 45 then. 46 47 Okay. 48 49 Base budget reset. Refuge system in 50




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1 Alaska is going through a base budget reset. We're 2 reallocating the budget based on priorities. Now, 3 we'll have a whole new budget plan for the Refuges in 4 this coming spring of 2020. This is going to take 5 about five years to get there, we hope, it may take a 6 little longer. It's based upon work load analysis and 7 that takes a look at how many villages we have, how 8 many miles of stream, how many acres and a whole 9 variety of things. The benefit is it's going to give

10 flexibility back to the Refuges to how we spend our 11 budget. But also focusing in sharing resources across 12 Refuges. Talked about sea bird die-off there, Mr. 13 Slats, and we're looking at finding a sea bird 14 biologist that they'll cover the entire region, they 15 have a consistent system of doing that reporting. 16 That's kind of one of the vacancies. We don't have one 17 here at Yukon Delta but we have a huge sea bird area on 18 the coast. We're trying to figure out a way to get 19 that done, by sharing resources with Alaska Maritime. 20 And, again, we're not going to have any of our Staff 21 relocate, it's just going to be kind of over time as 22 vacancies appear, we'll reallocate resources to 23 everybody. 24 25 For Yukon Delta that's great news 26 because we have the most complex, the most difficult 27 Refuge in the state so we'll see an increase in the 28 long-term of personnel and its resources as well. 29 30 That's kind of -- wanted to give you a 31 head's up, those are the key things going on for Fish 32 and Wildlife Service. 33 34 Any questions for me in general. 35 36 (No comments) 37 38 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Anyone on 39 teleconference have any questions. 40 41 (No comments) 42 43 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Any comments. 44 45 (No comments) 46 47 MR. BORN: Thank you, Madame Chair. 48 Thank you for your time and thank you for the Council's 49 time. 50




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1 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Ray. 2 And if anyone has any questions they can get a hold of 3 you at the Refuge office? 4 5 MR. BORN: Yes, they can. 6 7 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: We're going to go 8 ahead and entertain a five minute break and get 9 started. On deck we have Kuskokwim River InterTribal

10 Fish Commission with Mary Peltola. 11 12 (Off record) 13 14 (On record) 15 16 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: We're going to go 17 ahead and call this meeting back to order. The time 18 now is 4:35 p.m. Currently we have the Kuskokwim River 19 InterTribal Fish Commission with Ms. Peltola and Ms. 20 Erik and Mr. Lekander and then on deck will be Togiak 21 National Wildlife Refuge. 22 23 MS. PELTOLA: Thank you, Madame Chair. 24 For the record my name is Mary Peltola, M-A-R-Y P-E-L- 25 T-O-L-A. I'm the Executive Director for the Kuskokwim 26 River InterTribal Fish Commission. As you can see and 27 as you mentioned, the Chair person Charlene Erik is 28 here as well and she's going to go first and Robert 29 Lekander will go after Charlene. Robert was an in- 30 season manager this summer so they'll make their 31 presentations and I'll go last. 32 33 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you. 34 35 MS. ERIK: I'm Charlene Erik. I'm from 36 Chefornak. We met in May 2019 and there are like 33 37 Federally-recognized tribal governments and every two 38 years there's like up river, middle river, and lower 39 river. And in May 2019 that's when the terms for 40 Chairman, ViceChair and Secretary's terms are up and we 41 rotate. This year was lower river and I got elected as 42 Chairman. And then Mike got elected for the middle 43 river. And Jonathan for the upper river. And there 44 are a total of seven executive councils. First 45 Chairman is Mike Williams from Akiak, 46 Secretary/Treasurer is Jonathan Samuelson from 47 Georgetown. Unit 1 is Joe Petruska from Nickoli. Unit 48 3 is Gerald Kameroff, Upper Kalskag. Unit 5 Robert 49 Lekander Bethel. Unit 6 is Golga Frederick from 50




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1 Nunapitchuk. And also in the meeting they elect four 2 in-season managers, which Robert will talk about. 3 4 MR. LEKANDER: Yeah, I'm one of the in- 5 season managers, four of us, and we go with State 6 fishery -- the test fishery up here and plus we listen 7 to the up river fisheries before there's any kind of 8 opening. But we all have to get together to see where 9 the fish are and what the number are before we make any

10 type of decision to open the fisheries. And I'm with 11 Bethel, and Napaskiak, Oscarville and Napakiak. And 12 that's the ones I go with. And James Nicori is 13 Kwethluk, and Megan Leary is from Napiamute and 14 Jacklynn Cleveland is from Quinhagak. They couldn't 15 make it here today so I'm in. 16 17 We -- at times it's kind of hard to, 18 you know, we have to kind of -- new -- especially, 19 Megan, she's new and I'm just a couple years in it and 20 we -- it's kind of a stressful job but trying to figure 21 out if there's enough fish up river or in the river, up 22 river, down river, and then we all get together with 23 Fish and Wildlife and Fish and Game sometimes, but 24 they're the ones who monitor the fish and then we have 25 an opening. 26 27 There's times I told them that we 28 should have a monitor down river too. There's only one 29 right up here above Bethel that count the fish, test 30 fishery, and I tell them that's the only one we know 31 that's -- the fish that reach here but we don't know 32 what's coming down further. I've always wanted the 33 people down river to, you know, have another test 34 fishery down there, the State, they don't have enough 35 money and I have always advocated the villages down 36 there wouldn't mind putting together a few -- a person 37 -- hiring a person or give them gas and then test down 38 there, see if there's -- see what the fish are doing 39 and give the fish to the elders down in their villages 40 so we have an idea of what's coming from down river up 41 to here. 42 43 In the old days when we had commercial 44 fishing, that's what I used to do, is listen to the VHF 45 and ask people how -- where the fish are because then I 46 figure out how -- where I'm going to be fishing 47 commercially, we'd know how long it'd take for the fish 48 to come up here in the old days. But now we have just 49 one here and then one up by Kwethluk, and then there 50




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1 are weirs up in the upper part of the river, up 2 further. 3 4 And we try our best. 5 6 And that's about all I got. 7 8 Thank you. 9

10 MS. PELTOLA: Quyana. Again, this is 11 Mary Peltola. I wanted to talk to Sarah Lupie. I 12 really liked your question about how they come up with 13 the times to fish. 14 15 In the past summers it's been sometimes 16 like 9:00 a.m., to 9:00 p.m., that was common in 2017 17 and 2018, and at the beginning of the season for '19, 18 one of the users -- subsistence harvesters in Bethel 19 asked if the in-season managers would consider 20 recommending 6:00 a.m., to 6:00 p.m., so that people 21 who are cutting fish will get done early -- you know 22 the harvesters will get done earlier and then people 23 cutting fish won't be there until midnight or 1:00 a.m. 24 And so the in-season managers went with that. And the 25 feedback that they got after, you know, the first 26 fishing time, was really good. So it's always best to 27 hear from everybody, you know, so it's -- and I know 28 that they did consider fishing on Saturdays. And it's 29 also been talked about maybe fishing on the Fourth of 30 July for people who have jobs that get the Fourth of 31 July off, it would be good. What we've noticed in the 32 past years where that's been talked about is that there 33 aren't resources, like the aerial, the pilots to take 34 the count of estimated boats on the river and things 35 like that, so that's complicated it in the past but it 36 is definitely something that they think about, and I'm 37 sure Robert will share what you said with the other in- 38 season managers. 39 40 So, Quyana for that, Sarah. 41 42 Some of the things, you know, it was 43 really good for me to hear the State's summary and the 44 Fed's summary because ours is a bit different. 45 46 We do enjoy a very good working 47 relationship with the Federal government, and we're 48 very proud of the accomplishments that the Fish 49 Commission and Fish and Wildlife Services have achieved 50




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1 together. For the last five summers escapement has 2 been met, if not exceeded. It's been very challenging, 3 allowing only about 20,000 or 40,000 chinook to be 4 harvested, but in my opinion the Fish Commission, and 5 having a commissioner in every village and then having 6 in-season managers who are born and raised from this 7 river, has helped, you know, to explain to people why 8 there's been such drastic reductions. Like Robert said 9 it's very stressful in the summer. I don't think

10 anybody, you know, takes volunteering in this way 11 lightly, it's a lot of stress, not only for them, but 12 their families. 13 14 So, you know, we do -- we are really 15 proud of the accomplishments that collectively have 16 been made on this river in terms of managing salmon. 17 18 And really the precision management 19 that has grown out of having four in-season managers 20 and an elder advisor, I think 2017 it couldn't have 21 been -- pardon me, I think couldn't have been more 22 precise in terms of really, almost the exact number 23 targeted for escapement, and, you know, meeting our 24 targets for harvest as well. 25 26 But that's not to say that the 27 partnership is perfect. There -- I don't know of a 28 partnership that is perfect that exists anywhere, and 29 this is no exception. 30 31 The concern that we saw this summer was 32 that, you know, we were very excited about the 33 abundance of chinook that returned and it wasn't a huge 34 shock because in Tuntutuliak, Adolph Lupie, the 35 commissioner from Tuntutuliak, he had given traditional 36 knowledge predictions that he thought a strong run was 37 coming in and an even stronger run behind that. James 38 Nicori has been amazing in his predictions, and the 39 indicator that he uses is the geese migrating back, 40 what he has shown us is the correlation between late 41 migrating geese and late returning chinook, or 42 abundance of geese, like this summer, and an abundance 43 of chinook, and they come in in the same way, so that's 44 been really interesting. 45 46 You know we do -- our Executive Council 47 has worried a little bit or, you know, discussed the 48 high run reconstruction, the high number of 220 that 49 Fish and Game has come out with. And our biologist has 50




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1 talked about some of those as being ghost fish. I 2 think his calculation is at about 112,000 of those are 3 -- could be characterized as ghost fish, meaning they 4 weren't captured in the escapement numbers or weir, you 5 know, various indices for escapement research, and then 6 they also weren't harvested. So James Nicori said he 7 is actually more confident in that high number because 8 he said when the geese came back, they really spread 9 out and he saw chinook going to small tributaries he's

