northwest arctic regional advisory council 3/1/2017 · 42 my name is hannah paniyavluk loon....

NORTHWEST ARCTIC REGIONAL ADVISORY COUNCIL 3/1/2017

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NORTHWEST ARCTIC FEDERAL SUBSISTENCE REGIONAL ADVISORY COUNCIL

PUBLIC MEETING

VOLUME I

Northwest Arctic Heritage Center

Kotzebue, Alaska March 1, 2017

9:06 a.m

COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT:

Enoch Shiedt, Chair Percy Ballot Vern Cleveland Louie Commack Michael Kramer Hannah Loon Enoch Mitchell Calvin Moto Raymond Stoney

Regional Council Coordinator, Zach Stevenson

Recorded and transcribed by:

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1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 3 (Kotzebue, Alaska - 3/1/2017) 4 5 (On record) 6 7 CHAIRMAN STONEY: Okay. I guess we're 8 all here except for Mike's not here yet. You want to 9 begin anyway, right?

10 11 MR. STEVENSON: He'll be here. 12 13 CHAIRMAN STONEY: Okay. Good morning, 14 ladies and gentlemen. I'll open the Arctic Subsistence 15 Regional Advisory Council to order. I don't have the 16 time right now. 17 18 REPORTER: It's 9:06. 19 20 CHAIRMAN STONEY: 9:06. Let's see. 21 We're down to..... 22 23 MR. STEVENSON: Invocation. 24 25 CHAIRMAN STONEY: Yeah, introductions. 26 With introductions we'll begin with the Regional 27 Advisory Council. Start from the left-hand side, 28 Attamuk. Introductions. 29 30 MR. SHIEDT: "Attamuk" Enoch Shiedt for 31 Kotzebue. 32 33 (Off record discussion of Chairman 34 Stoney and Mr. Shiedt) 35 36 CHAIRMAN STONEY: Okay. We'll do the 37 roll call, please. 38 39 MR. STEVENSON: Pardon me, Mr. Chair. 40 Just a point of order. We're on agenda item number 41 one, invocation. Invocation. 42 43 CHAIRMAN STONEY: Yeah, invitation. 44 45 MR. SHIEDT: Invocation. 46 47 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 48 49 CHAIRMAN STONEY: Invocation. Hannah. 50





1 2 MS. LOON: Invocation? 3 4 CHAIRMAN STONEY: Yeah. 5 6 (Invocation) 7 8 CHAIRMAN STONEY: Thank you, Hannah. 9

10 Now we'll go down to roll call, please. 11 12 MR. STEVENSON: Pardon me, Mr. Chair. 13 We're on item two on the agenda, call to order. 14 15 MR. SHIEDT: He did that. 16 17 CHAIRMAN STONEY: Okay. I call..... 18 19 MR. BALLOT: The Chair can call to 20 order any time. He already called it. 21 22 CHAIRMAN STONEY: .....the Regional 23 Advisory Council to order. 24 25 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you. Pardon me. 26 Correct. So we've done call to order. We're on agenda 27 item three, roll call and establish quorum. 28 29 CHAIRMAN STONEY: I'll have Hannah do 30 roll call, please. 31 32 MS. LOON: Raymond Stoney. 33 34 CHAIRMAN STONEY: Here. 35 36 MS. LOON: Beverly Moto. 37 38 (No response) 39 40 MS. LOON: No. Hannah P. Loon. 41 Present. 42 43 Michael Kramer. 44 45 (No response) 46 47 MS. LOON: Percy Ballot. 48 49 MR. BALLOT: Here. 50





1 MS. LOON: Vern Cleveland, Sr. 2 3 MR. CLEVELAND: Vern Cleveland here. 4 5 MS. LOON: Louie Commack, Jr. 6 7 MR. COMMACK: Here. 8 9 MS. LOON: Enoch Shiedt, Sr.

10 11 MR. SHIEDT: Here. Attamuk. 12 13 MS. LOON: Enoch Mitchell. 14 15 MR. MITCHELL: Here. 16 17 MS. LOON: Calvin Moto. 18 19 MR. MOTO: Here. 20 21 MS. LOON: Eight present. 22 23 CHAIRMAN STONEY: Thank you, Hannah. 24 We have a quorum. Thank you. 25 26 Now we're on to item four, 27 introductions. 28 29 We'll start with the right, Attamuk. 30 31 MR. SHIEDT: Attamuk Shiedt, Kotzebue. 32 I thought I wasn't going to attend this meeting. I'm 33 glad my doctor upped my appointment by one week. I 34 would have been in Anchorage right now. All is fine, 35 that's what he said, so I passed with a B. Okay. 36 37 Thank you. 38 39 Go ahead, Hannah. 40 41 MS. LOON: Uvlaalluataq. Good morning. 42 My name is Hannah Paniyavluk Loon. Welcome. 43 44 MR. STEVENSON: Uvlaalluataq. My name 45 is Zach Stevenson. I'm the Council Coordinator for 46 Northwest Arctic and Western Interior Alaska with 47 Office of Subsistence Management. 48 49 CHAIRMAN STONEY: Thank you. 50





1 Raymond Stoney from Kiana. 2 3 MR. MITCHELL: Enoch Mitchell, Noatak. 4 5 MR. CLEVELAND: Vern Cleveland, 6 Noorvik. 7 8 MR. MOTO: My name is Calvin Moto from 9 Deering, Alaska. Might be my last year. I think I've

10 served enough. I'm considering it. I may change my 11 mind. 12 13 Thank you. 14 15 MR. BALLOT: Percy Ballot. I've 16 enjoyed working with you Calvin. You've still got 17 time. I want to thank you guys. I'm sorry about 18 missing last year's meeting in Selawik, but I look at 19 the minutes and I know we have a good crew over the 20 years and a good staff. I saw you guys did good work 21 and I apologize, but you know some things come up. 22 Probably was the first meeting and I've been around for 23 20 years or so. It says maybe eight years or five 24 years, but I've been around longer than that. 25 26 Thank you. 27 28 MR. COMMACK: Louis Commack, Ambler. 29 30 CHAIRMAN STONEY: Okay. Now we'll have 31 our guest introductions. Start with the first row. 32 33 MS. MAAS: Lisa Maas, wildlife 34 biologist with the Office of Subsistence Management. 35 36 MR. HANSEN: I'm Alex Hansen, Alaska 37 Department of Fish and Game. I'm filling in for -- 38 following up Jim Dau, so I'm taking his position. Good 39 to meet you. 40 41 MS. ATKINSON: I'm Hannah Atkinson (in 42 Native). I'm the cultural anthropologist at the 43 National Park Service Office here and I'm the 44 Subsistence Resource Commission Coordinator. 45 46 MR. CUSACK: I'm Louis Cusack. I'm 47 from Chugiak, Alaska. I'm just a local resident. 48 49 MR. SEPPI: Good morning. I'm Bruce 50





1 Seppi with Anchorage Field Office BLM. I'm a wildlife 2 biologist and a subsistence coordinator. Good morning. 3 4 MS. HARDIN: Good morning. I'm 5 Jennifer Hardin and I am Anthropology Division Chief 6 from the Office of Subsistence Management. 7 8 MS. ROBISON: Good morning. My name is 9 Hillary Robison, wildlife biologist with National Park

10 Service. 11 12 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible) 13 I'm an employee with Maniilaq Association under Tribal 14 Government Services and natural resources advocate in 15 the Hunter Support Program. 16 17 MS. STOCKER: Good morning. (In 18 Inupiaq) My name is Millie Stocker with NANA. I'm the 19 Community and Government Affairs Coordinator. 20 21 MS. GEORGETTE: Good morning. I'm 22 Susan Georgette. I'm the Refuge Manager for Selawik 23 National Wildlife Refuge, Fish and Wildlife Service. 24 25 MR. REAM: Good morning. I'm Joshua 26 Ream. I'm the anthropologist assigned to your region 27 from the Office of Subsistence Management. 28 29 MR. COTE: Ryan Cote, Fish and Wildlife 30 Service, Fairbanks. 31 32 MR. IRVIN: Good morning. Jared Irvin 33 (ph). I'm also with Fish and Wildlife Service. 34 35 MR. STRINGER: Steven Stringer (ph), 36 Fish and Wildlife Service with Refuges based out of 37 Fairbanks. 38 39 MR. SAITO: Brandon Saito, area 40 biologist, Department of Fish and Game, Subsistence 41 Branch. 42 43 MR. PELTOLA: Gene Peltola, Assistant 44 Regional Director for Office of Subsistence Management. 45 46 CHAIRMAN STONEY: Okay. Did we miss 47 anybody? Mike Kramer. 48 49 MR. KRAMER: Mike Kramer, Kotzebue, 50





1 Alaska. 2 3 CHAIRMAN STONEY: Thank you, Mike. 4 5 Anybody else come in. 6 7 (No comments) 8 9 CHAIRMAN STONEY: Okay. Now we're down

10 to, right, item 5? 11 12 MR. STEVENSON: Yes, Mr. Chair, item 5. 13 14 CHAIRMAN STONEY: Item 5, review 15 agenda. Since you went through it, you can go through 16 it. 17 18 MR. STEVENSON: Pardon me, Mr. Chair. 19 Would we like to have those on the telephone introduce 20 themselves as well. 21 22 CHAIRMAN STONEY: Yes. 23 24 MR. STEVENSON: Would those on the 25 telephone please identify yourselves, your name, where 26 you're located and your affiliation, please. 27 28 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 29 30 MR. PATTEE: Good morning. This is 31 Tristen Pattee in Ambler. 32 33 MR. ADKISSON: This is Ken Adkisson 34 with the National Park Service, Subsistence Program 35 Manager for WEAR based in Nome. 36 37 MS. HYER: Karen Hyer, OSM. 38 39 MS. PATTON: Good morning, this is Eva 40 Patton with OSM. 41 42 MS. LAVINE: Good morning. This is 43 Robbin LaVine, anthropologist with the Office of 44 Subsistence Management in Anchorage. 45 46 MS. RATTENBURY: This is Kumi 47 Rattenbury with National Park Service in Fairbanks, 48 Alaska and I just wanted to let you all know that Marcy 49 Okada for Gates of the Arctic will be joining the 50





1 meeting tomorrow. She's in Allakaket today. 2 3 MR. STEVENSON: If you're not speaking, 4 please mute your phone. We're getting some 5 interference. 6 7 MS. KLEIN: Jill Klein, Alaska 8 Department of Fish and Game. 9

10 REPORTER: Anyone else. 11 12 MR. STONE: My name is Jared Stone with 13 the Office of Subsistence Management, fisheries intern. 14 15 MR. STEVENSON: Anyone else on the 16 teleconference, otherwise we'll proceed with the 17 agenda. 18 19 (No comments) 20 21 CHAIRMAN STONEY: Everybody welcome to 22 Kotzebue for this Regional Advisory Council meeting. 23 On the agenda we're going to item number 6. 24 25 MR. STEVENSON: Pardon me. Through the 26 Chair. We have item number 5, reviewing and adopting 27 the agenda. 28 29 CHAIRMAN STONEY: Okay. I'm sorry. 30 Yeah. 31 32 MR. STEVENSON: That's okay. 33 34 CHAIRMAN STONEY: Item number 5 then. 35 36 MR. BALLOT: Mr. Chairman. I move to 37 approve the agenda. 38 39 MR. MOTO: Second. 40 41 MR. COMMACK: Mr. Chairman. I'd like 42 to add on to the agenda. 43 44 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. 45 Member Commack, did you want to address the additions 46 that you wanted to request on the agenda? 47 48 MR. COMMACK: Yes. I would request 49 that we have a legislative update regarding statewide 50





1 issues or national issues or anything to do with 2 Interior Department, if that could be possible. 3 4 MR. STEVENSON: Mr. Chair. I want to 5 get some guidance from our leadership team as to 6 whether or not -- I know that we don't have our 7 legislative staff person in attendance today. Is that 8 something we can accommodate, a legislative update? 9

10 MS. HARDIN: Through the Chair. 11 Jennifer Hardin for the record. We can ask Mr. Peltola 12 to provide any information he might have. Things are 13 still very much in flux, so there's not a whole lot to 14 report, but Gene might have more information. 15 16 MR. COMMACK: Okay. I understand. If 17 there's something to report on maybe tomorrow, 18 whatever, that would be fine. 19 20 Thank you. 21 22 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. 23 Regarding your request, Mr. Commack, I would suggest 24 that we add the legislative update to under number 9 on 25 the agenda, which is public and tribal comments on non- 26 agenda items, as this is presently not on the agenda. 27 28 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 29 30 MR. COMMACK: Thank you. 31 32 MR. STEVENSON: Do we have a -- so we 33 have a motion, Mr. Commack. Do we have a second -- 34 through the Chair. Do we have a second on that motion? 35 36 MR. MOTO: I did. Calvin Moto. 37 38 MR. BALLOT: Call for question. 39 40 MR. STEVENSON: Do we have a vote? All 41 in favor of that question indicate by saying aye. 42 43 IN UNISON: Aye. 44 45 MR. STEVENSON: Any opposed. 46 47 (No opposing votes) 48 49 MR. STEVENSON: No. So moved. The 50





