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HUNTING ADVISORY
KODIAK BROWN BEAR hunting is embroiled in controversy and maybe in disarray.
In recent years, management control of agencies that are of keen importance to men throughout the United States, such as child support, etc, have been used as political plums to reward feminist and radical left groups who support Democratic party candidates. Now, the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge seemingly has also turned into a political plum for the same groups.
Renewal of exclusive guides areas became due shortly after the new female refuge manager, Leslie Kerr, came to power. Along with the regional director, Roland Gould, the pair now have turned the Kodiak guiding industry on it’s head so that numerous long-time guides with exemplary records have been stripped of their areas and left without livelihoods. In their places are new faces, and the quality of Kodiak hunting now is questionable.
Every ten years, Kodiak guides have been required to submit written plans and proposals for retention of their exclusive areas. Newcomers have been allowed to submit competing proposals, and all proposals are then submitted to a committee of “Raters” who evaluate them on their merits.
This year, gross irregularities developed in this selection process, which now calls the entire system into question. The committee of “Raters” operated like a “secret star chamber.” Not only were their meetings and deliberations secret, but the very identities of these “Raters” have been held secret from public scrutiny. This raises the possibility that open meeting laws were violated. It also calls into question the possibility of nepotism. Some concerned voices are even yelling “graft.”
One former refuge official, who helped to establish the present system for allocating guides areas, even leant his knowledge and name for hire by guides in drafting their proposals. For his services, he reportedly demanded not only a flat fee, but also a percentage of income from every bear hunt booked.
Furthermore, Title 8, section 1307, of the Alaska Native land claims settlement act prohibits local preferences in the guiding industry. Many of the former Kodiak guides live elsewhere in Alaska. Regional director Gould reportedly stated that local preferences were given to some areas. Reportedly he has back tracked on that admission and now denies that any local preferences were given, after one guide personally pointed out to him that this violated federal law.
There are 26 guiding areas on Kodiak. Ten of those areas went to only four people. Nine of those areas went to only three Kodiak locals.
One guide reports that the refuge officials allegedly fabricated “facts” involving his proposal for retention of his area. Those fabricated “facts” were used as justification for docking points from his proposal. It was alleged by the refuge that this guide had proposed using a “chainsaw” on Refuge land. But in 20 years, that guide has never used any chainsaw on the Refuge, and he says that nothing of the sort was in his proposal.
Another guide says, “The refuge officials gave preferences to guides who lived on the island, and who used lots of boats. It looks like the refuge managers are trying to restrict nonresident hunting to the shoreline, so that humans won’t walk on the refuge and will not sleep there over night.” If this is true, then it would be in line with the Radical Left environmentalist crap about “man’s unnatural aggressiveness towards nature.”
The very nature of this Kodiak situation seems to smell like typical leftist economic gorilla warfare being waged against American citizens who seek to garner independent livelihoods from nature. While the left seeks to “protect” all resources from mankind, they provide no long term plan for human beings. In the end, the land gets locked up by new owners and all the rest of us become mere trespassers in our own nation.
In this situation, the environmental left seems to be consolidating it’s grip on our Refuge by destabilizing the guiding industry and pitting the guides against one another. In the future, it will be harder for these guides all to work together for maintaining the Kodiak hunt against their political opponents.
Sadly, it now seems as if our Kodiak wildlife refuge has fallen into the wrong hands. It now seems as if it has been handed over to feminists and environmentalists with nothing better to do than to treat unfairly many excellent, hard working and honest guides of long standing in the industry.
In the wake of all of this, there now seems to be legitimate questions about the quality of Kodiak hunting and the future satisfaction of nonresident hunters who are required by law to contract with guides who have concessions there. If the guiding areas were misappropriated and given to operators without proper merit, then the quality of hunts will suffer accordingly.
KODIAK HUNTERS BEWARE!!
© 2003-2004 Alaska Outdoor Books
A division of Great Northwest Publishing and Distributing Co.,
Inc.