10 never seen them in before so he thinks that they spread 11 out and went in places where they haven't been seen 12 before like the geese did. 13 14 So we had this great chinook run. 15 16 And in the past, what the Refuge has 17 done is they have not, you know, removed the limit on 18 non-Federally-qualified users until the ratios of reds 19 and chums were sometimes as high as 19 to one, 19 reds 20 and chums to one king salmon. One year it was 15 reds 21 and chums to one king salmon. The smallest ratio it's 22 ever been was five reds and chums to one king salmon 23 before it's been handed back to the State. This summer 24 when the State opened to subsistence harvest of reds 25 and chums with six inch gear, at the same time there 26 was limited harvest of chinook salmon with six inch 27 gear. On the 26th of June, the ratio was 1.13 to one, 28 so 1.13 reds and chums to one king. And then on the 29 27th of June the ratio was .08 reds and chums to one 30 chinook. And this is a concern to the Fish Commission, 31 and, particularly the Executive Council and the in- 32 season managers because we know that the tail end of 33 the run is dominated by big females and that quality 34 escapement is one of the things that the Fish 35 Commission has been focused on because it recognizes 36 that bigger females have bigger eggs with greater 37 survivability. And, you know, the other thing is that 38 there were a lot that came back and they were about a 39 third of the size that kings used to be. The old 40 average for a chinook salmon was about 27.8 pounds and 41 now the average size of a chinook salmon is 11 pounds. 42 So this is a lot less edible pounds for families, so 43 even if it's 220 kings, they're a third as big as they 44 used to be. So that's really a third of an old run. 45 46 And, unfortunately, ANS, the State's 47 annual need for subsistence is based on numbers of 48 salmon, not pounds. 49 50




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1 So, you know, the other thing is in 2 some of the summaries that I've read or recommendations 3 or post-season summaries from both the State and the 4 Feds, they say that they do believe that subsistence 5 needs were met, and I can tell you with full confidence 6 that not one commissioner, not one Executive Council 7 member, not one in-season manager on the Fish 8 Commission feels that our subsistence needs were met. 9 And one of the number 1 ways that I feel that this is

10 true is that we do not share our salmon the way we used 11 to. Before 2010, we shared with family, we shared at 12 potlucks, we shared with people traveling through town, 13 we sent them in care packages to people. It was -- you 14 know, sharing is one of the underlying tenants of our 15 culture and we take that role very seriously and we're 16 not sharing. I mean I'll speak for myself, I'm kind of 17 hoarding mine, I don't share like I'm supposed to 18 because I just don't have it to share. We harvested 19 probably 100, you know, mostly reds and chums, but they 20 were so small that there just wasn't the same volume. 21 And Robert Lekander and Marie Lekander speak to this 22 often, as well. I think all of the people on the Fish 23 Commission have their own story about this. 24 25 So subsistence needs are not being met. 26 And the quality of escapement is not the same quality 27 of escapement we're talking about, you know, from the 28 long-term average. 29 30 One of the other issues that came up 31 this summer was that the Federal Subsistence Board had 32 a start date of June 1 for the Refuge to manage, and, 33 you know, that's great, it just caught a lot of people 34 off guard because there wasn't a lot of public notice 35 that people could drift, legally, before the usual June 36 11th or June 12th -- yeah. 37 38 What am I missing, Robert. 39 40 I know my phone was burning up. 41 Robert's phone was burning up. Mike Williams' phone. 42 People asking about regulations for setnetting and 43 drifting, just, you know, in that early part of the 44 season. 45 46 We did continue our Monday morning toll 47 free call-in, river-wide call-in, which has been great. 48 Adolph Lupie called in every time with traditional 49 knowledge. Robert was there every time. I'm really 50




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1 thankful that Ray Born was on the phone with Spencer 2 Reardon and Aaron Moses and Christopher Tulik to help 3 clarify different regulations. That's been very 4 helpful. And we feel really happy about that call-in, 5 because it has helped a lot of people stay within 6 regulations. 7 8 Another thing I wanted to mention, is 9 that, the Executive Council and in-season managers have

10 a draft management plan that's based on the past five 11 summers of co-management. 12 13 And I'd be happy to answer any 14 questions about that, or any questions about anything 15 else. I think that wraps up mine. 16 17 MR. LEKANDER: And another thing Mary 18 said about time, nobody wants to open up on Sundays 19 too, it -- one of them -- you said early timing opening 20 early helps ONC with their counts, too, the fishermen 21 coming in early and we have -- pretty much know what 22 the count is before -- sometimes before the next day. 23 So they know the count. 24 25 And what Mary said was true, I still 26 laugh about it, the wife said, hey, we got -- I said we 27 got, yeah, about 25, maybe close to 30 kings, but when 28 she was putting them away near the fall she said how 29 come I got only a little few bags, one of the 30 daughter's told her, you know, ma, those were small 31 fish, we don't catch them big ones no more that's how 32 come you don't have many bags of strips or the slabs of 33 fish that fill up four or five boxes when we're 34 bringing them home and the girls said well lucky we got 35 some reds too. And like Mary said, we give some -- 36 wife gives some away to people that can't, you know, 37 that would like some fish but it's not like we used to 38 give them away, no more. Well, we're using six inch 39 gear but still, I used to get bigger kings, and in the 40 old days I'd catch like 23 kings in a couple, few 41 drifts and those were what, 30 pounders, now I get, 42 what, 15 pounder or smaller and the weight size is way 43 down. That's how come my wife was complaining about 44 not enough bags of fish. 45 46 Also we have -- down river here we have 47 our drying time, we have -- because after June it start 48 getting damp and wet and sometimes the flies come out 49 early and fish can't dry so we try to get the openings, 50




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1 a few of them, two or three of them early down here so 2 we can be able to dry them in the good drying time. 3 4 Yeah, that's all. 5 6 MS. PELTOLA: I would be remiss if I 7 didn't bring up a couple things. 8 9 So one of the things that we understand

10 that the YK Delta RAC Chair has said is that this Fish 11 Commission only represents a couple personal opinions, 12 and I think it's important to note what Charlene 13 shared, that we have representation from seven 14 different sections of the river, and then the in-season 15 managers come from four different sections of the 16 river, and an elder advisor from the mouth, and all of 17 these people are elected by all of the commissioners in 18 May. So, you know, this isn't just self-appointed 19 people, or opinionated people, this really is a 20 democratic representation of the river. 21 22 So I'd like to clarify that for the 23 record. 24 25 And, you know, some of the things that 26 happened at the Federal Subsistence Board in April were 27 of concern to the Fish Commission because in dealing 28 with the Federal Subsistence Board, they take pride in 29 the fact that over 90 percent of the time they go with 30 the RAC Chair's recommendation, or the full RAC's 31 recommendation and the Chair is supposed to represent 32 the full RAC. And when the Chair of our own RAC, for 33 the YK Delta, is opposed to the Fish Commission's stand 34 on things, it makes things really confusing at the 35 Federal Subsistence Board level. So hopefully that is 36 not a pattern that we'll see in the future. And I'm 37 sorry that more of your membership is not here in the 38 room to hear this concern. 39 40 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Mary, 41 for your concern. And I do appreciate you coming forth 42 and being able to say that, that's greatly 43 appreciative. But, a lot of things I do say and have 44 to say at our Federal Subsistence Board is pre -- in 45 our language of our meetings and if it's presented to 46 me that these things need to be said at the Federal 47 Subsistence Board, on behalf of this RAC, that's what I 48 have to go with. I cannot change what needs to be said 49 or what should be said at the Federal Subsistence 50




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1 level, because that would be coming from my own 2 personal change and I'm not going to put my personal 3 voice before my people, or the RAC. 4 5 Thank you. 6 7 Any comments or questions on line for 8 Kuskokwim River InterTribal Fish Commission. 9

10 11 (No comments) 12 13 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Go ahead, Mr. 14 Slats. 15 16 MR. SLATS: Just a couple questions. I 17 know there's more than meets the eye, or what -- you 18 guys coming in here and doing reports and then it's 19 just like a report, and then there's more work, and so 20 I really appreciate the work that you guys. 21 22 And when you mention the average 23 chinook was a certain amount of weight and now it's 24 less weight, could you repeat those numbers. 25 26 MS. PELTOLA: Yes, Jim Simon, our 27 anthropologist had looked them up in the State of 28 Alaska Fish and Game statistics, the old average was 29 27.8 pounds, and the new average, I think, is 11 30 pounds. 31 32 MR. SLATS: Twenty..... 33 34 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: 27.8 and 11 35 pounds. 36 37 MR. SLATS: Okay. Yeah, is there any 38 idea about why they're not as big as they used to be or 39 is there any traditional knowledge that might be able 40 to give some kind of a clue as to why, their weight or 41 their size are getting smaller? 42 43 MS. PELTOLA: One of the things I've 44 heard Robert talk about is fish food in the ocean, you 45 know, competing for fish food. I know one of the 46 things that we've learned is that pinks and kings eat 47 the same food, which is surprising because..... 48 49 MR. SLATS: Yeah. 50




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1 MS. PELTOLA: .....they're such a 2 different quality of meat, but they have the same diet. 3 And the State of Alaska is putting out more pinks in 4 their hatchery fish every year. 5 6 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Yes, go ahead. 7 8 MR. LEKANDER: Should I say my theory? 9

10 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Yes, please. 11 12 MR. LEKANDER: Yes, the smaller ones 13 get out of them big trawlers, big factory ship, what 14 they drag down there catching pollock. That's my 15 theory. But, yeah, like Mary said, there's a lot of 16 hatchery fish going out and they're competing for the 17 same food. 18 19 MS. PELTOLA: Somewhere else I heard 20 somebody saying something about salmon sharks migrating 21 north. 22 23 (Teleconference interference - 24 participants not muted) 25 26 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Hold on, Mary. 27 For those of you on teleconference, we have little kids 28 in the background, we can hear you. I'm glad you're 29 enjoying your time and being participative in our 30 meeting, but if you could star six to mute your phones 31 so we can have respect for our speakers and those on 32 teleconference who are trying to hear I'd greatly 33 appreciate it. Again, it's star six to mute your 34 phones. 35 36 Thank you. 37 38 Sorry about that, Mary, go ahead. 39 40 MS. PELTOLA: It was just about salmon 41 sharks. 42 43 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Yeah, we do have 44 an increase in salmon sharks. We went halibut fishing 45 and we caught quite a bit of salmon sharks, 46 unfortunately, so there are an increase of salmon 47 sharks, at least within the past three years. 48 49 As for the trawling, we did have some 50