1 agenda will be modified to reflect a legislative update 2 per item number 9, public and tribal comments on non- 3 agenda items to include now a legislative update. 4 5 Thank you. 6 7 Through the Chair. Mr. Chair. I 8 believe that takes us through item number 6, Mr. Chair, 9 the election of officers. As the Designated Federal

10 Officer, the DFO, it's my responsibility to initiate 11 the election of the Chair. I'd like to take this 12 opportunity now to take any requests or a motion for 13 the position of Chair. 14 15 MS. LOON: I nominate Attamuk Shiedt. 16 17 MR. COMMACK: I second it and ask for 18 unanimous consent. 19 20 MR. BALLOT: Any objection. You should 21 ask if there's any objection. 22 23 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, I'll take it. 24 25 MR. STEVENSON: Okay. So if that is 26 the will of the Council, we have Attamuk Shiedt as the 27 Chair. We'll now proceed to turning the floor over to 28 Attamuk for the nomination of the Vice Chair. 29 30 MR. CLEVELAND: Zach, you need to ask 31 for unanimous consent from the Board Members for the 32 Chair. 33 34 MR. STEVENSON: My apologies. Thank 35 you, Mr. Cleveland. I'd like to call the question then 36 for the unanimous consent of the Chair Attamuk Shiedt. 37 38 MS. LOON: Question. 39 40 MR. STEVENSON: All in favor. 41 42 IN UNISON: Aye. 43 44 MR. BALLOT: It will work both ways. 45 46 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you. Any opposed 47 indicate by saying nay. 48 49 MR. CLEVELAND: No. 50





1 MR. STEVENSON: No opposed. We have 2 unanimous consent for the appointment of Enoch Attamuk 3 Shiedt as the Chair. Thank you. Proceeding with the 4 election of officers agenda item number 6, I'll turn 5 the floor over to the Chair, Member Shiedt, for the 6 nomination of our new Vice Chair. 7 8 Mr. Shiedt. 9

10 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you for 11 the trust. I'll be happy to serve all. From the 12 public and the Staff, my phone is open to all. 13 14 Okay. We need for the Vice Chair. 15 16 Nominations for Vice Chair. 17 18 MR. BALLOT: Mr. Chair. I nominate 19 Louie Commack. 20 21 MR. STEVENSON: Pardon me, Mr. Chair. 22 I've been informed that Mr. Commack had raised his hand 23 a moment ago. Do you want to clarify on any questions 24 or points you had a moment ago. Pardon me. Mr. 25 Cleveland, did you have any questions you wanted to 26 address a moment ago regarding the vote that was taken? 27 28 MR. CLEVELAND: I just voted no. 29 That's all I did. I didn't vote for the Chair. I just 30 voted no. You got to go through the whole table. So 31 there was five ayes and one no. I voted no on the 32 Chair. 33 34 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. 35 Cleveland. I'd like to have that reflected in the 36 record, please. 37 38 Thank you. My apologies. 39 40 MR. BALLOT: When we were asking for 41 unanimous consent, that's what you were supposed to do, 42 Zach, is ask for unanimous consent. If somebody 43 objected, then he would object. That's what he was 44 trying to do. He wanted to make for the record that he 45 voted no. 46 47 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. 48 Thank you, Percy. I had made that oversight and I hope 49 that that is reflected now in the minutes that there 50





1 was an objection from Member Cleveland and that's been 2 noted in the record. 3 4 Thank you. 5 6 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. They nominated 7 Louie for Vice Chair. Anyone else. 8 9 Go ahead, Hannah.

10 11 MS. LOON: I nominate Vern Cleveland. 12 13 MR. CLEVELAND: No, thank you. And I 14 ask for unanimous consent for Louie. 15 16 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Go ahead, 17 Hannah. 18 19 MS. LOON: I wanted to nominate for 20 Lance Kramer because..... 21 22 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Nomination for Lance 23 Kramer..... 24 25 MS. LOON: Yes. 26 27 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: .....for Co-Chair. 28 29 MS. LOON: Because absence -- I mean 30 attendance is very important. 31 32 MR. STEVENSON: Pardon me, Mr. Chair. 33 For a point of clarification, do you mean Mike Kramer? 34 35 (Laughter) 36 37 MS. LOON: I nominate Mike Kramer. 38 39 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Correct made. Hannah 40 nominated Michael. Anyone second. Hannah did Mike 41 Kramer. I'm asking for anyone second for Mike Kramer. 42 43 MR. MITCHELL: Second. 44 45 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Second by Enoch. 46 47 MR. CLEVELAND: Close the nomination. 48 49 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Nominations are 50





1 closed. I guess we have to poll or how are you going 2 to do it. We can do it by poll. 3 4 MR. BALLOT: Percy Ballot. Mr. 5 Chairman, do they want to give a speech why we should 6 vote for them? 7 8 (Laughter) 9

10 MR. BALLOT: Otherwise I'm ready to 11 vote. 12 13 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead and vote. 14 Maybe no commercial is better. Maybe someone could put 15 up the speaker for Calvin. He's having hearing 16 problems on his mic there. 17 18 Go ahead, Zach. 19 20 MR. STEVENSON: Mr. Chair. We have 21 five votes for Mike Kramer and four votes for Louie 22 Commack, so the vote goes to Mr. Kramer. 23 24 MR. CLEVELAND: Zach, when you do the 25 counting votes, you've got to have two guys do the 26 counting. 27 28 Thank you. 29 30 MR. STEVENSON: I would like to request 31 someone take a look at the results here just to verify 32 the results here that I have in front of me. Is 33 someone able to do so. 34 35 That was Lisa Maas with OSM. Lisa, 36 could you please report on what you've seen. 37 38 MS. MAAS: Yeah, I agree with Zach. It 39 was 4-5 for Mike. 40 41 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Lisa. 42 43 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you. Mike is 44 now the Co-Chair. Now we need one for secretary. 45 46 MR. BALLOT: Mr. Chairman. I nominate 47 Hannah and ask for unanimous consent. 48 49 MR. CLEVELAND: They're all from 50





1 Kotzebue. 2 3 MR. BALLOT: You can change it. That's 4 my motion. If you want to nominate, you've just got to 5 add on. 6 7 MR. COMMACK: I think we should not 8 elect all from Kotzebue. It's not fair to the other 9 villages.

10 11 MR. CLEVELAND: That is right. We need 12 some voice out in the village to get the Chair, Vice 13 Chair, Secretaries out to the villages too. That way 14 we won't be stuck in Kotzebue. Thanks. 15 16 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead, Hannah. 17 18 MS. LOON: I nominate Percy Ballot. 19 20 MR. CLEVELAND: Second. 21 22 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Percy was nominated 23 and a second. 24 25 MR. COMMACK: Motion to close. 26 27 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: There was a motion to 28 close on the election. 29 30 MR. CLEVELAND: Second that too. 31 32 MR. BALLOT: I think it's always the 33 individual, but I'll take your concession. Go with it. 34 35 36 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you. 37 We'll go to review and approve previous minutes for 38 Selawik meeting October 5 and 6 at Selawik, past 39 minutes. 40 41 MR. BALLOT: Mr. Chairman. We've had 42 our packet for a while and I see you guys had a good 43 meeting, so I'll move to approve the October 5 and 6 44 meeting in Selawik of the Northwest Arctic Subsistence 45 Regional Advisory Council. 46 47 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Motion to approve by 48 Percy. Anyone else have a comment on the past minutes 49 for Selawik meeting. 50





1 Go ahead, Hannah. 2 3 MS. LOON: It was a great meeting in 4 Selawik and I look forward to the next village meeting 5 in the fall. 6 7 Thank you. 8 9 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yes, it was a great

10 meeting at Selawik. Looking forward to Shungnak one 11 day. 12 13 I ask for a second for that motion by 14 Percy. 15 16 MS. LOON: Second. 17 18 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead, Louie. 19 20 MR. COMMACK: Yeah, I see that I was 21 unexcused. I did call the Chairman and ask for excuse. 22 I couldn't make it out. I kept calling. 23 24 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, I did. I 25 reported that you had..... 26 27 MR. COMMACK: Could that correction be 28 made, please. 29 30 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yes. 31 32 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. 33 Addressing Mr. Commack's request, the minutes will be 34 corrected to reflect that there was an excused absence. 35 36 37 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 38 39 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Anything else 40 on the previous minutes. Anyone else want to make 41 corrections. 42 43 MR. COMMACK: Question. 44 45 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: The question has been 46 called for. All in favor signify by saying aye. 47 48 IN UNISON: Aye. 49 50





1 (No opposing votes) 2 3 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Down to item 4 8, Council Member reports. We'll start from upriver 5 and work downriver. 6 7 We'll start from Louie. 8 9 MR. COMMACK: What type of report do

10 you want to hear? 11 12 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Just things going on 13 around Ambler, how they did on caribou or other stuff 14 like how your activities or harvest..... 15 16 MR. BALLOT: Mr. Chairman. I could 17 start first so Louie will get an idea. 18 19 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. 20 21 MR. BALLOT: This is kind of his first 22 meeting or so. 23 24 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. 25 26 MR. COMMACK: No, I know what I'm 27 doing. Okay, I'll give a report. We've been fortunate 28 enough to hunt caribou this fall. The migration went 29 through Ambler as usual. All the way up to Shungnak. 30 Once again the people of Kobuk did not catch hardly any 31 caribou because they did not reach Kobuk. This winter 32 it's been hard on Upper Kobuk because there's hardly 33 any caribou around. I think they went over to Seward 34 Peninsula. 35 36 We've had situations in the prior years 37 of not having caribou during the winter. Other than 38 that I did attend a meeting for Gates of the Arctic 39 last year, last winter, and there's a lot of studies 40 we're doing. 41 42 As far as fishing, it went very well. 43 There was a lot of moose and bear and everybody had a 44 good time hunting out there. The other issue is the 45 Ambler Mining road project, which will probably be 46 brought up tomorrow with Marcy from Gates of the 47 Arctic. 48 49 So, with that, thank you very much, Mr. 50





1 Chairman. 2 3 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, thank you, 4 Louie. I wasn't trying to put you in a bind. I just 5 wanted to start from upriver because they had a good 6 year. 7 8 Go ahead, Percy. 9

10 MR. BALLOT: Yeah, Mr. Chairman. The 11 caribou have been healthy this year. They're around. 12 Didn't see as much, but they're in bunches and they're 13 healthy. Wolves have been doing okay except some of 14 the wolves they've been getting have sores or 15 infections on them. They seem to look healthy though. 16 The first time we're hearing wolverines eating trapped 17 wolves, trapped wolverines and stuff like that in all 18 these years, so I don't know if they're hungry or not. 19 20 The other thing is our river has been 21 flowing up. We had a hard first part of the year with 22 no snow and stuff. You know, pretty hard for hunting, 23 but now there's a lot of snow. This weather has been 24 warm and cold, warm and cold, 40 below and then 10 25 above. It seems like that was a matter of days and 26 sometimes even five, ten miles you could feel a 27 difference. If you go 10 miles, it's 40 below and then 28 over there it's so much above. So kind of strange 29 weather we're getting nowadays. 30 31 But the fish have been healthy and 32 we're kind of thinking after that flood in December 33 that we're probably going to find a lot of fish on top 34 of the land again like we did a few years ago. 35 36 Otherwise caribou are around. Bears 37 are still populated as ever. They were a little late 38 for us to get caribou again, but I'm glad they always 39 come back and hang around, move back and forth in our 40 area. 41 42 That's it, Mr. Chair. 43 44 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. I just have 45 one question for you, Percy. How is the moose 46 population? What did you guys see? I just want to ask 47 you. 48 49 MR. BALLOT: They're good for Buckland. 50





1 A few years ago, about 10, 15 years ago, we had them 2 over-killed in Kauk River. We did our own self quit 3 hunting them and then when Jim Dau was there, they did 4 a special order request or whatever they call it to 5 quit hunting there for a few years and that place has 6 grown. There's moose there now and stuff and we see 7 them in the river, up the river. Right now some of 8 them are bunching up. I'm talking about 20 here and 9 there or somewhere around there. I think we're kind of

10 good. 11 12 I know people got about -- because we 13 weren't getting much caribou and we waited a long time. 14 We got more moose this year than most of the years 15 past. 16 17 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay, Percy, thanks. 18 The reason why I asked that, I had a call from people 19 from Buckland saying they were concerned, but seems 20 like later in the fall they seen more numbers than 21 before. 22 23 Go ahead, Calvin. 24 25 MR. MOTO: Calvin Moto, Deering. We 26 have a couple things going on. Some of the young 27 hunters from Deering didn't know where the Federal 28 land, like the Land Bridge was, how far it extended 29 east. I had to explain to them. I said it's way back 30 over -- mostly in the western part of Seward Peninsula. 31 32 The harvest is going pretty good, but 33 lack of snow they can't go very far. They still using 34 Hondas to hunt sometimes. Which brings another issue. 35 Muskox kind of disappeared. Now they're back because 36 they know the hunting season is over. Some of the guys 37 that had a tag were wondering what they were supposed 38 to do because they go out and because of lack of snow 39 they couldn't go very far on the Land Bridge or 40 anywhere else because if you use snowmachine, you 41 usually wreck up the tundra there. 42 43 One good thing about harvest of caribou 44 is real nice and fat this year. Make for a good tender 45 and make for a good akutuk later. They're kind of 46 confused about five or 15 or what, you know. I tried 47 to explain -- like we had a big joint meeting in 48 January and I tried to explain to the young people 49 about how they allocate and how they determine how many 50