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1 correlation between trawling and chinook salmon counts. 2 We had to go through, who was it, North Pacific..... 3 4 MR. LEKANDER: North Pacific Fisheries. 5 6 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Yes, thank you. 7 We had to go through them in order to increase their 8 fishing area, instead of fishing within the mouths or 9 near the areas of where the smolt were coming out of

10 the river, we had to ask them to move further off 11 shore. That's the last I've heard of it and I don't 12 know if anyone has done a research study on it since 13 and seeing if there's still any difference in it, but 14 that's one area that could be looked at in regards to 15 still figuring out -- we never have a significant 16 answer, at least one answer for any of the ocean 17 fisheries but fisheries in the ocean is -- or the ocean 18 is one of the biggest question marks we have and I'd 19 really appreciate someone who has ocean experience, if 20 they could possibly come to this meeting and give some 21 discussion so we'd have some, at least, updated 22 knowledge of what's going on in our oceans so that we 23 can better understand our fisheries that are coming in 24 the river. 25 26 Do we have any more comments or 27 questions in teleconference land? 28 29 (No comments) 30 31 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Quyana, Mary and 32 Charlene and Mr. Lekander. 33 34 Thank you for bearing with us. We have 35 people that are still coming in. They've landed and I 36 believe they're on their way in. 37 38 MS. PATTON: Yea. 39 40 (Laughter) 41 42 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Yes. Okay. So 43 we'll go ahead and have Togiak National Wildlife Refuge 44 report and then up next on deck will be the Yukon River 45 fisheries report with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 46 and ADF&G. 47 48 MR. ADERMAN: Madame Chair. This is 49 Andy Aderman, wildlife biologist with the Togiak 50




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1 Refuge. We've provided a written Staff report that -- 2 I don't know if you got those or not, I did not see 3 them in the book, your Council book, but it covers many 4 projects that we do on the Refuge so I'm just going to 5 go over a few of those. 6 7 The first is on the second page of the 8 report and it deals with moose. We have radio collared 9 moose across the Refuge, a total of 30 cows and we

10 monitored them this spring and 21 of the 30 we saw with 11 calves for a total of 38 calves which works out to a 12 production rate of 127 calves per 100 adult cows, and 13 this is up from the previous five year average. Our 14 twinning rate was 76 percent, which included one set of 15 triplets and is higher than the previous five year 16 average of 64 percent. So our moose are having lots of 17 calves. 18 19 Taking a longer term perspective, the 20 Togiak Refuge moose population has increased over the 21 past 25 to 30 years from practically nothing to over 22 3,000. A little over two weeks ago we completed 23 another population survey of moose in Unit 17A, which 24 covers about half of the Refuge. We don't have the 25 results of that survey yet but would like to note that 26 this it the third time we've done a moose population 27 survey in the month of October when there was no snow. 28 Traditionally we do these surveys during complete snow, 29 which, for us, is generally in February or March, but 30 with our warmer winters it's forcing us to change. We 31 fell like we're effective at doing this, this counting 32 in the absence of snow, and then one of the other 33 things we get out of this is good composition 34 information when bulls still have antlers. So that's 35 good. 36 37 Nushagak Peninsula caribou, just want 38 to mention real quick, we published a study recently 39 concerning wolf predation on this herd. This is a 40 small non-migratory caribou herd in GMU 17 and thus, 41 probably not much of a concern for your RAC, but the 42 findings are going to be of interest relative to wolf 43 predation on caribou elsewhere. The study was 44 conducted to determine whether wolf predation had 45 caused a decline in the Nushugak Peninsula Caribou 46 Herd, and over the course of a four year study, wolf 47 predation on the caribou herd increased. However, the 48 caribou also increased. We concluded that increasing 49 wolf predation could not have caused the caribou to 50




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1 increase. But it makes clear sense that the increasing 2 caribou numbers cause increase in use by wolves. That 3 being the case, wolf predation was not driving caribou 4 population demographics, but, instead, caribou 5 abundance was driving wolf use of the Nushugak 6 Peninsula. And we can provide a copy of this article 7 and it's in the Journal Rangeifer (ph), so if anybody's 8 interested please let us know. 9

10 A couple more quick things. 11 12 Sea birds, we've been monitoring the 13 abundance and productivity of black legged kittiwakes, 14 common murres, and pelagic cormorants out in the Cape 15 Pearce, Cape Newenham area since the early 1990s. 16 We've recorded a lot of variation in both the 17 population size and productivity over the years but 18 we've had record low levels here in the recent -- the 19 most recent four years, something that we've never 20 seen. So there's -- it's probably because they're not 21 getting enough food. But the other thing with sea 22 birds, we observed large numbers of short-tailed 23 shearwaters die-off this summer, both in the northern 24 Bristol Bay and Northwest, towards Cape Pearce. 25 26 For the last two years we've been 27 conducting surveys for an invasive aquatic plant called 28 elodia. We have not found that but we're continuing to 29 check places. This is where float planes come from 30 areas like Anchorage, Fairbanks or Kenai Peninsula that 31 have some of these elodia populations established and 32 the concern is, is float planes pick up some of those 33 fragments of those plants and transport them over into 34 our area. But the good thing is so far we have not 35 seen any elodia. 36 37 Water temperature monitor. 38 39 We monitor water temperature in 17 40 rivers and two lakes and have been doing this since 41 2001. And some of the highest temperatures ever we've 42 recorded this last summer. The surface temperature on 43 our lakes that we monitor was over 20 degrees celsius 44 for an extended period. This is a temperature that can 45 be lethal for fish if they're in it too long. We've 46 also observed die-off of sockeye salmon in several of 47 our rivers in July. And likely a result of high 48 temperature. 49 50




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1 And then the last thing is in September 2 our Refuge manager, Susanna Henry, retired, and now 3 living in Arizona. Deputy Refuge manager Kenton Moos, 4 is currently the acting Refuge manager. And then we 5 hired a new Refuge Information Technician, Willard 6 Church, from the village of Quinhagak who reported for 7 duty in May, and he replaced John Mark, who had 8 retired, but John continues to help us out, 9 volunteering, especially with subsistence surveys.

10 11 That's the extent of my report and I'll 12 try to answer any questions if you have any. 13 14 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Did you guys have 15 any comments or questions. 16 17 (No comments) 18 19 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Did you have one, 20 go ahead. Mr. Slats. 21 22 MR. SLATS: Yes, thank you. You 23 mentioned that there was a salmon die-off in July for 24 high temperature, can you tell me where or exactly, or 25 what river this die-off was on, and if you would happen 26 to know the numbers. 27 28 MR. ADERMAN: Yes. So the rivers that 29 we saw it in were the Snake River, the Weary River, and 30 the Igushik River, so these are rivers between 31 Dillingham and Manokotak. The Igushik River actually 32 flows right past the village of Manokotak. I don't 33 know numbers but it was pretty substantial, you know, 34 in the hundreds, if not thousands of fish dying. 35 36 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Did this affect 37 your subsistence harvest? 38 39 MR. ADERMAN: That I don't know. Most 40 of our subsistence harvest, I think, happens in June, 41 some in early July, at least for reds and kings. 42 43 MR. WALSH: Yeah, Madame Chair, this is 44 Pat Walsh. One other thing I'd add to Andy's comment 45 is that the State has counting towers on two of these 46 systems and fish made escapement in both of those 47 systems so even though there were thousands that died, 48 there were also many thousands that did safely make it 49 through the warm water to spawning grounds. 50




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1 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you. With 2 this heavy heat, seeing and heard across the whole 3 entire western side of Alaska, is there any concern 4 about the spawning habitat or spawning grounds warming 5 up and being too warm for sustainability of the next 6 generation or the generation that's coming in in the 7 spawning grounds because they were so warm; was there 8 any reports of smolt die-off? 9

10 MR. WALSH: This is Pat Walsh. And I 11 can only partially answer that. You ask if there's any 12 concerns and the answer is, yes, we're very concerned. 13 One thing, though, and another thing I'll mention is 14 these things are unfolding so fast, we're not certain 15 what the outcome's going to be. But I did talk with 16 one of our colleagues who works up in the upper lakes 17 of the Wood River system where they've been doing 18 salmon studies for more than 40 years, and I told them 19 that we were seeing fish dying off in the lower rivers 20 and he was seeing the healthiest fish he had -- he said 21 they'd seen in several years. And when we compared 22 notes, the conclusion was fish that were being stressed 23 by going through the warm water, a lot of those fish 24 were fish that hit nets and escaped from nets, but then 25 succumb from the stress of both the heat and working up 26 river. Because the fish up in the upper lakes had no 27 net marks on them. So I'm giving kind of a long story 28 but there's a natural selection process taking place 29 rapidly right now and we don't know what the outcome's 30 going to be. 31 32 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Any questions. 33 34 (No comments) 35 36 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Are there any 37 further questions on teleconference for Togiak. 38 39 (No comments) 40 41 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Okay, hearing 42 none, anything else from Togiak Refuge. 43 44 MR. WALSH: No, just thank you for 45 letting us participate. 46 47 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you for 48 being here. We greatly appreciate all the hard work 49 that you guys put into giving these reports and trying 50




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1 to be here to answer all of our questions. 2 3 Thank you, very much. 4 5 We have Yukon River fisheries report, 6 U.S. Fish and Wildlife and Alaska Department of Fish 7 and Game. On deck is the Yukon Delta Fisheries 8 Association. We just had Mr. Landlord arrive in, so 9 wave your hand Mr. Landlord so everyone knows who you