1 we could get and all that. I hope I didn't confuse 2 them more, but I tried to explain to them what I know. 3 4 Other than that things are going pretty 5 good. The thing about is right now we're getting high 6 wind and guys want to go hunt but they can't because 7 you can't travel too much on 50-mile-an-hour winds, you 8 know. This is crazy. We had open water in January. 9 They try to go to Pingo or go to Lazy River. It's hard

10 to go with snowmachine that way. It's kind of funny. 11 The landing field is a mile out of Deering and they had 12 to use a boat to meet the plane in January, but we live 13 with it. We take it day by day. 14 15 But they've been getting -- there's a 16 lot of predators. They've been getting wolf every 17 other week. There's a lot of fox, some wolverine 18 running around. It's scary because nighttime some of 19 the wolves go right to the village and even fox. So 20 we're trying to find out what should we do especially 21 when we have a muskox come to our village and it won't 22 leave. We can't shoot it because it's in the village, 23 so they haul them out with a loader a couple of times. 24 It comes back. Finally a Fish and Game guy come over 25 and destroyed it for us and distributed it. 26 27 There's a lot of caribou, a lot of 28 muskox. They're trying to say the muskox population is 29 small, but I found out they're scattered all over the 30 NANA region, you know. So I think the muskox take 31 should be more. This is something we have to discuss 32 sometime in the future. 33 34 Our main focus is caribou right now. 35 We rely on the caribou, a lot of us. 36 37 So that's all I have to say. 38 39 Thank you. 40 41 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you, Calvin. 42 43 Go ahead, Vern. 44 45 MR. CLEVELAND: Uvlaalluataq. It's 46 been a good season. It's been cold, very cold this 47 last few months. Just regulation on the Federal land 48 closure it's been good, but who take care -- they do it 49 only during migration. What about rest of the year? 50





1 Who takes care of it I mean like right now? We've got 2 hunter out there right now that are not Federally 3 qualified. Who's watching over the lands? Wish they 4 would close it. It's just for part time, right? It 5 should be closed year round and someone should be 6 monitoring right now as we speak. It just can't be 7 just for the migration time. 8 9 I patrol the rivers for NANA on the

10 rivers. It's just during migration. What about rest 11 of the year, like right now? What do we do? Forget 12 about it, just close it during migration and the rest 13 of the year forget about it and say, oh, well, 14 migration is coming up, close the lands again. Here 15 they've been closed all year and nothing is being done 16 about it. 17 18 So we have to start to make an effort 19 of year-round hunters that are coming. Heck, you don't 20 know where they come from and they're not Federally 21 recognized. I noticed that. If we make a closure, we 22 have to stand our foot onto it, got to keep our foot 23 down and say, hey, this place is closed and it's got to 24 be closed. 25 26 Thank you. 27 28 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah. Vern, you're 29 right. It should be all around. If you have any 30 concerns about the closure, you can 31 always call the State Troopers. 32 33 MR. CLEVELAND: They're broke. They've 34 got no way of traveling. They have no State funds, 35 nothing. Nothing. I even called what's his name, that 36 wildlife guy. 37 38 Nothing happened. 39 40 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you. 41 42 Go ahead, Zach. 43 44 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 45 For Member Cleveland and just for my own clarification, 46 when you mention in your report the question about who 47 takes care of the closure, just for my own 48 clarification were you referring to the need for 49 education on the issue of law enforcement or perhaps 50





1 map -- the need for maps. I wasn't clear exactly what 2 you were referring to there. 3 4 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 5 6 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Vern. 7 8 MR. CLEVELAND: Yeah, there will be 9 maps and law enforcement all year round. To get to the

10 villages maps of Federal land, BLM, NANA lands, State 11 lands, that would be good. We just got ours in Noorvik 12 last week and guys didn't know anything about State 13 lands, Federal lands. It's good education for people 14 to get maps in their villages. 15 16 Thanks. 17 18 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, thanks, Vern. I 19 know there was always maps in designated Federal lands 20 areas for the whole Northwest Alaska. 21 22 Let's see, who's next. 23 24 Go ahead, Enoch. 25 26 Thanks, Vern. 27 28 MR. CLEVELAND: Yep, any time. 29 30 MR. MITCHELL: Okay. I'm Enoch 31 Mitchell. Like everybody else we got a lot of snow. 32 We got a lot of wolves around the village. They killed 33 six caribou behind the village of Noatak. They've been 34 gathering -- the moose getting close to the village 35 because of predators like wolves outside. 36 37 We have ice fishing pretty much picking 38 up again now that we got more daylight and warmer 39 weather. Fish are biting. 40 41 The second week of February we had our 42 first winter harvest of caribou. We'd been waiting for 43 snow again. We finally got snow in the second week of 44 February when we got our first winter harvest caribou. 45 46 We did two Proposals, 44 and 45. I 47 think they're in our minutes to the Board of Game. 48 Both failed, but 44 was brought up again without our 49 presence at the meeting and modified from Aggie River 50





1 to Nimiuktuk River, but we proposed to Cutler. And 45 2 was shot down, so I have to try and see if I can get it 3 off from this group. 4 5 And when I started getting ready for 6 these Board of Game meetings and I started writing -- 7 getting letters of support. When I asked for letters 8 of support from the students at the school, it opened 9 their eyes on important issues, and it was not a

10 caribou herd group, about the closure. They didn't 11 even know what was the closure. I explained it to 12 them. I went into the classroom and talked with them 13 and they had a lot of questions. They're really 14 starting to know there's State lands and there's 15 Federal lands. They didn't know there was a closure. 16 It brought them up to date on important issues. It 17 also helped them to realize how the closure helps us 18 and they were pretty happy. 19 20 When I think about it, how long it took 21 them -- like I went over there like a month, couple 22 months before and it took them that long to write these 23 letters. And these students they gave me well-written 24 letters of support and it opened their eyes. I kind of 25 think that these students can write proposals 26 themselves now. They're getting good at it. They got 27 really into it and that was good. 28 29 I thought about this and, man, the more 30 I think about it the more I like it. To have these 31 students to go to the -- take the whole classroom to 32 the Board of Game and let them show their personal 33 thoughts. And that was really good. Oh, my God, that 34 was good to talk to the students, give them insight and 35 input and everything on our caribou. 36 37 That concludes my report. 38 39 Taikuu. 40 41 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, thank you, 42 Enoch. 43 44 Go ahead, Raymond. 45 46 MR. STONEY: For Kiana area, the 47 migration of this herd was low to other years what 48 happened. Like in mid-September and through mid- 49 October we had about 9,000 caribou that went through 50





1 Kiana and a lot of us didn't get any at all because the 2 caribou, when they migrate, they came through Noatak, 3 but they went further south around Kotzebue area. 4 That's when we seen a few more. So like in Kiana, like 5 I said, the migration of this herd was low for Kiana. 6 The first time in 15 years. 7 8 That's the thing that all of us was 9 concerned about, you know, when the caribou migrate,

10 they do their part. They make a decision themselves 11 and they take different routes. Generally in Kiana, 12 I'll say again, the migration of the herd was very low 13 compared to these years, so we don't know what 14 happened. 15 16 That's what I got, Mr. Chairman. 17 18 Thank you. 19 20 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you, Raymond. 21 Now back up to Enoch or Zach may be better. I need to 22 see -- Enoch mentioned Proposal 44 was changed or 23 amended. So, if it's possible, I'd like to see it. 24 25 Thank you, Raymond. 26 27 Go ahead, Hannah. 28 29 MS. LOON: Taikuu. There's been no 30 snow until now. It was very difficult to go out into 31 the tundra for any snowmachines to go out and try to 32 harvest caribou. There were wolves close to the dump 33 site and some people caught some wolves close to the 34 dump site. 35 36 In January -- last fall we were mostly 37 getting whitefish around October 1st and there was some 38 caribou hunting last fall, but we usually -- if we 39 didn't get much, we usually wait for November, 40 December, January for the caribou, to hunt caribou 41 close by Buckland Hills. So now there is snow and 42 people 43 have been getting some caribou close to the shelter 44 cabin in Buckland just recently around January around 45 there and some of them are too far out on the hills 46 where there was no snow. 47 48 The caribou are small. They're not 49 really big like long time ago. You know, when you get 50





1 a big caribou like when I was growing up, they have 2 extremely large hip and lots of meat, but these are 3 small caribou. Anyway, we enjoy having the fresh 4 caribou like around January. That's when we were 5 almost running out of caribou. 6 7 I don't know about moose population, 8 but we don't normally favor any moose in the winter 9 while there is caribou here and there. They were not

10 close to Selawik, but they were close to Buckland on 11 those mountains up there. 12 13 Fishing under ice was good. A lot of 14 us have fresh whitefish pretty much up until December. 15 So we've enjoyed sheefish and small sheefish for 16 Thanksgiving and lots of whitefish or quaq or frozen 17 fish to be served at Thanksgiving. 18 19 There was just no snow. 20 21 There were some caribou. 22 23 Thank you 24 25 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you, Hannah. 26 27 Go ahead, Mike. 28 29 MR. KRAMER: Last fall it was pretty 30 hit and miss. A lot of people in the Kobuk I saw 31 didn't get caribou. They were going back and forth, up 32 and down river. I lucked out. I hit Onion Portage 33 right on the money. We did see quite a few caribou, 34 you know, crossing around my cabin up there in the 35 Park. 36 37 We heard a lot of issues regarding 38 bears. A lot of bears were taking caribou out of 39 boats. Mine was one of them. I see the State Board of 40 Game passed that proposal where people within Game 41 Management Unit 23 and other users, I believe, can 42 harvest two bears and sell the hides. That's a good 43 thing. That needs to happen on the Federal side, but I 44 doubt if they'll do that. So hopefully on the State 45 side it will really take super effect and really help 46 it out. 47 48 I was asked at the last Federal 49 Subsistence meeting to speak on behalf of Northwest 50





1 Arctic on Proposal 16-03 and that is the one the State 2 is trying to reopen Federal lands. For the State to 3 undermine the Federal government as to what we decide 4 and try and poke their way into reopening it, that's 5 just wrong. Why cause drama and controversy when we 6 could all work together and fix it. The State should 7 not be allowed to put proposals in like that because 8 they only think of the mighty dollar and they don't 9 think about the people.

10 11 The Park Service up there undermining 12 the 16-01 again when they did not want to patrol their 13 waterways. They left it open to transporters and 14 guides. The mighty dollar kicked in again. 15 16 You know, we're trying to preserve a 17 subsistence resource and for some entity to undermine 18 what we decide, we're trying to conserve what we want 19 and what we have. We're following the 20 laws of ANILCA. Who enforces ANILCA? Whoever it is 21 they better step up and start putting some serious 22 fines on these entities that undermine our rulings. 23 24 I was asked to speak at the Federal 25 Subsistence meeting on 16-03. Unanimously unsupported 26 16-03, unanimously, me and Enoch Mitchell. We gave our 27 two pieces at that meeting and it was unanimous and 28 that was an awesome feeling knowing that we had 29 enough support and enough people to be able to allow 30 the Federal Subsistence Board to be able to listen to 31 our concerns and be able to understand what we do and 32 what we feel, how we feel and our culture. 33 34 As of right now, I noticed the caribou 35 are passing through this area. Very good. They've 36 been passing right around Kotzebue. A lot of people 37 have been getting caribou. A lot of people have been 38 coming in with sleds full. Some people are coming in 39 with a few. I went out with my nieces and got a 40 couple. That was a good day. 41 42 There's quite a few moose around. I 43 haven't filled my RM880 yet. I've still got a little 44 bit of time to do it. 45 46 As for wolves, you know, I heard a lot 47 of people having problems with wolves. I was just up 48 in Kiana over the last weekend and saw some wolf tracks 49 not even a tenth of a mile below the village. Up above 50





1 the village they were like half a mile away. There 2 were like seven sets of tracks in the river running 3 around. 4 5 As for the bears, we need to step up 6 and take action on these bears because when they start 7 taking caribou out of people's boats, that's starting 8 to get ridiculous, especially in Federal lands and 9 Federal waters. You know, people should be able to

10 start shooting them things and chucking them in the 11 river as dead weights for their salmon nets or 12 something. Something needs to be done to be able to 13 protect the people and what they have. 14 15 That's all I have. 16 17 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you, Mike. Now 18 for me. Last fall harvest was pretty good for our area 19 and thanks to Kiana. They crossed at my camp at Aggie 20 and we saw a few cross and I told my boys there's not 21 enough that's crossing, just leave them be. We saw 22 only three bunches under 20 at my camp. 23 24 Otherwise I keep hearing from all the 25 villages -- they tell me when they see me at AC post 26 office not only from Kotzebue but from the villages 27 saying there's too many wolves and too many bears 28 bothering us, which is true. 29 30 When I was right above Kiana, I counted 31 over 40 and my boy said he counted over 50 out of the 32 same group we were trying to count. He's got better 33 eyesight than I do. That's how much in just one group. 34 They were that huge. There was three other boats 35 further up. They came down. Attamuk, you see those 36 wolves? I said yes. They wanted to see them with 37 binoculars. We were all waiting in the river. 38 39 Wolves are getting to be a problem and 40 I see and I read the regulations for the Federal a lot 41 and the Federal and the State will go against invasive 42 plants. Why they don't want to go under invasive 43 species and go after the wolves. We won't call them 44 wolves, we'll just call them invasives and say put a 45 bounty on them and let's go after them because they're 46 the ones that really make our caribou decline. 47 48 At our camp, again, about 100 feet 49 where I dock my boat there was a caribou only half 50





1 eaten. Another guy stopped by by that knoll, about 2 half a mile downriver from my camp. He said, Attamuk, 3 I started walking up and I go back because there was 4 only half-eaten caribou. I say you see what kill it? 5 He said I saw a couple of wolf tracks, but he said they 6 were vague. He said they weren't bear for sure. 7 8 So that's a problem we're having and I 9 think what we need to do as a board is ask the Federal

10 they name it invasive plants and they go after invasive 11 spe -- I think what we need to do is we need to quit 12 calling them wolves. We need to start calling them 13 some kind of invasive because we have to preserve our 14 caribou for future. 15 16 We Natives and the outsiders are 17 getting blamed for it and there's too many wolves. I 18 tell you, they were going up with trucks up the river 19 all the way to Noatak and every time I'm fishing and 20 when they see me, we say how many wolves in the river. 21 One time there was four different trucks. Can't be the 22 same wolf because I ask him, did you see this truck, he 23 said, no, I did not, but they see two or three wolves. 24 Three, four wolves. One guy said I saw seven. 25 26 At Kivalina you see it one day alone 27 just three hunters get, what, six wolves in one day 28 from different bunches. I mean that's how many wolves 29 we're starting to have now and I think something needs 30 to be done because not only our caribou are down, our 31 moose is down too. 32 33 So I think we need to start doing 34 something and we need to do it. I thank you again for 35 having confidence in me to be your Chair. 36 37 Is there anyone else like to add on to 38 their report from the board here. 39 40 MR. BALLOT: Mr. Chairman. 41 42 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, go ahead, 43 Percy. 44 45 MR. BALLOT: I was flying around a 46 couple of times and I never hear nobody say nothing 47 about caribou. In the springtime I've been seeing 48 tracks go straight across from Shishmaref to across 49 here and by Sealey Creek and stuff. I don't know if I 50





1 seen that all these years and they're crossing through 2 the ocean from Shishmaref to the islands. I seen wide 3 trails over the years, so that was an observation. I 4 just forgot to mention it. 5 6 We hunt in the fall time all the way to 7 Selawik according to the Selawik Trail and I forgot to 8 mention some guy saw a blue plane that keep going 9 around there. They go down there and wait overnight or

10 wait a long time and then the same plane comes around. 11 I don't know whose plane. I think they took a picture 12 of it about 10 miles up the Buckland River. I was 13 trying to get that before I came. I forgot it. 14 15 But that's the same plane that's been 16 -- you know, in Buckland in the fall time, to go five, 17 ten miles up you've got to have a jet boat or a small 18 motor in order to hunt caribou when they're first 19 coming after they pass. That plan seemed to be -- I 20 don't know whose plane that is. I was trying to get a 21 picture from those guys that took a picture of it. 22 23 Enforcement, you know, we hear about 24 people getting checked and making sure they've got 25 their licenses and stuff nowadays. I think there was 26 reports given. I don't know if there was any reports 27 back on whose plane or what happened or why. But I 28 wanted to bring that up because I forgot about it. 29 30 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thanks, Percy. Also 31 there was a request by one of the Council Members here 32 about the maps. What I think we need to do is have the 33 maps mailed to IRA and to the villages to say which is 34 the Federal lands because last year when there was 35 hardly any caribou a lot of people from upriver go to 36 toward Buckland and Deering to harvest their caribou. 37 That way they could see where they're at and they could 38 memorize and make it easier on them. That way they 39 won't wonder if I'm on Federal land or in the State 40 land. I think it needs to be every village has maps. 41 42 The other one is -- okay, I covered 43 that already. 44 45 Go ahead, Calvin. 46 47 MR. MOTO: I think when you look at the 48 map and the different types of land that we have, it's 49 confusing to some 50





1 people where does the State land end or begin, where 2 does the village land end or begin. How about the land 3 claims, another one. We've got land claims. If you 4 look at the map, Unit 23 on the Seward Peninsula under 5 Bering Land Bridge only goes so far, then you enter 6 Unit 22. 7 8 Our people used to hunt around 9 Espenberg, but now that's in Unit 22. So is it --

10 where it's legal for them to hunt because it's still 11 Federal land, but different unit, you know. When you 12 look at these different types of -- these sheets right 13 here. Some people have to be almost like a lawyer to 14 figure out some things, you know. I tried to explain 15 this as well as I could on what the difference between 16 Federal and State laws are and land claims and village 17 claims land. 18 19 So this is something we discuss 20 sometimes, you know, because I try to attend as many 21 IRA meetings as I could when I'm in Deering. 22 23 Thank you. 24 25 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thanks, 26 Calvin. I had a request for a report from one of the 27 Council Members on climate change effects on 28 subsistence users. We already went through the agenda. 29 Is there a way we could amend the agenda and add it on 30 later if we have the time. A request for effects of 31 climate change on subsistence users and what can we do. 32 33 Also the other one is Vern asked law 34 enforcement training in the villages to better report 35 or respond to violation on hunting. I think we need to 36 do that and I think it needs to be done in the 37 villages. 38 39 Yeah, go ahead, Zach. 40 41 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 42 Just for point of order regarding the first item 43 addressing the effects of climate change on subsistence 44 resources and what can be done. Presently we don't 45 have someone to my knowledge on the phone or the 46 audience that can speak to those items. However, at 47 the will of the Council, we could request that for our 48 fall meeting as a report item if that's the will of the 49 Council. 50





1 Secondly, regarding the request for law 2 enforcement training regarding the concerns raised by 3 Member Cleveland, I'm unclear as well whether it's the 4 will of the Council to request that training through 5 either a combination of law enforcement and/or tribal 6 realty specialists and if that's the will of the 7 Council, we could certainly move that forward. 8 9 Thank you, Mr. Chair.

10 11 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Yeah, we could 12 ask for the agenda be -- climate change we added on our 13 fall meeting and the training enforcement. I think it 14 would have to be by someone from the Federal. 15 16 Go ahead, Louie. 17 18 MR. COMMACK: Yes, thank you. I'm just 19 wondering if there's any proposals on predator control 20 within Alaska or if we, as this commission, would start 21 thinking about doing a proposal on predators. It's 22 become a huge problem in Upper Kobuk. The wolf 23 population is so huge now and we can't control the 24 population. So my thought is when do we start talking 25 about putting out a proposal that might help our 26 villages because of the predator problems we're having, 27 declining population of caribou and moose and whatever. 28 29 So that's my thought. 30 31 Thank you. 32 33 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, you're right, 34 except one thing. On Federal lands, as far as I know, 35 for all these meetings we had, the Federal can't go 36 after for predator control. That's why I say I think 37 we need to redo it and visit it under invasive species. 38 39 Go ahead, Zach. 40 41 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 42 We do have a sign-on letter addressing Member Commack's 43 point and we'll be addressing that tomorrow briefly. 44 So I just wanted to make sure that, one, there's 45 recognition that the Council's concerns regarding 46 predator issues as expressed by Member Commack and 47 Member Kramer are heard and that we'll be providing 48 some more detail on that sign-on letter tomorrow. 49 50





1 Just for point of order, I'm wondering 2 if one of our leadership team members could address 3 whether or not a motion would be needed to include on 4 the agenda for our fall meeting the issues of the 5 climate change report and also the law enforcement 6 training issue. Is a motion needed or can we just 7 proceed as is? 8 9 Thank you, Mr. Chair.

10 11 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, go ahead. 12 13 MS. HARDIN: For the record, Jennifer 14 Hardin at OSM. You don't need a motion for that. When 15 you start working on your agenda for your next meeting, 16 just add that to your agenda. 17 18 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you. 19 20 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, thank you. 21 22 Go ahead, Vern. 23 24 MR. CLEVELAND: Yeah, but we shouldn't 25 use climate change for an excuse. It's just climate 26 change. We shouldn't use it for anything. 27 28 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, you're right, 29 Vern. We've got to live with Mother Nature as it's 30 given to us day by day. 31 32 Go ahead, Percy. 33 34 MR. BALLOT: Yeah, Mr. Chairman. You 35 know, I'm all for education and do that, but I don't 36 think we'd be out of order to ask for a report with 37 wildlife enforcement to give us a report on their 38 activities or findings or whatever they can share when 39 they do something because I know they're out there. 40 They're out there every so often. They've still got to 41 give a report to somebody on their activities. We're 42 starting to see coyotes too now in Buckland and we 43 haven't seen them before. But for wolves, we got a lot 44 of wolf hunters in Buckland. Send them to Buckland. 45 We'll gladly hunt them 46 47 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you, 48 Percy. I know Buckland is known to harvest a lot of 49 wolves. So does Kivalina. Chase them that way. 50





1 Go ahead, Calvin. Make this short. We 2 need to go on a short break pretty quick. 3 4 MR. MOTO: Okay. One of the things 5 that are coming up in a lot of tribal meetings is what 6 happened to tribal law. How come we don't have a voice 7 on how we can hunt and how we could get food for 8 ourselves. A lot of -- some tribal councils are 9 starting to say they should have a voice in decisions

10 on how we should hunt. Attending a meeting one time 11 and somebody told me one time maybe you guys better go 12 back to using bows and arrows and skin boats. I told 13 him, well, who brought the rifle here. Not us. You 14 brought the rifles. 15 16 I say if you want to think about that, 17 go far back. I said, well, your ancestors were 18 subsistence hunters. Maybe you guys better start using 19 bow and arrow and learn how to use bow and arrow too. 20 So, you know, the argument goes back and forth. But 21 caribou hunting and muskox and moose, this is something 22 we've done all our lives, you know. If we didn't go 23 out and hunt and subsist, I wouldn't be here. You 24 wouldn't be here. Thank Heaven for subsistence. 25 26 That's all I have to say. 27 28 Thank you. 29 30 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead, Percy. 31 32 MR. BALLOT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 33 Enoch and myself when we were at the meeting a couple 34 years ago and we started bringing out the caribou stuff 35 and we brought up bounties and stuff like that on State 36 and Federal lands and the information they gave us. 37 But maybe we need to re-look at it again because if I 38 understand tribes can put a bounty on there. I brought 39 that up to our council, but we just didn't have quite 40 the money we needed to offer a good bounty. Maybe it's 41 something we want to discuss again for the years coming 42 up. 43 44 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Under Percy's 45 request I'm going to ask the Staff to check and see 46 what the IRAs could do on bounties for whatever they 47 want to do in the villages. For your information, 48 Percy, we all know they had a bounty on seals one time, 49 but that was the State of Alaska. I did research on 50





1 it. It was never the Federal. It was the State that 2 did it, oh, close to 60 years ago. 3 4 Go ahead, Vern. 5 6 MR. CLEVELAND: Is there a bounty for 7 Bigfoot? 8 9 (Laughter)

10 11 MR. CLEVELAND: I mean no joke. He was 12 from here to that guy, that close, and he was dark. 13 14 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: I know it. I know 15 what you're talking about, Vern. I got calls from 16 Noorvik galore when I was up there that they were 17 seeing even one with young ones, kids. They spotted by 18 more than one person, different boats. So it's not 19 funny. We see it. And, for your information, I didn't 20 want to say this, there was one by my camp. That 21 sucker had to be seven feet tall and I wasn't the only 22 one that saw it. Another guy from Kotzebue saw it. 23 He's lucky I didn't have my phone. I didn't have had a 24 camera. 25 26 Vern, you take the picture you'll be a 27 millionaire. 28 29 MR. CLEVELAND: Yeah, I know. 30 31 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. I think we 32 need to go on a short break. Short break, 15 minutes. 33 I don't have a clock in front of me, so 15 minutes from 34 now. 35 36 (Off record) 37 38 (On record) 39 40 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. We'll get the 41 meeting back to order. We'll wait for our coordinator 42 and we've got one more Council Member to come and we'll 43 start the meeting. Okay, I see them. We'll call the 44 meeting back to order at 10:40. 45 46 Zach requested that I had the old 47 agenda and now I've got the new one. Zach, can you 48 read the changes on the agenda and there's something 49 you wanted to add on. Before we make changes I need 50





1 approval from the guy that -- to accept the minutes as 2 written -- or the agenda, I'm sorry. 3 4 MR. BALLOT: Mr. Chairman. For 5 clarification, I had the new agenda and that was my 6 motion to approve this new agenda with Louie's addition 7 of legislative updates. So I think it's all in order. 8 He just wanted to clarify what my intention was and my 9 intention was to approve with the red-liners and add on

10 Louie's request. 11 12 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, thank you. I 13 understand what you're saying, but I had the old one. 14 Okay. Go ahead, Zach. 15 16 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 17 Addressing Member Ballot's approval of the amended 18 agenda, that is the agenda that was available at the 19 front table when folks walked in this morning. At the 20 top of the page the dates read March 1 and 2 and when 21 you flip the sheet over, you'll notice at the top of 22 the page item 10(a) revisions to draft MOU with the 23 State has been struck from the agenda. 24 25 Item (b) will be addressed by the DFO. 26 27 Item 11(a) is review of moose and 28 caribou data by Saito and Robison. 29 30 Item (b) is call for proposals by Maas. 31 32 Item (c) is approving the FY2016 annual 33 report by the DFO. 34 35 Item (d) Special Action WSA 1702 by 36 Ream. 37 38 Item 11(e) U.S. Fish and Wildlife 39 Service Draft Alaska Native Relations Policy by Hardin 40 (supplemental). 41 42 Item (f) SRC appointments (appointments 43 by Atkinson). 44 45 Changes to item number 12. ADF&G will 46 be by Saito. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and 47 correct me if I'm mistaken, by Georgette. Is that 48 correct, Susan? 49 50





1 MS. GEORGETTE: Yes. 2 3 MR. STEVENSON: Under Park Service that 4 will be Atkinson, Robison, Okada and Watson. I should 5 also add to that Lukin (supplemental). 6 7 BLM, I don't know if we have a 8 specialist from their staff office calling in from 9 Grants Pass, Oregon or not. Pardon me. We do?