10 are. 11 12 MR. LANDLORD: (Raises hand) 13 14 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Is Holly Carroll 15 joining us today? 16 17 MR. MASCHMANN: Madame Chair. Her 18 assistant, Deena Jallen is on line, so she'll be 19 listening in and if there's' something I can't answer, 20 she can maybe answer. So, unfortunately, the fall 21 manager had to go to a meeting at 4:15, so he won't be 22 on. 23 24 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Okay, thank you. 25 And if we have any further questions we can probably 26 take them up first thing in the morning as well, we'll 27 continue on with the Yukon fisheries status and 28 everything else in the morning. We do have more 29 members that are coming in from the Kuskokwim and we 30 also have members that are coming in via 31 teleconference, hopefully from the Yukon area as well. 32 So it'd be great to get more Yukon folks on line as 33 well as the tribal councils. 34 35 Whenever you're ready. 36 37 MR. MASCHMANN: Thank you, Madame 38 Chair. My name is Gerald Maschmann. I'm with the U.S. 39 Fish and Wildlife Service out of the Fairbanks office. 40 I am the assistant Federal in-season manager on the 41 Yukon. I work for Fred Bue, who many of you may know. 42 Tom is going to hand out three handouts for you. 43 44 The first one is the preliminary Yukon 45 River summer season summary. In the past the 46 Department has completed that usually after the RAC 47 meetings, and so Fred and I would typically write our 48 own summary and we decided that it was maybe more 49 efficient if, together, we worked on the summary with 50




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1 Fish and Game and made it a co-a joint news release 2 and, therefore, the Department worked really hard to 3 get that out before the RAC meetings this year. So I 4 appreciate that and we're trying to cut down on your 5 paperwork. 6 7 (Laughter) 8 9 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: I understand how

10 that goes. 11 12 (Laughter) 13 14 MR. MASCHMANN: so one of them you're 15 getting is the summer season summary. 16 17 Another one you're getting is just a 18 bunch of graphs that me and Fred have usually handed 19 out in the past. The graphs help summarize the 20 historical data. 21 22 And then the third one you're getting 23 is fall season assessment is actually still going on, 24 so the fall season hasn't done a preliminary summary 25 yet but I did include their very last update, which 26 kind of summarizes the season by then. 27 28 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: A really quick 29 question. 30 31 MR. MASCHMANN: Yes. 32 33 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: When would you 34 guys have all of the information together in a 35 preliminary estimate or escapement and all those 36 numbers so that I can think about what time next year 37 would be a better RAC meeting for fall. 38 39 MR. MASCHMANN: Well, again, the summer 40 season, they worked really hard to get it before the 41 RACs. 42 43 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Uh-huh. 44 45 MR. MASCHMANN: The fall crew won't 46 have one done because, I mean we're still counting 47 salmon up on the Delta River so the season's not done 48 yet for fall. But we'll get you a fall season summary 49 in the spring, which by then we're all thinking about 50




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1 next year, but..... 2 3 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Okay. 4 5 MR. MASCHMANN: .....so, yeah. 6 7 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Go ahead. 8 9 MR. MASCHMANN: Okay. I'm going to

10 start with that first summer season summary and I'm 11 going to start on Page 2. 12 13 Our management approach for the 2019 14 summer season was to provide slightly more and better 15 chinook salmon harvest opportunities than we did in 16 2018 but still proceed cautiously. We had our chinook 17 run forecast for 168,000 to 241,000 which is actually a 18 pretty wide range. You know a run at the low end of 19 that would require conservation measures to achieve 20 goals while a run size at the upper end would provide 21 for a full subsistence harvest as well as maybe even a 22 possibility for some commercial harvest. 23 24 So we started out in the lower Yukon 25 just after ice out. We had -- fishing was open with 26 7.5 inch gear to harvest what, I think, we were calling 27 the front tricklers, those early chinook. We allowed 28 that until the chinook salmon catches started to pick 29 up in the test nets at the mouth at the Emmonak test 30 fishery. Then we restricted the lower Yukon to half 31 their normal window schedule but we did allow 7.5 inch 32 or smaller mesh gillnets to try and spread out that 33 harvest. Through the middle of the run we further 34 reduced mesh size to six inch and we cancelled a period 35 and then followed that cancelled period with another 36 six inch period. Again, to protect portions of each 37 chinook salmon pulse. You know we kind of started 38 seeing the chinook run was coming in pretty good based 39 on the lower Yukon assessment, but, yet we were seeing 40 those warm waters and so we were kind of hedging our 41 bets a little bit that maybe the warm waters might have 42 a negative effect, so we were still staying 43 conservative in our management. 44 45 Some level of subsistence restrictions 46 continued with up river districts. Kind of, you know, 47 midway through the season we started seeing that 48 assessment was continuing to indicate that the 2019 49 chinook salmon was actually coming in closer to the top 50




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1 of that preseason forecast and that indicated to us 2 that it was warranted to relax subsistence fishing even 3 more. 4 5 However, the summer chum salmon run was 6 coming in either very poor or very late. And we were 7 actually contemplating restrictions to the summer chum 8 salmon subsistence fishing schedule and possibly even 9 cancelling the summer chum salmon commercial fishery.

10 11 It was about at this point that the 12 Western Interior RAC Chairman, Jack Reakoff, requested 13 a teleconference of all three Yukon area RACs to 14 discuss Federal management options out of the concern 15 for summer chum, and we want to thank the RACs and OSM 16 for putting that meeting together. It was helpful for 17 us as managers, you know, to get your feedback, 18 especially when tough decisions are being made and we 19 don't necessarily have perfect data. But fortunately, 20 you know, about the time of the meeting the summer chum 21 salmon did come in. It was the latest on record. It 22 was below average but still large enough to provide 23 some late commercial harvest based on the drainage-wide 24 escapement goal. 25 26 Relaxations to the summer subsistence 27 salmon fishing schedule in the lower Yukon generally 28 did not occur until about 75 percent to 80 percent of 29 the chinook run had already passed. 30 31 So on Pages 17 through 21 of that 32 summer season summary summarizes the summer chum salmon 33 commercial fishing. You know, in all the Yukon River 34 commercial harvest of 227,000 of summer chum was the 35 lowest since 2009. Most of those were harvested in 36 Districts 1 and 2. There was no commercial fishery in 37 4A this year. And there was a small harvest in 38 District 6. 39 40 Overall there was 1,200 chinook were 41 caught in that commercial fishery and not sold and 42 taken home for subsistence harvest. 3,100 chinook were 43 caught and sold during that commercial season. 44 45 Summer season escapement, if you turn 46 to Page 12, Table 3 of that summer season summary gives 47 you a table of the escapement that we saw this year. 48 Most escapement goals for chinook salmon were met, 49 except for the Chena River goal. We probably met our 50




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1 minimum escapement goal across the border, but it looks 2 like we did come up short on meeting our harvest 3 sharing agreement with Canada. So we'll be talking 4 with the Canadians about that in December. 5 6 Table 4 on the bottom of Page 12 is the 7 summer chum drainage-wide goal, and the East Fork 8 Andreafsky River weir goals were met, however the Anvik 9 River goal, which hasn't been performing as well, as

10 other portions of the drainage in recent years, was not 11 met. Summer chum estimates at various escapement 12 projects were generally well below average this year. 13 14 I'll go ahead and move on to the fall 15 season. And the fall season update is mostly what I'll 16 be referring to. 17 18 We had an outlook of fall chum for 19 about 700 to 800,000 and that was based on the 20 relationship of the summer and fall chum runs. We 21 didn't have any concerns for subsistence and we went 22 into the season knowing we'd be managing commercial 23 with consideration for subsistence and escapement 24 goals. 25 26 In the lower Yukon subsistence was 27 relaxed to their standard seven days per week with 7.5 28 inch or smaller mesh gillnets, although it was closed 29 before and after commercial fishing and during 30 commercial fishing. In the middle Yukon subsistence 31 was relaxed to five days per week and later liberalized 32 to seven days per week with 7.5 inch or smaller mesh 33 gillnets. In up river subdistrict 5D, went back to 34 their standard seven days per week with 7.5 inch or 35 smaller mesh. 36 37 The Fishing Branch weir on the upper 38 Porcupine River has not been producing very well so 39 subsistence fishing in the main stem Porcupine River 40 was closed for most of the season. 41 42 The total fall chum commercial harvest 43 was 268,000 fall chum and the total coho commercial 44 harvest was 58,500. 45 46 The estimated 843,000 fall chum salmon 47 that passed the Pilot Station sonar was slightly above 48 the median. 49 50




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1 It is expected that the post-season 2 analysis, which includes both drainage-wide commercial 3 and estimated subsistence harvest along with 4 escapements will place the total fall chum run size, 5 you know, near or over one million fall chum this year. 6 7 What was formally called the Chandalar 8 River sonar, now called the Teedriinjek River sonar, it 9 met its goal, it met its goal, it was within its range.

10 The Eagle sonar passage of 102 fall chum was below 11 average but it was above the lower end of the 12 management escapement goal of 70 to 104,000 and it was 13 -- fall chum was a late year so considering late model 14 -- late timing run models, we're thinking maybe we 15 passed 114 to 134,000 fall chum passed the border. And 16 this puts us, you know, right near kind of our minimum 17 harvest sharing as negotiated with Canada. so again 18 we'll be talking with the Canadians about that in 19 December. 20 21 The Porcupine River sonar was below 22 average this year. And the Fishing Branch weir was 23 also below average. 24 25 And like I said earlier, fish are still 26 arriving on the spawning grounds on the Delta River, 27 off the Tanana River so we'll be doing some estimates 28 there but it looks like for fall chum we probably met 29 our escapement goal on that project. 30 31 We had estimated 86,000 coho passed the 32 Pilot Station sonar, which is below the median of 135. 33 Coho, again, coho are still arriving at the Delta 34 Clearwater River, which has the only escapement goal 35 for coho in the Yukon drainage. So we don't know the 36 results of those surveys yet. 37 38 And I just want to say that, you know, 39 we heard Richard talking about the weird environmental 40 things going on and I just want to touch on that too. 41 42 You know numbers are important to 43 management but, you know, hearing what people are 44 living with along the river and how the environment 45 kind of affects management kind of affects our 46 uncertainty with managing, you know. This year there 47 was very little Bering Sea ice at all during the 48 winter, and ice at the mouth of the Yukon went out 13 49 days earlier, so we kind of were anticipating an early 50