10 11 MR. SPARKS: A local from Nome. 12 13 MR. STEVENSON: Pardon me. I didn't 14 get your name. I'm sorry. 15 16 MR. SPARKS: Thomas Sparks. 17 18 MR. STEVENSON: Good morning, Mr. 19 Sparks. Thank you. So Mr. Sparks and Mr. Seppi will 20 be addressing BLM. 21 22 OSM, I would like the agenda or the 23 minutes reflect that that will be delivered by Hardin, 24 who stepped out for just a moment. 25 26 Item 12(a) update and revisions to 27 draft MOU with the State Hardin will also be 28 addressing. 29 30 Then regarding the FRMP, Fisheries 31 Resource Monitoring Program, that will be Scanlon. 32 33 That reflects the modifications to the 34 agenda. 35 36 Additionally, Mr. Chair, turning back 37 to the front page under item 9, public and tribal 38 comments on non-agenda items, Ms. Hardin will also 39 address that item as well briefly. I understand we 40 don't fully yet know the scope of what those changes 41 will be given the change in administration, but 42 Ms. Hardin will speak in a little bit more detail to 43 that item again under 9(a) legislative update. 44 45 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 46 47 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you. 48 49 Go ahead, Hannah. 50





1 MS. LOON: (In Inupiaq) 2 3 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: We'll worry about 4 lunch in an hour and 15 minutes. Okay. We'll go back 5 to our agenda on number 9, public and tribal comments. 6 Thank you. Who's next? Zach, I think you need to 7 trade chairs with Michael there so we could be a little 8 bit closer. 9

10 Okay. Who's next on the agenda. We're 11 done with our musical chairs. 12 13 Go ahead, Zach. 14 15 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 16 That brings us through agenda number 9, which is public 17 and tribal comments on non-agenda items. Just for 18 clarification, this is an opportunity for members of 19 the public or tribal representatives to address items 20 that are not presently reflected on the agenda. 21 22 One item we addressed a moment ago was 23 the legislative update. I've been corrected since 24 mentioning that a moment ago. That item will be 25 addressed not by Ms. Hardin but my Mr. Peltola. 26 27 Then I don't have at this point any 28 other items to be added to item number 9, but perhaps 29 we could make a call and see if there's any additions 30 that folks would like to add, Mr. Chair. 31 32 Thank you. 33 34 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you. Do 35 we have people in the radio land right now? No? Okay. 36 Thank you. Was Gene going to give a report, Zach? 37 38 MR. STEVENSON: Yes, Mr. Chair. I 39 believe he stepped out for just a moment. 40 41 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, go ahead. 42 43 MS. HARDIN: Through the Chair. Mr. 44 Chair, Gene had to step out for just one moment, but 45 he'll be happy to report what little information we do 46 have at this point on the legislative transition. 47 48 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you. 49 We'll go back to Gene when he comes back in. So we'll 50





1 go to number 10 or is there anything else on number 9? 2 Oh, it was going to be our legislature, right? Yeah, 3 go ahead. 4 5 MR. NELSON: Hi. Good afternoon -- or 6 good morning. My name is Charlie Nelson, Tribal 7 Government Services Administrator for Maniilaq 8 Association. Just a follow up to the conversation 9 regarding the maps and the education for the tribal

10 IRAs. 11 12 In past meetings with different working 13 groups, both State and Federal agencies, we had 14 discussed the importance of including local land marks 15 on the maps to be able to educate the various tribal 16 members and residents in the communities about the 17 boundaries between State and Federal land. I think 18 that's critical partly because you board members are 19 fully aware of how we use landmarks and not lines on a 20 map. So I would ask that this commission advocate for 21 the inclusion of those. 22 23 Thank you. 24 25 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thanks, Charlie. 26 I'll get back to you later. 27 28 MS. ATKINSON: Hi. 29 30 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Could you get up to a 31 mic, please. 32 33 MS. ATKINSON: This is Hannah Atkinson, 34 cultural anthropologist at the Park Service. I just 35 wanted to ask a follow-up question on what Charlie was 36 saying. I've heard from some people, while we're on 37 the topic of maps, that satellite imagery is helpful to 38 people who spend a lot of time out on the land to 39 recognize things more than the USGS topo maps. So if 40 there was any comments on that, I'd appreciate that and 41 write it down. 42 43 I'm writing everything down about how 44 maps can better serve communities. So we can keep that 45 in mind and come up with some ways to come up with 46 better distribution of maps. 47 48 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you. 49 50





1 Go ahead, Zach. 2 3 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 4 Addressing the questions or the points that Charlie and 5 Hannah had mentioned just a moment ago, I'm aware that 6 through the Northwest Arctic Borough Subsistence 7 Mapping Project, Inuunialiqput Ililugu Nunannuan, 8 approximately 2,000 Inupiaq place names and traditional 9 land features have been documented incorporating

10 information that was provided both through the 11 participation of the Regional Elders Council, 12 interviews with traditional knowledge holders in seven 13 coastal communities in the Northwest Arctic Borough, as 14 well as using data that was provided through Susan 15 Georgette and her team at the Selawik National Wildlife 16 Refuge. 17 18 Those maps are available in 1:65,000 19 and 1:500,000 Mercator projection scale using both 20 high-resolution satellite imagery, topographic maps 21 useful for search and rescue and overland navigation, 22 as well as aerial maps for planning aerial flights. 23 24 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 25 26 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you. Since you 27 mentioned it, Charlie, I'm going to ask Zach to mail to 28 every village, tribal in the city to make these maps 29 available. I know they've been doing it for a while, 30 but it won't hurt to refresh everyone's mind in the 31 village. 32 33 Go ahead, Louie. 34 35 MR. COMMACK: Thank you. Maybe this go 36 to Charlie. You did mention landmarks. I'm curious 37 about the trails between intervillage. Some of these 38 trails are over 100 years old. Are these going to be 39 included in the maps that these trails are -- they've 40 been used over 100 years by our people? 41 42 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Louie, for your -- I 43 accessed that on the computer and, yes, they are in 44 there through Northwest Arctic Borough. The maps like 45 to Noatak, Kivalina and, you know, the one that go over 46 that to Selawik to Ambler and Shungnak. I've seen them 47 there. 48 49 The only thing I can recommend in the 50





1 villages if you want to do -- I think what the IRAs 2 need to do is download it and available to transfer to 3 someone's GPS. You know, that way they won't get lost 4 and stuff. They do get lost. Is that what you're 5 asking? 6 7 MR. COMMACK: Yeah, the point I'm 8 trying to make is some of these trails go over Park 9 Service, some of these trails go over Refuge or lakes,

10 rivers. They've been used by our people for hundreds 11 of years. I just want to make a point that we will 12 continue to use these trails or whatever you want to 13 call them, roads, trails, landmark issues. 14 15 Thank you. 16 17 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thanks, Louie. It's 18 important, but for your information, someone correct me 19 if I'm wrong, I know they have rights or old trail 20 marks have rights because they've been used for 21 centuries to come. I know they used from way back and 22 they're going to still be used today and I know they 23 have a right to -- I know what you're trying to say. 24 25 Okay. We need to get back to the 26 agenda. Is Saito back yet, no, not Saito, but Peltola. 27 28 Go ahead, Zach. 29 30 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 31 We also during the break had discussed one minor change 32 to the agenda and that was on the modified agenda item, 33 I believe on item 10 now, is that correct, Mr. Chair? 34 35 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yes. 36 37 MR. STEVENSON: Okay. Thank you. 38 Regarding item number 10(b) the request was to review 39 the draft correspondence tomorrow. We have five 40 correspondence letters requiring signature and a 41 request to -- was it to review those items and to read 42 them into the record tomorrow when they've been signed 43 by the Chair. I believe we would need a motion of 44 approval to move item 10(b) review of draft 45 correspondence tomorrow if that's acceptable to the 46 Council. 47 48 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 49 50





1 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay, Zach. So 2 you're asking it to be moved and I need approval to 3 approve the agenda and a second. And I need to know 4 just from you by not just tomorrow. I need 11(b) or 5 what, under what you want to move them to? 6 7 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 8 Yes, the intention would be to move item 10(b) review 9 of draft RAC correspondence to item 11 New Business and

10 that would be item 11(g) review of draft correspondence 11 letters tomorrow. 12 13 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 14 15 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you. So with 16 the approval -- whoever did the minutes -- I'm sorry, 17 the agenda. I'm trying to get mixed up here. And the 18 second, to add this from number 10 to 11(g) with your 19 approval, please. 20 21 MR. BALLOT: Mr. Chairman. 22 23 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead, Percy. 24 25 MR. BALLOT: We are already on -- 26 almost there under new business and we're going to be 27 done with it, so I'll just move to table the item (b) 28 at the call of the Chair and then we can do that when 29 you're ready. 30 31 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you, 32 Percy. 33 34 You had something, Hannah. 35 36 MS. LOON: I was going to make a motion 37 to that one to be very formal, but I guess Percy said 38 you could do that as Chairman. 39 40 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you. Correct 41 me if I'm wrong, Zach. Can I do it as the Chairman for 42 11(g)? I'm just trying to make sure everything is, 43 like Hannah say, is formal. 44 45 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 46 Addressing Member Ballot's point too, it sounds like if 47 we get to that item this morning because we're moving 48 along at a good pace, perhaps covering that tomorrow. 49 Is that correct, Member Ballot? 50





1 MR. BALLOT: Yes. You said we're going 2 to go up to item 11, new business, tomorrow. We're 3 almost already there. We're not halfway there, so I 4 just want to put it -- if you want to do it tomorrow, 5 you do it at the call of the Chair. 6 7 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: No, I think we'll 8 just continue. Zach, we'll just keep on continuing. 9 Whenever 10 comes around we'll get to that so they're

10 signed, okay. 11 12 Go ahead, Vern. 13 14 MR. CLEVELAND: Yeah, the meeting's 15 been already approved, the minute meetings. In order 16 to take back, whoever made the motion should get back 17 to it and whoever seconded it to re-approve. You've 18 got to add onto this. This meeting has already been 19 approved. We can't change it until you get back. 20 Thank you. 21 22 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, go ahead, 23 Hannah. 24 25 MS. LOON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 26 27 MR. BALLOT: We're not changing the 28 agenda, we're just changing the timing of the topic. 29 30 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Right. 31 32 MS. LOON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I 33 just wanted to address that there are things beyond our 34 control to do them, you know, signing and 35 presentations. So it's good if you are flexible. If 36 the person missed the jet, then you can be flexible, 37 period. 38 39 Thank you. 40 41 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thanks, 42 Hannah. Is Peltola back yet? No. Okay. We will go 43 to new business. Review of moose and caribou data, 44 Saito and Robison. 45 46 MR. STEVENSON: Mr. Chair. 47 48 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead, Zach. 49 50





1 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 2 As Mr. Saito and Ms. Robison are getting the computer 3 set up, the request was to provide an update for our 4 RAC and for our members of the audience on the latest 5 information that we have available for both moose and 6 caribou before moving into item 11(b), which is call 7 for wildlife proposals. The thought was that this 8 information could help to inform that discussion on 9 wildlife proposals. So just to provide that background