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1 run but it turns out the chinook run was three days 2 late and the summer chum run was six days late so that 3 was pretty confusing. Contrast of that with the Togiak 4 herring fishery which was one of the earliest on 5 record. There was also heavy snow pack along the 6 Southern Brooks and Nulato Hills which raised water 7 levels in the north side tributaries delaying our weir 8 projects somewhat, and so they saw, you know, really 9 high water at the beginning of the season but then

10 reported low to record low waters towards the end of 11 their season. Interior Alaska experienced high 12 temperatures during the prime chinook and summer chum 13 migration period. That can be found on Page 15 of that 14 summer season summer. Water temperatures at Emmonak 15 were at record highs from June 14th through July 19th. 16 And Page 16 shows high temperatures at other Alaska 17 locations. 18 19 Unfortunately fishermen, primarily 20 along the Koyukuk reported seeing hundreds and maybe 21 even thousands of pre-spawn dead chum salmon floating 22 down the river. And fishermen from St. Mary's also 23 reported some pre-spawn chum floating down the 24 Andreafsky River. 25 26 You know, these factors may have 27 contributed to lower than expected chinook salmon 28 passage at the Eagle sonar, but like I said we had no 29 unusual reports of dead chinook salmon. 30 31 The bottom of Page 4 and 5 on that 32 summer season summary discusses some of the possible 33 factors that -- influencing factors and what the 34 managers were exploring as possible explanations for 35 this. 36 37 So, you know, we're confused with the 38 unpredictability of the environment's effects on salmon 39 runs and, you know, whether it's linked to heat stress 40 in the river or decreased productivity of the ocean, 41 you know, we have a lot of questions that we need to 42 find answers to and, you know, we're -- that's what 43 we're looking for. 44 45 So if you have any questions I'd be 46 happy to answer them. 47 48 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you so much 49 for your report. It's a lot of stuff that -- really 50




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1 look forward to, given this past summer, with all the 2 worries and everything that was going on. A lot of 3 people were expecting the run to be late, after all the 4 phone calls that I made on the river, all the way down 5 to the mouth of the river and all the usual fishermen 6 that I talk to, including family members who are all 7 the way from Nun'um all the way up to Russian Mission 8 and further on, had all said that just give it a couple 9 more days, couple more days, couple more days, the run

10 will come in, it may not be strong enough but it's 11 coming, it's still coming. 12 13 I do want to ask you really quick, on 14 our international goals for the Yukon River side, when 15 was the last time that we met those goals, how many 16 times we did not meet those goals and what are we 17 looking at, any repercussions down on our end based on 18 not meeting them, an increase in our closed time versus 19 allowable fishery, maybe even net mesh size, reducing 20 from 7.5 back down to 6 inch. 21 22 MR. MASCHMANN: Yeah, that's a good 23 question. I think if you look at the page with the 24 graphs, there is, I think a chinook salmon Eagle graph 25 in there, there may be some lines that show the 26 escapement goal and that'll give you some indication of 27 what we met, maybe I didn't put it in there this year. 28 29 But we've been making our goal across 30 the border, fairly consistently, even putting more than 31 we need. 32 33 Deena, do you have that information 34 more at hand? 35 36 MS. JALLEN: Madame Chair. This is 37 Deena Jallen with the Alaska Department of Fish and 38 Game. I'm trying to look that up right now. I know I 39 just saw that in historic tables. And that's always 40 published every year in the JTC report, which is the 41 Joint Technical Committee report, and so that's a good 42 resource to kind of go into more detail on Canadian- 43 related chinook salmon and those projects. I'll see if 44 I can find that number here really quick. 45 46 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, I 47 greatly appreciate it. 48 49 MR. MASCHMANN: Madame Chair. That 50




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1 would be, yes, the Canadian main stem border passage 2 estimate. It's on the second page, at least in my 3 stack. And you can see those two dotted lines, that's 4 the interim management escapement goal. You can see 5 we've been putting fish fairly consistently within and 6 above that goal. Now, that's just the escapement. We 7 have to put some additional fish for Canadian harvest 8 so just be aware of that. 9

10 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Do we have that 11 information hooked into this passage estimate because 12 it seems like we should have some indication in our 13 graphs versus how much harvest they need for their end 14 in consideration to how much passage of fish needs to 15 pass through our area to get to the Canadian border. 16 17 MR. MASCHMANN: Madame Chair. Yeah, 18 that's a good question. So the Eagle sonar is just 19 down stream from the village of Eagle and so it's 20 counting and estimating the chinook salmon passage past 21 the sonar. Then we know that Eagle harvests a few 22 chinook, depending on the year, they like to harvest 23 around 1,000 to maybe 1,200 or 1,500 so we can kind of, 24 you know, back calculate their harvest, subtract that 25 from the Eagle, that gives us our border, what we get 26 across the border. 27 28 And so the escapement goal of 42,5 to 29 55 is what we want to put on the spawning grounds in 30 Canada. And, you know, typically the Canadians, they 31 have a different management strategy, you know, 32 historically I think when they were harvesting at their 33 full capacity would like 10,000, I think five's 34 probably a good number nowadays, but -- so, you know, 35 kind of the rule of thumb as managers we like to put 36 five or 10,000 above that 42,5 to make sure we're 37 allowing -- giving them enough fish to harvest. So -- 38 but they have, you know, a First Nations fishery that's 39 very involved in managing their own fishery. They 40 voluntarily fish or don't fish, depending on the run. 41 So we like to put, you know, five or 10 more above that 42 escapement goal, and we've been doing that 43 consistently, as you can see from the graph, at least 44 recently. 45 46 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Okay. Now on to 47 chum. So this would be the graph, the last graph right 48 here -- the last graph. Now, was our goals for chum 49 appropriately met as of right now for the summer 50




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1 session and did we put enough there to get a big enough 2 return for the next couple years give or take ocean 3 conditions. I know there's a world of worlds out there 4 -- but I want to make sure or see if there's any data 5 correlation of our historical data information that we 6 have that can give us some type of insight on what 7 we're looking forward to in the next couple years. 8 9 MR. MASCHMANN: Madame Chair. Yeah, I

10 think that's a pretty good question. What we saw with 11 the summer chum was that past the sonar it looked like 12 we were doing really well with the drainage-wide, what 13 we consider our drainage-wide escapement we put enough 14 fish up in the drainage. The Andreafsky River met its 15 goal. What we saw at the weirs, the Henshaw Creek weir 16 and the Gisasa River weir was really way below average, 17 and those are farther up river, those are kind of mid- 18 river fish. So we think the heat may have gotten those 19 fish. We saw on the Chena and Salcha that the fish 20 were below average at those projects too. Those 21 projects tend to -- are more primarily focused on 22 chinook and they tend to end before we see the entire 23 chum run, plus with the summer chum being so late we 24 think we really just missed a lot of those fish. So 25 those were pretty below average, too, but we missed a 26 lot of the run. 27 28 One thing about summer chum we've seen 29 in the past is we've had some poor returns yield really 30 big returns a few years later. So are we concerned, 31 you know, what we saw with the environment, yes. Are 32 we concerned that maybe we're not going to see fish 33 three, four, five seasons from now, I don't think so, 34 not yet because, you know, we've seen that, that poor 35 returns of summer chum result in big returns of summer 36 chum. 37 38 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you. 39 That's exactly what I was looking for. 40 41 Given the data information of chums 42 that we had seen go past the weirs, based on all of 43 this information even though we had not met or even 44 came close to the range, that's what I was concerned 45 about, is, are we -- what our expectations are looking 46 forward on the return, so that puts me a little more at 47 ease knowing that. 48 49 Does anybody else have any more 50




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1 questions or chum fishery, Yukon fishery information or 2 data. 3 4 5 (No comments) 6 7 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Anybody on line 8 want to comment to the Yukon fishery. 9

10 (No comments) 11 12 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Go ahead. 13 14 MR. MASCHMANN: Madame Chair. And 15 Councilman Landlord, just wanted to know your thoughts 16 on management this season, what you saw, how do you 17 think we handled things, how was fishing, did your 18 community do well and, Madame Chair, I know you have 19 family on the Yukon, you know, did you hear how they 20 did. 21 22 So we're interested in that feedback. 23 24 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Mr. Landlord, do 25 you want to go ahead and start us off. How did your 26 family do fishing this year? 27 28 MR. LANDLORD: At first we thought that 29 the chums wouldn't be coming in because it was kind of 30 late, we had -- when they originally come, it's when we 31 have a south wind, but the wind has been kind of calm 32 and we were kind of getting scared that they were -- 33 they were kind of late. As soon as -- I had motor 34 trouble and the lower unit, and I never fished until 35 later, I fished -- came in -- and I had to buy a lower 36 unit and I couldn't go out until it came in, so when I 37 went out we caught quite a few, in one maybe 10 minute 38 drift, with chums, fishing with chum net, we caught 39 over 180 I think. But as soon as we cut them, the 40 weather started getting bad,it rained for about three 41 or four days and they couldn't dry up and all of them 42 spoiled. It wasn't only my family but other families 43 in Mountain Village, they cut up fish and it spoiled 44 also. So we put them aside and we got a few dogs and 45 try to -- made it up for dog food. 46 47 My family wasn't the only one that was 48 waiting for fish. We didn't try with the 7.5 inch, we 49 didn't try that because I had no motor, but other 50




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1 families did and they did -- I heard they caught some 2 king salmon at the beginning, because the ice just 3 melted, there was no breakup, no nothing, it just 4 disappeared it seemed like and the water was low, it 5 was very low this springtime so we were kind of 6 concerned at how all the fish are going to spawn up 7 river when the water -- or the creeks up river were 8 kind of low too, low water, we were talking that, where 9 are they going to spawn. So I don't know -- and the

10 water was very -- real warm, when you put your -- it 11 was really unusually warm, because the temperature was 12 around maybe 80 degrees and we were kind of panicking 13 in the house, you know, it was just too warm. But we 14 mostly caught our fish, you know, enough for the 15 winter. 16 17 That's all I have. 18 19 Thank you. 20 21 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Mr. 22 Landlord. Did you have any questions for Mr. Landlord. 23 24 MR. MASCHMANN: (Shakes head 25 negatively) 26 27 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Okay. Our 28 families, well, I'll start from the lower river. I was 29 getting reports of families doing really good in 30 chinook salmon this year, there were a lot of families 31 that were catching chinook salmon that they haven't 32 seen and there's a lot of abundance where they were at, 33 having to have -- giving out fish to families out in 34 the lower river, and they were good sizable kings that 35 they were catching down there. And a lot of them were 36 done within the first two to three periods that you 37 guys had within the openings comparable to previous 38 years where we had openings, they hit hard all at once 39 and they started to trickle, they hit hard all at once 40 and they started to trickle again. It was give or take 41 and then the weather played a part in some of it. 42 There were some people who had lost fish that were 43 facing -- because it depends on which way you have your 44 smokehouse. So if you have it where the wind's coming 45 in, that side of the fish got ruined, and this side of 46 the fish rack was still good. 47 48 There was enough fish that they were 49 bringing fish to people who are widows, elderly and 50




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1 those who weren't able to go fishing. 2 3 And now moving up towards, a little up 4 towards the river, just like what Mr. Landlord had 5 said, there was some issues and troubles later on for 6 the kings. People were able to get out and get some 7 kings and they were making videos and there was reports 8 back from people that were giving out fish to where it 9 was needed.

10 11 Then moving further up the river they 12 were starting to catch baby seals up there and that was 13 kind of unusual that we would see baby seals all the 14 way in Russian Mission, usually they're down river, 15 more down river in the Delta area, right. So we were 16 seeing a lot of baby seals early on that season which 17 was kind of unusual for, at least in my years that we 18 were down there. 19 20 And as for the chums there was some 21 little worries here that we were kind of a little bit 22 worried about and I was getting phone calls about 23 wondering if Fish and Game was letting them close it so 24 that all the fish would run underneath when they're 25 closing and you're like, I don't think so, Fish and 26 Game is seeing the same things that fishermen are 27 seeing. There's low numbers of kings, high numbers of 28 pinks and the pinks were huge. 29 30 And the other thing, too, is that the 31 pinks were already -- like already in spawning mode by 32 the time they came to the lower part of the Yukon 33 River, which is kind of unusual already having those 34 big -- great big humps, big teeth and everything, 35 usually they're a little more silvery in that section 36 but there was definitely some really spawned out pinks 37 down there. 38 39 I can't think of anything else. 40 41 Just like what Mr. Landlord said, when 42 they went out fishing during that period there was some 43 spoilage loss that was happening. 44 45 Thank you. 46 47 MR. SLATS: Just a couple comments. 48 49 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Yes, go ahead, 50




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1 Mr. Slats. 2 3 MR. SLATS: Thank you. For the summer 4 runs we get -- at times more late runs, and then 5 there's also the high temperatures. We're getting 6 heatwaves in a sense last summer. And then moisture 7 with high humidity, rain, drizzle. I think they call 8 that the river of mist, you know, I thought we were 9 seeing -- it takes longer for our fish to dry, so

10 consideration for the, you know, like the time that the 11 subsistence users are trying to process their harvest. 12 When I was still a student right over here in 2015 13 there was like a crash on the Kuskokwim, or, you know, 14 like if there were low numbers of chinook on the 15 Kuskokwim, and then with enough reading that I've come 16 to the conclusion that the fish will swim forward if 17 the water temperatures are high, they'll go out and 18 then they'll go to wherever the waters are cooler, 19 forward. 20 21 Thank you. 22 23 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Mr. 24 Slats. Just going back to some of these text messages, 25 there was a couple family members that said that they 26 were able to get 30 big ones, 15 small ones, five for 27 starters on the river. And then a couple other people 28 were saying that some of them weren't able to go out 29 but some other people had brought them fish. And total 30 harvest for at least one family was 500 salmon 31 altogether. I'd have to look through other stuff -- 32 other means and methods, but I can email all this 33 information to you as well. 34 35 MR. MASCHMANN: Madame Chair. Thank 36 you. Just from what we've been hearing from the 37 Western Interior RAC and the Eastern Interior RAC it 38 seems like people up river did -- were satisfied with 39 their chinook harvest. So, thank you, we appreciate 40 that feedback. 41 42 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Mr. Slats. 43 44 MR. SLATS: Just one more thing I 45 forgot to mention. With the moisture, high humidity 46 and the rain drizzles, we're getting down pours too, 47 down pours. Like biggest I've ever seen. We start out 48 the day with hot and if we're heading out we almost 49 always have to bring our rain gear, yeah. 50




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1 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Quyana. One more 2 note. This came from Hooper Bay area, that they 3 weren't seeing any salmon in the Hooper Bay area. They 4 usually get pinks and some chums but they weren't 5 seeing anything in the bay itself. 6 7 And the people from Scammon, and there 8 was another text message from Scammon Bay where they 9 were going out to Black River and he put his net in for

10 30 minutes and the whole thing sunk, just completely 11 sunk and there was a whole bunch of chums that were 12 milling in a certain part of that section between 13 Scammon Bay and Black River and they had to pull out 14 and they were done for the rest of the year. 15 16 So that's the last text message. 17 18 MR. MASCHMANN: That's my report. And 19 I think I recall the folks in Hooper Bay were reporting 20 that the temperature in the bay was really warm this 21 year so maybe that kind of confirms that the fish 22 didn't want to go in there it was too warm so. 23 24 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Even though the 25 (In Yup'ik) and the clams were tasting kind of funky. 26 27 MR. MASCHMANN: Hmmm. 28 29 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Is that it, any 30 questions. 31 32 (No comments) 33 34 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you. 35 ADF&G, did you have anything to add for Yukon River 36 fisheries. 37 38 MS. JALLEN: Madame Chair. This is 39 Deena Jallen with Alaska Department of Fish and Game in 40 Anchorage. And Gerald did a great job kind of going 41 through our summary and the season summary. I was able 42 to find that table on the border objectives, and it 43 looks like we met the lower end of the border objective 44 like 10 out of the last 14 years and so there's four 45 years we didn't meet it between 2005 and 2018. We 46 won't know the total numbers for 2019 yet until we get 47 harvest that occurs between the sonar and the border, 48 and then also the harvest share -- the Canadian harvest 49 share is based on the estimate of the run size, the 50




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1 Canadian origin chinook salmon run size, and that's 2 also something that'll be figured out a little bit 3 later on this winter. So we're still just working on 4 the data through the end of the year, working on 5 getting information from all the subsistence surveys 6 that are done, you know, getting final project wrap-ups 7 and final project numbers that are coming in. And, 8 yeah, the fall season is still -- we've got a few 9 assessment projects that still go on quite late in the

10 year. 11 12 But yeah it was a good season and we 13 thank all the fishermen that help us with management in 14 the season, that call us and give us local reports and 15 answer our questions and provide us with information, 16 that's really helpful to how we manage and just getting 17 more eyes out on the river and tell us what's happening 18 and especially when things are a little bit weird and a 19 little bit different, like they were this season. 20 21 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Well, thank you 22 so much for all of your tireless work. I know you guys 23 are up in the wee hours and doing work and being out in 24 the field and working at crunching the numbers all 25 throughout the day and night to get these reports and I 26 greatly appreciate all of your work. 27 28 Thank you for being patient with a lot 29 of us. I know we have quite the mouths on us sometimes 30 when it comes to our fishery and our subsistence foods, 31 so, thank you. 32 33 Do we have YRDFA on line. 34 35 (Pause) 36 37 MR. JENKINS: Yes, Madame Chair. I was 38 muted, but this is Wayne Jenkins, I'm here. 39 40 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Go ahead, Wayne. 41 We'll go ahead and take you up at this time. 42 43 MR. JENKINS: I am wondering if we're 44 set up with the PowerPoint that I sent. 45 46 MS. PATTON: Hi, Wayne. This is Eva. 47 I have your PowerPoint, I have not had a chance to load 48 it on to the computer that's connected now to our 49 overhead here. 50




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1 MR. JENKINS: I can go ahead and give 2 some brief reports on other programs. That PowerPoint 3 is about two FRMP supported programs. But I could just 4 cover some of our other stuff if you want to be loading 5 that. 6 7 MS. PATTON: Sure, why don't you go 8 ahead and we'll get that loaded on the computer here. 9

10 Thanks. 11 12 MR. JENKINS: All right, thank you 13 guys. Am I coming through fairly clearly. 14 15 REPORTER: Yes, Wayne, you're clear. 16 17 MR. JENKINS: Can you hear me now. 18 19 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Hi, yes, go ahead 20 and state your first name, your last name and your 21 affiliation for the record. 22 23 Thank you. 24 25 MR. JENKINS: Yes, Chairman. This is 26 Wayne Jenkins. I am the Director of the Yukon River 27 Drainage Fisheries Association. And I want to thank 28 Chairman Rogers and the YK Delta RAC members for giving 29 us the opportunity to share our program for Yukon River 30 Federally-qualified subsistence users on the Yukon 31 River. I'm sorry not to be there with you today but we 32 do greatly appreciate being able to listen in and to 33 give our updates by phone. 34 35 First I'd like to announce two big 36 developments at YRDFA going into 2020. Next year will 37 be YRDFA's 30th anniversary. The YRDFA Board would 38 like to thank all three of the Yukon River RACs for 39 their critically important role in the fisheries and 40 subsistence and traditional use on the river. The 41 challenges have been many and complex over the years 42 and we appreciate your efforts over those many years 43 for balancing the needs of the Yukon River subsistence 44 users while maintaining a sustainable resource. Not an 45 easy or simple job. 46 47 The second development that I want to 48 share with you is that our Director, me, I will be 49 stepping down into retirement in early 2020. YRDFA is 50




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1 in the process of seeking and hiring our next director 2 and making a smooth transition and the continuation of 3 our important work for Yukon River subsistence users 4 and the habitat and wildlife that defines their lives 5 and culture. The transition period is planned for late 6 winter and into spring of 2020. 7 8 Okay. 9