10 for folks. 11 12 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 13 14 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: So you want to move 15 (b) to..... 16 17 MR. STEVENSON: No, no. We're fine on 18 the agenda. I was just giving some information on why 19 we're addressing the data, the moose and caribou data, 20 before getting into proposals. 21 22 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay, Zach. For your 23 information, if everything is fine, don't mention it. 24 Don't get us mixed up more than we are right now. I'm 25 going to ask for you only one time. Just leave us be. 26 27 So we'll get back to Saito and Robison. 28 29 Is their computer ready? 30 31 MS. ROBISON: It's thinking about it. 32 33 (Pause) 34 35 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Since everybody is on 36 a break and they're waiting for the computer, I think 37 what we need to do when we go on lunch we need to move 38 our tables on this side and the presenter the other to 39 make it easier so the Board members don't have to 40 scramble and move around. We need to get organized 41 here the correct way. 42 43 Go ahead if you're ready. 44 45 MR. SAITO: Thank you, Mr. Chair. My 46 name is Brandon Saito. I'm the area biologist for Fish 47 and Game here in Kotzebue. I'm just going to go over 48 some of the moose data. A lot of the board members 49 already have heard all this data, so this is just kind 50





1 of a recap. 2 3 I guess the first thing I'd like to 4 talk about is at the January Board of Game meeting for 5 State regulations a few things have changed. Before we 6 used to have the RM880 where we could harvest cows 7 November through December 31st, antlerless cows. The 8 State changed that and now it's just only bulls on 9 State lands. So on State-managed lands, that includes

10 any Native lands that are on private lands and BLM 11 lands, it's only bulls from September through December 12 31st and it's antlered bulls. 13 14 That's one of the steps we took to 15 rebuild the population, is to stop hunting cows. The 16 number of cows that were harvested were pretty low. 17 Reported harvest was averaging about 13 per year, but 18 in recent years we were starting to see an increase in 19 cows that were being harvested. So that was one of the 20 firsts steps we took was to completely cut out the cows 21 on State land. 22 23 Other things we did at the Board of 24 Game, as was mentioned before, we changed the bear bag 25 limit to two bears per year for residents of Alaska. 26 They instituting bear baiting for brown and black 27 bears. And they extended the non-resident bear season 28 from September to August to spread out the season so it 29 would be less user conflicts during September 30 timeframe. So that's a recap of the regulations. 31 32 We have three different moose hunts. 33 We have the RM880 permit that's only available from 34 June to July 15th time period and that's good September 35 through December 31st hunt. And then you can use that 36 same permit on Federal land all the way up until March 37 31st. 38 39 Then we have the general moose hunt, 40 which is from September 1st through the 20th. That's 41 on State land. That's for a bull that's larger than 50 42 inches. Then there's the non-resident hunts. They're 43 drawing hunts only. This is the first year that we've 44 closed them, so there's no non-resident hunting this 45 year for moose. So those are some pretty significant 46 changes we did to moose harvest regulations this year 47 on the State side. 48 49 We have a harvest objective of 210 to 50





1 920 moose and we have the amount necessary for 2 subsistence, the ANS, of 325 to 400 moose per year. 3 These numbers become important when we start to cross 4 these numbers of harvestable surplus. When we look at 5 the population, we look at the number of moose that can 6 be harvested sustainably. We'll go over where we are 7 close to the ANS in the next few slides, but that's why 8 they're important. 9

10 If we cross that barrier of -- if we go 11 below 400 moose, that's when we start looking into Tier 12 I harvesting. If we get below that 325, that's when we 13 go into Tier II. Tier II you guys would be familiar 14 with the muskox permitting. 15 16 So just an overview of the density. 17 This is a heat map. The higher the density, the darker 18 the area. These are split up by the survey units. 19 This is a really big unit, Unit 23. We have the Lower 20 Noatak, Upper Kobuk, Lower Kobuk, Selawik and Northern 21 Seward Peninsula. We can only survey these areas -- we 22 survey one of them every year. 23 24 So last year we did the Selawik and 25 this year we're doing the Lower Kobuk. Previously we 26 did the Upper Kobuk and Northern Seward Peninsula. 27 Right now you can see the darkest area is the Lower 28 Kobuk. That's the highest density. Selawik recently 29 changed. It was the second highest density and now 30 it's on par with the Upper Kobuk and Northern Seward 31 Peninsula. 32 33 This is another density map. This is 34 calf recruitment in the springtime. You can see the 35 highest areas again are the Lower Kobuk and the Selawik 36 and the Northern Seward Peninsula. One good recent 37 change was the Selawik and the Lower Kobuk we've done 38 these composition surveys and we do these surveys with 39 the Park Service and Fish and Wildlife, so we have a 40 lot of cooperators, so it's not just Fish and Game. 41 42 Go ahead, Percy. 43 44 MR. BALLOT: I was just wondering, that 45 boundary there all the way from Northern Seward 46 Peninsula is that our real Unit 23 boundaries? I 47 thought it was kind of farther more north. 48 49 MR. SAITO: Yeah, these are the survey 50





1 boundaries, but, yeah, it's generally Unit 23. 2 3 MR. BALLOT: Maybe I didn't understand. 4 Did you say that's our whole Unit 23 boundaries going 5 down that way? 6 7 MR. SAITO: Yeah. 8 9 MR. BALLOT: It looks better right

10 there. 11 12 MR. SAITO: What we generally look to 13 for these -- this is the northern western extent of the 14 moose range. They've only been around this area for 15 probably the last 80 years or so. What we look for in 16 these herds or these populations is to get about 18 17 calves per 100 cows for them to stabilize in 18 population. What we've been seeing is a decrease and 19 we've seen low calf recruitment in all these areas. 20 21 This comes to Selawik. This is our 22 most recent abundance survey. This was completed in 23 2016. Also previously in 2011 and 2007. What we've 24 seen is this is a pretty startling realization for us. 25 We've had a 12 percent decline annually from 2011 to 26 2016. So 12 percent of the population is being reduced 27 every year, compounded. So that's about a 46 percent 28 decrease from 2011 to 2016. Almost half the population 29 was lost during those five years. 30 31 This isn't just in the Selawik. In 32 other areas that we haven't surveyed for a while, 33 there's no area that hasn't seen a decline. The Lower 34 Noatak had an 8 percent decrease annually from 2008 to 35 2013. The Lower Kobuk had a 5 percent decrease 36 annually from 2006 to 2012. Upper Kobuk was a 4 37 percent decrease from 2006..... 38 39 MS. ROBISON: Can you stop for a 40 second? 41 42 MR. SAITO: Yes. 43 44 MS. ROBISON: Apparently the phones got 45 muted and people are having -- I just got some 46 information that people can't hear on the phone. 47 48 REPORTER: I can dial back in. 49 50





1 MS. ROBISON: Okay. Let's try that. 2 3 Sorry to interrupt. 4 5 MR. SAITO: Sure. And for you guys on 6 the Seward Peninsula it was a 7 percent annual decrease 7 from 2009 to 2015. The Northern Seward Peninsula is 8 kind of an interesting area because, as Percy was 9 saying, it was closed to non-residents. It has been

10 closed for a long time. That was one of the only areas 11 in Unit 23 that didn't have any moose hunting and it 12 was still declining at a 7 percent annual decline. 13 14 (Teleconference operator) 15 16 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Sorry for that. Go 17 ahead. Keep going. 18 19 MR. SAITO: Okay. For the people on 20 the phone, my name is Brandon Saito. I'm the area 21 biologist for Unit 23 based here in Kotzebue for Fish 22 and Game. 23 24 So currently the intensive management 25 population objective is 3,500 to 9,200 moose. That's 26 our objective for this area. Currently our population 27 estimate based on all of our surveys is 7,500 moose. 28 Our harvest objective is a 6 percent objective, which 29 is 210 to 552. That's based on the intensive 30 management population objective. Currently our 31 harvestable surplus based on all of our surveys would 32 be 450. 33 34 As we talked about earlier, our amount 35 necessary for subsistence is 325 to 400 and our harvest 36 is about 300 moose per year. We say about because a 37 lot of our information comes from the subsistence 38 harvest surveys, the household surveys, because we only 39 get about 150 moose that are actually reported through 40 the permit system. 41 42 Where this comes in to play is down 43 here in the yellow we have the projected population 44 estimate. As I said, we only get to these survey units 45 every few years. It's actually averaging about three 46 to five years for some of these areas. So if these 47 areas that we haven't surveyed -- like the next area 48 we're going to survey is Lower Kobuk. We haven't 49 surveyed that since 2012. Like we said with the 50





1 Selawik area, which is directly below the Lower Kobuk, 2 it declined almost 46 percent from 2011 to 2016. We're 3 talking about the Lower Kobuk, which hasn't been 4 surveyed since 2012. 5 6 So if all these other areas have 7 declined at a similar rate to the Selawik since they 8 were last surveyed, we could be looking at a population 9 of about 5,500. On the upper end of that estimate, if

10 they declined at a slower rate, we could be looking at 11 7,000 or less. And that would put our projected 12 harvestable surplus at 330 to 420 and that would be 13 well within the ANS and almost passing the lower end of 14 the ANS. 15 16 So that was one of the major reasons 17 why the State went ahead and changed the regulations to 18 closing the cow season on State land and cutting out 19 non-residents. 20 21 This is a chart of the participation in 22 harvest. This is from harvest reports. You can see 23 it's been relatively stable since the late '70s. The 24 number of hunters has slightly increased in the last 20 25 years, but the number of harvests have remained fairly 26 stable. 27 28 This is a chart of the hunter effort by 29 residency. The top blue bar is Unit 23 residents, 30 people that live within our region. The purple middle 31 is Alaska residents from outside of Unit 23 and then 32 the green is non-residents. You can see in about 2004 33 on this chart, right there in about 2004, that's when 34 the RM880 was instituted. 35 36 You can see how the number of 37 non-residents really dropped down. The number of 38 visiting -- outside of Unit 23 residents dropped down 39 and Unit 23 residents increased and has been fairly 40 stable since then. So that was the major institution 41 of that RM880 and we plan to keep that hunt. That was 42 a good thing. Now you can see the non-residents -- in 43 the last few years we've been dropping non-residents 25 44 percent each year and you can see that slow decline and 45 the last year hasn't been presented yet and that will 46 go down to zero. 47 48 This is just a graph of the harvest by 49 drainage. You can see up here the Kobuk receives the 50





1 most harvest and then all the other areas, the Noatak 2 comes in second, the Selawik and then the Northern 3 Seward Peninsula and Wulik/Kivalina is down on the 4 bottom. 5 6 Just in summary, the State season was 7 amended to no cows, no 8 antlerless moose. The season used to be from November 9 1st through December 31st to have antlerless moose on

10 that RM880 permit, but now it's September through 11 December 31st for one antlered bull on that RM880 12 permit. Non-resident moose hunting has been closed in 13 Unit 23. We've had a unit-wide declining trend and 14 with our long survey intervals we could be farther into 15 our ANS. 16 17 I guess Hillary will be talking a 18 little bit more about the susceptibility of cows and 19 cow harvest. Then I guess I would just like to point 20 out that the Federal season is from August 1st through 21 March 31st. 22 23 That's the conclusion of the report if 24 you guys have any questions. 25 26 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, go ahead, 27 Louie. 28 29 MR. COMMACK: Thank you. When you go 30 back to the number 150 the reported moose harvest, is 31 that only in the fall? 274, 150 reported. 32 33 MR. SAITO: Yeah, that's the majority 34 of the harvest is reported from the fall. 35 36 MR. COMMACK: Okay. And there's no 37 reporting on the wintertime hunt. 38 39 MR. SAITO: There is reporting. It's 40 just the majority of the harvest is in the fall. 41 42 MR. COMMACK: So when we take a look at 43 the number 150, it's not exactly true because there's 44 no reporting on the wintertime. 45 46 MR. SAITO: There is reporting. 47 48 MR. COMMACK: There is reporting. 49 50





1 MR. SAITO: Anybody that hunts even on 2 Federal land still needs to have a State permit. So 3 it's either the green general moose harvest ticket or 4 the white RM880 moose harvest ticket and those are both 5 required to report. We do get -- so for the people 6 that do pick up the permits, we've been having 95 7 percent reporting rates for those because we make a 8 huge effort to make sure that we call everybody, get it 9 out on the radio so we don't leave people behind

10 because if people don't report, they could lose their 11 ability to use that same permit the next year and we 12 don't want to do that to anybody. So we make a huge 13 effort to give everybody a call that has a permit. 14 15 MR. COMMACK: I'm just curious about 16 that. 17 18 MR. BALLOT: So what you're saying, 19 that 274 left over, they just reported that they didn't 20 get nothing. 21 22 MR. SAITO: No. What we do is we 23 combine the subsistence household surveys when the 24 Subsistence Division goes into each village and then 25 they survey like 95 percent of the households and they 26 figure out how many moose were actually killed in that 27 area. So like in the Selawik in 2011 there was 28 reported like 50 moose that were harvested in that area 29 for the subsistence household surveys and we only got 30 five reports back from that area. So that's just 31 people aren't getting permits sometimes. 32 33 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you. I 34 have a question. You said there was a decline from the 35 outsiders coming in a few years back. Yeah, right 36 there, the green one. This happened after you have to 37 come to town to get a permit to harvest, to hunt moose? 38 39 MR. SAITO: That's also when we 40 instituted the drawing system as well for Nome 41 residents. But, yes, for Alaska residents if they 42 wanted, we instituted the RM880. They could still get 43 a general moose harvest ticket, the green one, and hunt 44 up here, but they'd be restricted to that 50 inches or 45 larger or four brow tines on each side restriction from 46 September 1st through September 20th. 47 48 If they get that RM880, which you have 49 to be in Kotzebue before the hunting season, that was 50