10 So because the PowerPoint covers our 11 teleconferences and our community surveyor program, I'm 12 just going to cover some of the other programs for you. 13 14 The first one is our pre-season 15 fishermen's meeting. And the purpose of that meeting 16 is to conduct an annual get together of active Yukon 17 River fisheries and fishery managers to build an aware 18 public, constituency motivated to maintain and protect 19 Yukon River salmon stocks and meeting the Yukon River 20 escapement goal with Canada, as directed, by the Yukon 21 River Agreement. All Yukon River fishing districts and 22 communities are represented at that meeting. The 23 funding source is the Yukon River Panel, Restoration 24 and Enhancement Fund. We've applied for funding for 25 the 2020 fishing season from the panel and that will be 26 reviewed -- actually that has been funded for 2020 and 27 it's the 2021 that's going to be reviewed coming up in 28 December. 29 30 The next project, this is a project 31 that our anthropologist, Catherine Moncrieff's project, 32 traditional knowledge of anadromous fish in the Yukon 33 Flats and it has a focus on the Dranjeek Basin. The 34 purpose is to provide information critical to the 35 management of anadromous fish and the habitat that 36 supports them through interviews and mapping activities 37 with knowledgeable fishers and hunters to identify 38 areas in the Dranjeek Basin with salmon and whitefish 39 spawning and rearing areas. This will then be verified 40 by biological field work via helicopter and riverboat 41 work and finally nominations of new areas to be 42 submitted to the Anadromous Waters Catalog. This is a 43 partnership with Tanana Chiefs Conference, YRDFA and 44 the communities in the area. The funding is through 45 OSM, the FRMP and goes through March 31st of 2021. 46 47 Accomplishments. Field work conducted 48 in Fort Yukon, Venetie and Chalkyitsik August of 2018 49 through February of 2019. 12 interviews and mapping 50




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1 activities have been conducted. Local research 2 assistants have been hired in each community. 3 Interviews transcribed and drafts which are all 4 summarized, biological field work conducted October 5 28th, preliminary EDNA results show samples all 6 positive for salmon species. The 2019 biological 7 fieldwork planned and detailed for all salmon species 8 but postponed due to heavy fire activity in the region 9 here. The next steps include additional interviews and

10 biological team groundtruthing locations, identified by 11 participants, biological field work from 2019 will be 12 rescheduled for 2020 due to those fires. 13 14 The next program I'd like to briefly 15 share with you is the educational exchange. The 16 purpose of the Yukon River educational exchange is a 17 way for people who live and use the Yukon River in the 18 U.S. and the Canadian portion to reach an understanding 19 of their neighbors experiences and challenges related 20 to supporting and maintaining sustainable salmon runs 21 to the spawning grounds in Canada, which make up a bit 22 over 40 percent of the total spawning of chinook 23 salmon. The funding source is the Yukon River Panel 24 Restoration and Enhancement Fund. We had funding 25 through March 31st, 2019 for last year's exchange. A 26 2020 proposal was submitted and a decision will be made 27 in December for the upcoming exchange. 28 29 The 2019 education exchange did have 30 some challenges this year, we had a shorter planning 31 period so attendees could attend the April Yukon River 32 Panel meeting in Whitehorse, and at the last minute we 33 lost two attendees due to family emergencies. But 34 despite this the Alaska and Canadian participants 35 queried felt that the trip was very useful for better 36 understanding of the work of the Yukon River Panel, 37 Canadian fisheries management, First Nations culture 38 and deep culture relations to fish and the same issues 39 from the Alaskan's perspective. If the 2020 exchange 40 is funded, we look forward to hosting our far up river 41 friends with visits to Lower River villages, monitoring 42 stations, commercial and subsistence fishing observing 43 and shared meals and stories in Alaska Yukon River 44 communities in 2020 mostly with a focus at the lower 45 river, Emmonak up towards St. Mary's. 46 47 The next project, building and 48 maintaining public support of the salmon resource 49 management. The purpose is to build and maintain 50




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1 public support of meaningful participation in Yukon 2 River salmon resource management by maintaining 3 community capacity to participate by developing mutual 4 understanding between management agencies and the 5 public for encouraging conservation and stewardship of 6 salmon species. This funding is through U.S. Fish and 7 Wildlife Service Restoration and Management Fund. The 8 funding is through June 30th of 2019. The 2020 9 proposal will be submitted in early January for a

10 decision at the April Yukon River Panel meeting. 11 12 And lastly I wanted to share a number 13 of key resolutions that were passed at the 2019 YRDFA 14 Board meeting and these are just brief descriptions of 15 the reason that they passed the resolution. They 16 passed, I believe it was 8 but I'll just share maybe 17 four or five with you. 18 19 2019-02 the Board continued opposition 20 to the Ambler Road proposal due to concerns around 21 impacts to salmon habitat, water quality, potential 22 pollution and impacts to the traditional way of life. 23 24 2019-04 YRDFA joined Southeast 25 Transboundary Mining and requests to be included in the 26 Yukon River concerns in their efforts, the Yukon River 27 being a transboundary river with concerns on our side 28 of past mining impacts and future mines that are 29 planned for the river and the Yukon Territory, Canada. 30 31 2019-06, opposition to large scale 32 hatcheries on the Yukon River, that being included in 33 the draft Alaska Comprehensive Salmon Plan and setting 34 specific limits on Alaska hatchery releases. 35 36 2019-07 continued concerns for the 37 potential impacts of the proposed Donlin Mine on the 38 Kuskokwim River. 39 40 And then the last one 2019-08 continued 41 support of Yukon River communities that have nominated 42 traditionally used water sheds on Bureau of Land 43 Management lands, for protection of resources that they 44 have used for thousands of years. And you heard the 45 presentation earlier today by Bonnie Million on the 46 Bering Sea Western Interior resource management plan. 47 48 And I have an announcement to make in 49 connection with that. The Bering Sea Western Interior 50




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1 Tribal Commission was formed July 23rd and 24th in a 2 meeting in Fairbanks. The Tribal Commission formed 3 this summer because BLM, they felt that BLM is not 4 listening to tribes. The Commission was initially 5 composed of cooperating agency tribes from the Bering 6 Sea Western Interior planning area and now includes all 7 tribes that wish to join. The Tribal Commission's 8 mission and goal is with concern for the sustainability 9 of our traditional way of life, sovereign tribes within

10 the Bering Sea Western Interior planning area formed 11 the Bering Sea Western Interior Tribal Commission. We 12 demand our sovereign rights as tribal nations and as 13 indigenous people living with the land. Our voices 14 shall be reflected in the plan. The sustainability of 15 our traditional way of life should matter to the agency 16 managing our traditional lands. Regional represented 17 in the Tribal Commission include Kawarek, Tanana Chiefs 18 Conference and the Association of Village Council 19 Presidents. The tribes primary requests of the Bureau 20 of Land Management and the Department of the Interior 21 for the Bering Sea Western Interior plan, BLM should 22 create water shed protections as in Alternative B, 23 including ACECs where mining is prohibited or create 24 development set backs from the rivers to the edge of 25 high valued water shed zones to protect our water sheds 26 and habitat supporting our wild food. 27 28 And this concern -- I have more 29 information for you, but I know that it is getting late 30 so I'll cut it short a little bit. But the reasons are 31 that the tribes have been working with BLM for years on 32 input on what their concerns are but it appears that 33 those concerns aren't being taken as fully and as 34 importantly as they should be. It looks like the draft 35 EIS and the preferred alternative by BLM is mostly 36 development centered and really not a balanced plan at 37 all. And so that, and some other reasons, this new 38 organization has formed and they wanted us to share 39 that information with you. 40 41 They would be interested in a letter of 42 support for their formation and their efforts and so 43 they would like us to work with you and your 44 coordinator for creating that letter and hopefully 45 could be shared with the Federal Board and other 46 decisionmakers. 47 48 Okay. 49 50




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1 Well, that ends that portion. 2 3 And, Eva, I guess we could just stop 4 there if you would like, Madame Chair, if there's any 5 questions before people may forget them. 6 7 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you. I 8 greatly appreciate all the time and effort you had in 9 putting this together.

10 11 I do have one recommendation for you, 12 personally, if you go ahead and draft that letter of 13 support that way our Council has something to look at 14 and we can go through the letter instead of trying to 15 create it ourselves right here and there, and then make 16 a decision on it later. 17 18 MR. JENKINS: Yes. 19 20 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: So if there's a 21 possibility that you could draft it, have some language 22 in there and then maybe send it to Eva. Is this a time 23 sensitive letter of support or can it be taken up at 24 our spring meeting? 25 26 MR. JENKINS: You know that's a hard 27 one to know the answer to. I think it should go to 28 probably the next Federal Board meeting, and we're 29 working with the Western Interior RAC also for a 30 support letter, so we can get a draft to you pretty 31 quickly, and I'll see if I may -- I might be able to 32 get it to you tomorrow early, if it's -- but, you know, 33 we should probably err on the side of sooner than 34 later. 35 36 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Eva. 37 38 MS. PATTON: Madame Chair. Council. 39 Thank you, Wayne. And part of the process for the 40 Council, of course, so we don't have quorum at this 41 time and it would require full deliberation of the 42 Council on the record and vote to make that 43 recommendation. So the..... 44 45 MR. JENKINS: Right. 46 47 MS. PATTON: .....Council would need to 48 see the information in advance to be able to deliberate 49 on it. 50




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1 We may have quorum later in the meeting 2 but we also -- we're going to have to work through our 3 wildlife proposals before we get to additional topics. 4 So if you have something that you can share then, you 5 know, we can share that with the Council and see if we 6 have an opportunity at the end of the meeting to come 7 back to that. 8 9 Thank you.