1 the restriction to get any bull and have a longer 2 season and you'd have to get that permit. That's when 3 those things were instituted. The drawing, which 4 dropped the green down and then the RM880 is what 5 dropped down. 6 7 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you. 8 Are you done? 9

10 MR. SAITO: Yes. 11 12 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Before we continue, 13 while our minds are fresh into this moose proposal 36, 14 I think we need to address the proposal right now, the 15 board, before we get to caribou otherwise that way we 16 won't get mixed up. Let's do one thing at a time. The 17 moose first and you're going to give a report and when 18 the time to get caribou, we'll worry about the caribou. 19 20 MR. SAITO: Okay. Hillary is going to 21 finish the report. 22 23 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: On the moose. 24 25 MR. SAITO: On the moose. 26 27 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. 28 29 MR. SAITO: She has a little bit more 30 to do. 31 32 MS. ROBISON: I had some things to ask 33 Brandon too. One was we did a -- the Fish and Game and 34 National Park Service collaborated on a composition 35 survey of the Lower Kobuk and Squirrel River areas. 36 That survey looks at the number of bulls and the number 37 of cows and the number of yearlings to see what the 38 makeup of the population is and we saw about 980 moose. 39 40 MR. SAITO: Uh-huh. 41 42 MS. ROBISON: And I'm curious, based on 43 that observation, what are your thoughts about -- was 44 that encouraging or not encouraging or does that give 45 us insight on what we might expect to see when we do 46 our survey in April. We're doing a count survey. 47 We're collaborating again on a count survey of this 48 population in early April 49 50





1 MR. SAITO: Thank you, Hillary. So we 2 did do this Lower Kobuk area here this fall and we were 3 able to count 1,000 moose. This was strictly for 4 composition. We're just looking at the bull:cow 5 ratios, calf:cow ratios and it doesn't have anything to 6 do with abundance, the actual number of moose that are 7 in that unit. 8 9 Previously I think there were about

10 2,500 moose here in 2012 just in this Lower Kobuk area. 11 What we normally find is about 40 percent of the moose 12 when we do the composition surveys. That's kind of 13 what we shoot for. So we found almost 1,000 moose when 14 we did our composition survey. If that holds true that 15 we were actually counting about 40 percent, then we 16 wouldn't have seen such steep declines as we saw in the 17 Selawik. 18 19 Again, that's not the abundance survey. 20 We'll be doing that abundance survey here shortly in 21 the next month or so. But it did not look as bad in 22 the Lower Kobuk as it did in the Selawik. 23 24 Also the calf numbers did seem to come 25 up. They went from like 14 calves per 100 adults to 26 17, so that was a good increase, but still not our goal 27 of about 18 or more to become stable. 28 29 MS. ROBISON: I have one more question 30 for you. On the graph where you were showing reported 31 harvest in the different drainages, was that reported 32 harvest as from the harvest tickets or does that 33 include from the household surveys as well? 34 35 MR. SAITO: This is just from harvest 36 tickets. 37 38 MS. ROBISON: Okay. Thank you. 39 40 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you. 41 Are you done? 42 43 MS. ROBISON: Yeah, I've got to cue up 44 this one. 45 46 MS. LOON: I have a question. 47 48 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead, Hannah. 49 50





1 MS. LOON: There's a lot of missing 2 moose in the Selawik area. What do you suppose as a 3 biologist is the reason for the numbers going down? 4 I'm very concerned because we do eat moose when it 5 open. Do you find any major factors why the numbers go 6 down? Are we getting too much one year old or two year 7 old moose? That's what we really prefer. 8 9 MR. SAITO: The Selawik was actually

10 kind of an interesting decline that we saw. Normally 11 if we were looking at over human harvest, the majority 12 of harvest is bulls and that's probably nowhere more 13 true than in the Selawik. It is mostly bulls that are 14 harvested even in the subsistence harvest surveys it 15 reflects that as well. So if there was overharvest, 16 you would see a decline in bull:cow ratios and that's 17 one of the important reasons why we look at that. 18 19 In 2011 the bull:cow ratio was 47 bulls 20 per 100 cows and then 2016 it was 43 bulls per 100 21 cows. That's not a very significant drop. We have 22 pretty high standards up here to keep our bull:cow 23 ratio 40 bulls to 100 cows. That's a big change from 24 like in the other parts of Alaska where we've seen them 25 like on the Kenai Peninsula drop down to single digits. 26 27 When we see that large drop in 28 population and the bull:cow ratios stay fairly similar, 29 we're seeing that all -- and on top of that we're also 30 looking at the small bulls, medium bulls, large bulls 31 and those ratios have stayed very similar. So what 32 that says to us is that all moose are dying. It 33 doesn't matter what age or class or sex they are. 34 35 They're all dropping at the same rate, 36 so that's not looking at human harvest that's causing 37 it. But that's the only thing that we can really do 38 right now to prevent a larger decline is to reduce 39 harvest and that's the first thing we can do to help 40 the population. 41 42 MR. BALLOT: Brandon, did you say you 43 do your moose counts -- do you do them in springtime? 44 45 MR. SAITO: We do the -- in the 46 falltime we look at the composition and the calf ratios 47 and that's when the bulls have their antlers and we can 48 see them more easily. In the springtime, that's when 49 we can do the abundance surveys and look at the actual 50





1 number of moose that are in that area just because it's 2 easier to see them at that time, so we can get a better 3 -- yeah. So that's worked out for us really well. 4 5 MR. BALLOT: I was joking because like 6 you know in Buckland in August -- before August we'll 7 see moose all over and they might be two, three miles 8 from town, but once August 1 come up we can't see 9 nothing. I don't know where they go, but they just

10 seem to disappear. Got to work extra harder to find 11 them. 12 13 MR. SAITO: They've got those big 14 satellite dishes on their heads and they can hear the 15 radio. 16 17 (Laughter) 18 19 MR. CLEVELAND: That is true, they know 20 when it's August 1, the moose disappear. It happens. 21 22 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you. 23 24 Anything else. 25 26 (No comments) 27 28 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead. 29 30 MS. ROBISON: Good morning. My name is 31 Hillary Robison. I am a wildlife biologist with 32 Western Arctic National Parklands with the Park 33 Service. I live here in Kotzebue. I'm also the Chief 34 of Resources for the Parklands. 35 36 I'm going to follow up with what 37 Brandon had to say with an example of factors that can 38 lead to growth of the moose populations. But, first, 39 the reasons why the RAC submitted a Wildlife Special 40 Action to close moose hunting on Federal lands in Unit 41 23 to non-Federally qualified users was because of the 42 concern over declines of moose in some areas and also 43 to reduce user conflicts. 44 45 One of the most important factors in 46 creating growth in a moose population is to conserve 47 productive cows. The State, like Brandon just 48 mentioned, closed moose hunting to non-resident hunters 49 and the State just changed the antlerless moose hunt to 50





1 an antlered bull, which effectively closed the cow 2 season. So I just thought it would be helpful to go 3 through this exercise to show you how cows influence 4 the growth of a population. 5 6 Research has shown a pattern in moose 7 dynamics, population dynamics, observations that have 8 been over time. So assuming these patterns occur, 9 which they often do, that a three-year-old and older

10 cows breed and have calves every year, three-year-old 11 cows always give birth to a single calf, four-year-old 12 cows always give birth to twin calves, which may or may 13 not happen, but often if they can they do. 14 15 Twins are born once every three years, 16 otherwise a single calf is born. On average, for every 17 bull calf born a cow calf is born, so there's 50 18 percent females, 50 percent males. With that in mind, 19 a cow will give birth to calves for a minimum of 14 20 years and usually for 18 or more years. 21 22 So let's see. With all those factors 23 in mind..... 24 25 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Sorry, we got 26 disconnected again online. 27 28 MS. ROBISON: No, that's fine. 29 30 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Just keep in mind 31 where you were at. 32 33 MS. ROBISON: I will. 34 35 (Pause) 36 37 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you. In radio 38 land, sorry about the disconnection, but it's something 39 that's not in our hands. Go ahead, you could continue 40 with your report. 41 42 MS. ROBISON: Thank you. This is 43 Hillary Robison again for the record. I'm not quite 44 sure where I cut off for people in radio land, but I 45 was going through some patterns that occur with moose. 46 Just to sum up, three-year-old and older cows breed and 47 have calves every year, three-year-old cows always give 48 birth to a single calf, four-year-old cows always give 49 birth to twin calves, which may be variable, but is 50





1 generally true. 2 3 Twins are born once every three years, 4 otherwise a single calf is born. On average, for every 5 bull calf born a cow calf is born. And a cow will give 6 birth to calves for a minimum of 14 years and usually 7 18 or more years. 8 9 So I thought it might help show the

10 effect of cows on population growth to show you how 11 this looks over time and what the impact a cow can have 12 in her lifetime. 13 14 So here's year three, her first year 15 she has a calf. Year four she has twins, a bull and a 16 cow. Year five she has a singleton bull. Year six her 17 first calf has a calf. Year seven that calf has twins 18 and her second calf has calves and so on in year nine 19 and year 10 and year 11 and year 12 and year 13 and 14. 20 21 So the total number of calves produced 22 over a 14-year period from one cow moose and her 23 offspring can be 212 calves. Cows will often produce 24 four years beyond this, which actually will amount to 25 770 moose. 26 27 So with that in mind and thinking about 28 conserving cows to help population growth, a closure of 29 Federal lands will not conserve cows, but changing the 30 Federal antlerless moose hunt to an antlered bull to 31 match the State's regulation would. A closure may 32 reduce conflicts in some areas, but, as Trooper 33 McGinnis reported at our SRC meetings in the fall, what 34 happened with the caribou closure is that it was 35 successful in some areas 36 and it also shifted non-local hunters to State lands 37 and concentrated people there and shifted conflicts to 38 other areas of the unit, like the Wulik River and 39 Kivalina Rivers. 40 41 Other options might be to change the 42 Federal antlerless moose hunt to align it with the 43 State's regulation and/or closing some areas of Unit 23 44 where there are population declines like in the 45 Selawik/Tagagawik area. This would close areas where 46 people would like to avoid conflicts, but would address 47 the problem of a concentration of use by spreading out 48 non-local hunters over State and Federal lands. 49 50





1 With that I'll take any questions. 2 3 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Before we have 4 questions, what I'm hearing from you is what you're 5 telling us that it would be nice if we could inline 6 moose to bull only to be inline with the State. Not 7 only that, it would make it easier to all harvesters 8 out there if we had one regulation instead of one in 9 Federal land and one in the State land. I hear what

10 you're saying. 11 12 MS. ROBISON: That is correct, yes. 13 14 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Anyone from the 15 Council would like to address. Go ahead, Mike. 16 17 MR. KRAMER: Yeah, one thing I see you 18 don't have figured into that is natural mortality. I 19 remember that one year I helped the Park Service do a 20 moose study. They had 100 cows collared. We went 21 through and when we counted them they had 90-something 22 calves, plus or minus, and then a month later there was 23 only five calves left. You know, that needs to be 24 considered. Also by bear kill, wolf kill and natural 25 mortality. 26 27 So that ring right there is a lot 28 smaller. It's a lot smaller. That might look nice up 29 there, but out in the real world it's not. You've got 30 to also consider -- you know, I mean like I was saying, 31 90 calves. One month later there's only five calves 32 left. I'll bet you by another month later there might 33 have been only one left. 34 35 I helped the Park Service in that one 36 year and we went out and checked all the collared cows 37 that had calves. It's a lot different than that. So 38 that also needs to be considered into that. 39 40 MS. ROBISON: Thanks for your comment, 41 Mike. I understand you're concerned about predators 42 and your point about its effect on the population. 43 It's true that predation does affect the number of 44 animals in a population. What I'm talking about here 45 is not that this is the representation of what's 46 actually -- I realize this doesn't account for 47 predation and that's not kind of the point of this 48 presentation. 49 50





1 The point of the presentation was to 2 talk about what is the production engine for a 3 population. So you've got to have an engine to produce 4 animals and this is your engine right here, the cow. 5 I'm not trying to minimize your point, I'm just trying 6 to say the point I'm making here is different and I 7 acknowledge your point that you made because it's a 8 factor as well. 9

10 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you, Mike. 11 12 MR. BARNES: Can I ask a question? 13 14 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, go ahead, radio 15 land. State your name, please. 16 17 MR. BARNES: Okay, here's my question. 18 19 REPORTER: Can you tell us your name, 20 please. 21 22 MR. BARNES: My name is Jack Barnes and 23 I'm calling to support Louis Cusack. Am I still on? 24 25 REPORTER: Yes, go ahead. 26 27 MR. BARNES: Okay, I have a question. 28 What is the major cause of the predation or the loss of 29 the calves? What is the major cause? 30 31 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead. He's 32 asking. 33 34 MS. ROBISON: Well, thank you for 35 asking..... 36 37 MR. BARNES: Do you have an answer for 38 that? 39 40 MS. ROBISON: Yes. I'm speaking to 41 that. Can you hear me? 42 43 MR. BARNES: No, I can't. 44 45 REPORTER: Shut yours off, your mic. 46 47 MS. ROBISON: Can you hear me now? 48 49 MR. BARNES: Yes, I can. 50