10 11 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Eva. 12 Would you -- if you can, draft something up, a letter 13 of support, by tomorrow that'd be greatly appreciated. 14 And then also it was requested that the resolutions 15 that you had brought forth from YRDFA, if we could get 16 copies of those as well so we can bring them back to 17 our tribes. 18 19 MR. JENKINS: Yes. I'll be glad to 20 send those, via email, to Eva. And she could share 21 those. 22 23 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: And also the 24 information that you gave for this new Tribal 25 Commission, that talks about BLM, that would be greatly 26 appreciated as well. 27 28 MR. JENKINS: Yes. I think Eva has 29 that. I had printed up a bunch to bring with me but 30 wasn't able to make it, so my apologies there. But 31 I'll make sure that she has that also. 32 33 Okay, thank you for your interest. 34 35 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Any further 36 comments or questions. 37 38 (No comments) 39 40 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Did you guys have 41 any questions or comments. 42 43 Go ahead, Mr. Williams. 44 45 MR. BROWN: Do we have a translator 46 here. 47 48 (Pause) 49 50




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1 MR. BROWN: I'm comfortable with my own 2 language, Native. 3 4 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Yes. 5 6 MR. BROWN: (In Yup'ik) 7 8 MR. JENKINS: I'm sorry, I don't know, 9 is that a question for me?

10 11 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Sorry, Wayne, 12 we're standing by for a few moments and getting 13 translating equipment. 14 15 MR. JENKINS: Thank you. 16 17 MR. BROWN: (In Yup'ik) 18 19 INTERPRETER: So due to the weather 20 delay I've just now arrived and thank you for being 21 patient with us. 22 23 (Translating equipment issues) 24 25 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Standby technical 26 difficulties at the moment with the translating 27 equipment. 28 29 (Pause) 30 31 INTERPRETER: Mr. Brown was apologizing 32 for being late and appreciating your patience and that 33 we have no control over the weather. 34 35 (Laughter) 36 37 MS. PATTON: Thank you, Sophie, for 38 translation. Thank you for being here. And, yeah, 39 maybe at this time we can have a welcome for all of our 40 Council members that have joined us here, and an 41 opportunity to welcome, and, thank you. 42 43 And, thank you so much for your 44 patience waiting for the planes to come. So wonderful 45 you're here. 46 47 MR. BROWN: (In Yup'ik) 48 49 INTERPRETER: So first he would like to 50




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1 say that the State, Federal and tribal agencies worked 2 very well together starting from the spring and all 3 through the summer and he was grateful to see the 4 teamwork and cooperation with everyone focused on the 5 same goal. 6 7 And the people of the river were very 8 happy for the past summer season. June is a 9 traditional month for fish harvesting, hoping to be out

10 before the upcoming berry season. 11 12 And he would like to see the same level 13 of cooperation and he did not hear any side numbers and 14 it was a good thing and he's grateful for the unspoiled 15 fish harvest this summer. And that him and his wife 16 thank all the agencies and everybody who works in -- 17 for this. 18 19 Also he's grateful that the moose 20 season went very well. 21 22 MR. BROWN: (In Yup'ik) 23 24 INTERPRETER: I'm not exactly sure 25 which resolution he's referring to but he had testified 26 on behalf of it to the Fish Board in Anchorage. I 27 think it's the boundary that is now established across 28 Tunt. And he's grateful that that boundary was moved 29 there. Since there is high unemployment in the 30 villages and very high fuel costs. And he is grateful 31 for not having to travel so far for himself and the 32 others in his village, community to harvest fish. 33 34 Ever since last year -- no, that this 35 is his last year of his term, but he may not full 36 retire and can act as a consultant and that subsistence 37 goals are reached with positive cooperation. 38 39 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Quyana, Mr. 40 Brown. I greatly appreciate you being here. And I'm 41 so (In Yup'ik), Mr. Brown, that you're here. I'm so 42 glad that you're able to make it. 43 44 It's going to be -- you will continue 45 to be our consultant. We're going to continue calling 46 you on anything, even if it's mosquitoes, I'm going to 47 call you for mosquitoes, too. 48 49 (Laughter) 50




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1 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: (In Yup'ik) I'm 2 so (In Yup'ik), you're here. 3 4 (In Yup'ik) 5 6 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Mr. Maxie you 7 want to introduce yourself and give an introduction. 8 9 MR. MAXIE: Yeah. I'm Carl Maxie.

10 Napaskiak. I'm one of the board members here. I'm 11 very happy what Charlie Brown said, I give him a second 12 on that. It's been very true all summer that I hardly 13 hear any people mumble about catching fish, or less 14 fish or schedules, or whatever, but everybody was so 15 happy that they got their winter supply this summer. 16 Everybody has a smiling face or whatever, satisfaction 17 look. Fishing the month of June before the nets -- 18 before the nets spoil the fish. 19 20 So I'm glad I'm here, yeah, bad 21 weather, I'm looking forward to have any concerns with 22 the public here and see what we can do, thank you, very 23 happy that I'm here. 24 25 Thank you. 26 27 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you, Mr. 28 Maxie. I'm glad the weather cleared up for you guys to 29 make it. Did you want to do an introduction and give 30 some discussion of yours, Mr. Landlord. Yeah, 31 introduce yourself and whatever else you want to talk 32 about. 33 34 MR. LANDLORD: My name's James 35 Landlord. I'm from Mountain Village on the Yukon 36 River. I'm on the tribal council since 1990 and I've 37 been on as First Chief since maybe '92 or '93. 38 39 As I was growing up, our dad was a 40 hunter, trapper, fisherman, and all the way to high 41 school, every spring we'd go by dog team to go to our 42 spring camp, he'd hunt the muskrats and mink or 43 whatever. I go with him to bring our supplies to our 44 spring camp, which was about 20 miles out south of 45 Mountain Village. We'd stay there in springtime and 46 when the river break up we'd go to the south side of 47 Mountain Village. I used to wonder how we were going 48 to cross to Mountain Village because we had no boat, 49 but I guess he made a fire and one of his cousins would 50




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1 go across and go pick us up. All these years I was 2 wondering how we did it and he build a fire. 3 4 (Laughter) 5 6 MR. LANDLORD: And that was his signal 7 for us to get picked up. 8 9 I helped my dad because I was the

10 eldest in the family, son. I learned how to fish with 11 him, hunting and trapping until I was in high school, 12 that's when we moved. We broke up spring camp and we 13 never went back after that after we went to high 14 school. 15 16 I was kind of anxious to be here and YK 17 Subsistence RAC and kind of -- I didn't know what to 18 expect but I heard of it -- I think I seen it here once 19 in the last 20 years and kind of anxious to be up here 20 as a Council member. I hope I learn a lot here. I 21 tried to read the whole book before I came over but I 22 think I read about three-quarters of it, but I couldn't 23 read all of it at once and I had to take a lot of 24 breaks in the last two days, but I think I learned a 25 lot reading it, especially how the process is done. It 26 seems like it's very slow and even with the Federal and 27 the State Boards, all these things have to be 28 considered before a final decision is made. So it 29 seems like it's a slow process, but I think we have to 30 get our subsistence feedback from the users, whoever 31 uses fish and the wildlife -- with a lot of patience. 32 33 Thank you. 34 35 Okay, last year I couldn't make it, the 36 weather was, I think, worse than this year, it was just 37 really bad and I couldn't come over at that time. I 38 thought I wouldn't make it this year again but the 39 weather cleared up and the airlines called us to go up 40 to the airport so here I am and I was kind of surprised 41 I was selected, because I read in the book that all the 42 sections are made in D.C., and here I am. 43 44 Okay, thank you. 45 46 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Quyana. Well, 47 time now is 6:33. Do you guys want to break for 48 tonight and then pick everything up in the morning. 49 50




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1 (Council nods affirmatively) 2 3 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: We'll recess for 4 the evening and then we'll start again tomorrow at 9:00 5 o'clock, or 8:30. 6 7 MS. PATTON: Madame Chair and Council. 8 So we do have a couple other Council members who have 9 joined us, so, John Andrew was at the airport as well,

10 he got in, and James Charles has also joined us. 11 12 (Applause) 13 14 MS. PATTON: Yeah. And I think maybe 15 for tomorrow morning, because people were anticipating 16 9:00 o'clock, that we can reconvene tomorrow at 9:00 17 a.m., but we will have quorum for sure. So it's 18 wonderful all of you made it in safely. 19 20 Thank you. 21 22 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you so much 23 Eva. I do want to ask you to see if we can do our -- 24 maybe a luncheon celebration for Mr. Charles and Mr. 25 Williams, unless we can do it in the evening. I don't 26 know what our schedule looks like based on our delay 27 yesterday. 28 29 MS. PATTON: Madame Chair and Council. 30 We will also -- we have to confirm with our Staff here 31 tonight and also flights on Friday, we actually have 32 the building reserved on Friday, we could extend the 33 meeting through Friday if the Council members are 34 willing, and we're able to get people later flights. 35 So I'm going to be working on the flight end of things 36 this evening, and if that looks like it's a go to 37 extend to Friday, we had a full potluck dinner 38 celebration for James and Charlie tomorrow evening..... 39 40 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Okay. 41 42 MS. PATTON: .....and I would hope we 43 would have the time to do that. 44 45 So we'll know for certain in the 46 morning, we can check with everybody and -- and get 47 later flights returned home. 48 49 Thank you. 50




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1 MADAME CHAIR ROGERS: Thank you so 2 much, Eva. It was on my mind, I was trying to figure 3 out how we were going to push it all in together if we 4 had to leave on Thursday, so if we can extend it to 5 Friday I'd go ahead and go with the plan that we have 6 tomorrow evening for Mr. Brown and Mr. Charles, for 7 tomorrow evening, potluck celebration. 8 9 At this time I'd like to recess our

10 meeting, the time now is 6:36 p.m., and we'll come back 11 tomorrow morning at 9:00 o'clock. 12 13 Thank you, folks. 14 15 (Off record) 16 17 (PROCEEDINGS TO BE CONTINUED) 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50




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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 YUKON KUSKOKWIM DELTA FEDERAL SUBSISTENCE REGIONAL 14 ADVISORY COUNCIL MEETING, VOLUME I taken electronically 15 on the 6th day of November at Bethel, 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 2nd 27 day of December 2019. 28 29 30 31 Salena A. Hile 32 Notary Public, State of Alaska 33 My Commission Expires: 09/16/22 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

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YUKON-KUSKOKWIM DELTA ALASKA FEDERAL ......2019/11/06 · YUKON-KUSKOKWIM DELTA SUBSISTENCE RAC MEETING 1 11/6/2019 YUKON - KUSKOKWIM DELTA RAC MEETING Computer Matrix, LLC 135 Christensen