1 MS. ROBISON: Okay, great. Thanks for 2 your question. You're wondering what the cause of 3 mortality are for moose. There are..... 4 5 MR. BARNES: I'm asking for the major 6 cause of the loss. 7 8 MS. ROBISON: Right. So in order to 9 understand the major cause, we need to look at all of

10 the causes. Right now, this spring, the Department of 11 Fish and Game is going to be doing a browse survey of 12 the Lower Kobuk Squirrel River area to look at the 13 condition of the habitat to see what it might be able 14 to support, what type of population it might be able to 15 support. There have not been specific studies looking 16 at predation rate that I'm aware of in this population 17 in recent times. I don't know if Brandon can speak to 18 that. 19 20 MR. SAITO: Not recently, no. 21 22 MR. BARNES: One of the fellows that 23 just spoke talked about a study that he was involved in 24 where there was 90 some odd calves and a few months 25 later there was five. It seems like an unreasonable 26 loss. You know what I mean? It doesn't seem -- you 27 know, something is very wrong and out of balance unless 28 I'm mistaken. Now I don't know about hunters, you 29 know, being the major cause of the loss or so on and so 30 forth. And I understand you're talking about an engine 31 to develop or to sustain that population. I understand 32 that. You know, you can use a hell of an engine to 33 produce a lot calves, but you can't stand..... 34 35 (Phone disconnect) 36 37 REPORTER: Okay. We got cut off again. 38 39 So go ahead. 40 41 MR. BARNES: I would imagine. That's 42 okay. I'll give up. You got me. Did you hear any of 43 my question or my comment? Hello? 44 45 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Hello. Did you hear 46 his comment what he was saying. We're getting cut off, 47 so sorry about that. 48 49 MR. BARNES: That's okay. I 50





1 understand. 2 3 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead, Zach. 4 5 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 6 To the gentleman on the teleconference, this is Zach 7 Stevenson. Our apologies for the disconnection there. 8 We heard you when you were addressing the importance of 9 cow moose as the driver or the engine of the population

10 and then we lost you if you want to continue where we 11 left off. 12 13 Thank you. 14 15 MR. BARNES: Okay. I'll try to start 16 again, but it didn't seem that you can -- no matter how 17 big of an engine you develop or you get, with those 18 kind of losses that the fellow talked about that 19 participated in the study, 90 calves and a few months 20 later there was only five, that's almost 100 percent, 21 you know. I mean you can't -- what I'm saying, 22 regardless of what kind of an engine you develop, with 23 those kind of losses or those percentages, you know, it 24 doesn't seem -- well, you're never going to be able to 25 develop an engine, you know. 26 27 So you need to develop -- you need to 28 address the predation or the cause of the loss. 29 Hunting -- you know, something other than hunting is -- 30 something other than hunting is your cause. You know, 31 your hunters aren't taking those kind of numbers. You 32 know, it's got to be, you know, you're feeding wolves 33 or some other cause, disease or what. It seems that 34 way to me. 35 36 I know that probably hunting is -- are 37 you there? 38 39 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yes, we're here. 40 41 MS. ROBISON: Yes, we're here. We're 42 listening. 43 44 MR. BARNES: I know that hunting is 45 probably the easiest thing for you to look at and to 46 point at and to probably regulate. It's probably the 47 easiest thing to do, but it's definitely not the answer 48 to your issue I don't think or closing the areas is 49 what you call it. You know, just restricting hunting. 50





1 It doesn't seem right. It doesn't seem like it's an 2 answer to your issue. 3 4 Anyway, I'll shut up. 5 6 Thank you very much for letting me 7 speak. 8 9 MS. ROBISON: Yes, thank you. I

10 understand your concern that you think we need to study 11 the multiple factors for the decline, whether it's 12 habitat or hunting or climate change or predation and 13 find out what is the most important cause and address 14 that. 15 16 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, thank you. 17 Louie, before I get to you, go ahead, Zach. You wanted 18 to say -- you're not going to say nothing now. 19 20 Okay, go ahead, Louie. 21 22 MR. COMMACK: Yeah, I just want to 23 share with you that -- this is Louie Commack from 24 Ambler. I just want to share with you. We do have a 25 large population of wolves, huge wolf packs that prey 26 upon moose calves. We have a large population of 27 grizzly bears along the Kobuk River that prey on young 28 calves. Also black bears. We're not even talking about 29 the wolverine. These are the problems we have, so I 30 thought I'd share that with you. 31 32 Thank you. 33 34 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, up to a point I 35 like this report, but it's opened up a can of worms. 36 37 MR. BARNES: Can I say one more thing? 38 39 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Point of order. Just 40 hang on. If you want to say something, you could 41 address me. I have other people. After Hannah you 42 will have a chance to say something. Go ahead, Hannah. 43 44 MS. LOON: This is Hannah Loon. You 45 stated -- a while ago I asked what are the indicators 46 that caused the moose population to go down. In 47 Selawik, we have 1,000 people, the most populated in 48 the whole region. And, Brandon, you say it doesn't -- 49 but it's going down anyway. So all these years during 50





1 our RAC meetings we complain about predator control, 2 such as brown bear and wolf, which were commonly seen 3 on the Kobuk River and like a pack of more than 50 4 wolves. 5 6 You're asking this Council that we need 7 to align with the State. Unless we know through your 8 findings or through local knowledge and we are a 9 recognized people in the villages as

10 indigenous people that know traditional and ecological 11 and biological knowledge about the food and habitation. 12 Mothers with calves we don't bother them. We've been 13 told not to both mothers with calves all these years 14 and we don't. And we really don't care for bull moose 15 either, old bull moose. 16 17 I just wanted to state, you know, we've 18 been talking about and complaining over and over about 19 beaver, wolf and black bear and we need to start 20 addressing those predator control through local 21 knowledge. 22 23 Thank you. 24 25 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you, Hannah. 26 27 Yeah, go ahead, Calvin. 28 29 MR. MOTO: I was wondering if the 30 biologist in the State ever considered the fact that -- 31 it seems like the more forest fires they have in 32 Interior, then we see more moose in our area. Is that 33 taken into considering that? Then the decrease seems 34 like maybe they go back or what? Our village, if we 35 get 36 three moose, it's too much. We get two every year at 37 least because we distribute it to everybody. 38 39 I've always wondered if because of the 40 forest fires Interior whether the moose population in 41 our area jump up. 42 43 MS. ROBISON: Thank you for your 44 question, Calvin. There are relationships between 45 moose and response to fire. I'm not aware of any 46 relationships that have been -- any findings or 47 information that shows that fires in the Interior 48 affect the movement of moose. 49 50





1 One thing fire does do, however, is 2 when a fire goes through an area, woody plants, like 3 shrubs, are more likely to come back than say lichens 4 are. So when fire becomes more frequent, the bushy 5 plants grow more and that makes better moose habitat. 6 So those are some of the observations that people have 7 observed on land from local knowledge but also we have 8 scientific and repeat photography to show some of that. 9 But as for the increasing fires in the Interior pulling

10 moose away, I'm not aware of any studies that show 11 that. 12 13 Brandon, do you have anything to add? 14 15 MR. SAITO: No. 16 17 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. I have someone 18 with Chugiak, but I also have someone from the radio 19 land that wanted to speak. So radio land, address your 20 name, please. 21 22 Hello, radio land, are we disconnected 23 again? 24 25 MR. BARNES: I'm still here. 26 27 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: You wanted to speak 28 earlier. Are you done or what? 29 30 MR. BARNES: I'm done. I'm listening. 31 32 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay, Chugiak. 33 You'll be next, Percy. 34 35 MR. BALLOT: Just an observation, Mr. 36 Chairman. I don't know how long from your graph calves 37 stay with the cows, but this spring we saw a cow with 38 two calves that are bigger in size but same, so I don't 39 know what that is. Mr. Kramer's comment was on the 40 study done that was when they were looking at calves. 41 I 42 don't know if we ever could see that study or any 43 histories of studies on calf mortality, but I think 44 that's something you might want to have for us sometime 45 down the line. That might be helpful for us. 46 47 In Buckland, you know, we also got lots 48 of twins and the people and the cows and the bears and 49 stuff. So maybe they survive longer over there and 50





1 they move toward Deering. Where's Calvin? Anyway, 2 yeah. 3 4 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you, Percy. 5 6 Go ahead. 7 8 MR. CUSACK: My name is Louis Cusack 9 from Chugiak, Alaska. I've been hunting in the Selawik

10 and Unit 23 for over 15 years and I just wanted to -- I 11 didn't know if now was the time to offer a proposal to 12 change regulations, but I did want to make some 13 comments on what I've been hearing today. 14 15 I'd actually had access to much of the 16 data that has been presented. I also looked at the 17 harvest data in RM880. Just to clarify one question 18 that was asked. There were a number of moose reported 19 harvested in December against RM880 and you can find 20 that on the Alaska wildlife site. Many of them was 21 done in December, primarily cows shot in December. 22 23 I think that I saw the point in the 24 presentation and the point of the presentation was to 25 get us all on the same page, I think, and try to get us 26 all to align and agree that a single cow is worth 27 saving because it means more than a single bull. I 28 think the harvest data that Brandon presented so that 29 there was still a good bull:cow ratio and that there 30 was a harvestable amount of bulls still available. 31 32 If you look at the reported harvest 33 data for non-residents, it shows that 29 percent of the 34 annual harvest is by non-residents and I think that 35 reflects a significant decrease in the number of bulls 36 that we shot this year. 37 38 What I was going to offer in my new 39 proposal -- and it's pretty long. I didn't want to go 40 through the whole thing here, but it just has the 41 supporting data. And what I'm asking is I'm asking 42 that we all work together and we try to save this 43 resource. You know, I've got time invested in this 44 land. Me and my family both travel here every year. 45 We spend a lot of time in some real remote areas in 46 Unit 23 that traditionally are not hunted by Federally 47 qualified subsistence hunters. It's a big country. 48 49 Some of the changes that we're 50





1 proposing -- you know, closures only increase conflict 2 because at the end of the day you can't control the 3 navigable waters. And what happens when areas get 4 closed is the crowding happens in the navigable waters. 5 By the same token, you know, many villages, if you look 6 at the map, and I'm just telling you guys stuff you 7 already know, I know that, but if you look at the data, 8 a lot of villages, Ambler, Kiana, they all sit right in 9 the middle of State land, and when you close Federal

10 land all you do is push more people on State land, 11 which increases conflict. 12 13 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: I'd like to get point 14 of order. We're talking about moose right now. 15 16 MR. CUSACK: Yeah, okay. 17 18 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: You're talking about 19 conflict where you close a unit. 20 21 MR. CUSACK: Okay. 22 23 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Keep it in point of 24 order. Who are addressing us here need to keep in 25 point of order what we're talking about right now. 26 Don't change the subject, please. 27 28 MR. CUSACK: Sorry about that. What I 29 would like to propose is that we consider the Federal 30 Subsistence Board and the Regional Council consider 31 offering a proposal that closes the shooting of cows 32 and changes the regs to one bull for the Federal 33 subsistence area and I would also ask the Regional 34 Council to consider putting forth a proposal that 35 aligns the brown bear and black bear harvest of two 36 bears and the baiting. There's also a piece in there 37 about same-day flying 300 feet from the plane. My 38 proposal today is that I ask you guys to consider 39 putting that forward. 40 41 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you. I 42 think it's lunch time now and is an hour and 15 minutes 43 long enough? I think we need to visit this Proposal 36 44 after lunch because we have a lot of questions and a 45 lot of things we need to do. It will be close to 1:00 46 o'clock or so the way we're going. 47 48 You guys from the Council, should we 49 take lunch now? 50





1 (Council nods affirmatively) 2 3 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. We'll take an 4 hour and 15 minute lunch. It's 12:00, so we'll start 5 at 1:15. 6 7 Thank you. 8 9 (Off record)

10 11 (On record) 12 13 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: We can start. We 14 have a quorum here. I'll put the meeting back to 15 order. We were talking about Proposal 36 on the moose. 16 17 Go ahead, Zach. 18 19 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 20 I wanted to clarify for the record briefly the process. 21 Before lunch we were addressing moose data and the 22 intention would be then to follow with a call for 23 regulatory proposals, in this case on moose. And 24 to avoid confusion, the intention would be to follow 25 that with an overview of caribou data and then a call 26 for proposals related to caribou and, of course, 27 anything that's not related to moose or caribou to 28 follow from there with regard to proposals. 29 30 Regarding the process, just so that 31 everyone is clear, ordinarily what is done is the 32 Federal Register, which is published regularly, we'd 33 ordinarily put a call for proposals, in this case a 34 call for Federal wildlife proposals. And right now, 35 and this has happened in the past, with a new 36 administration in the White House, there can sometimes 37 be a delay in allowing for a call for proposals and 38 that's what's happening right now. So the call for 39 proposals has not yet been published in the Federal 40 Register. 41 42 So given that delay, what we're doing 43 now is calling for proposals on the record here at this 44 meeting. What that means is that individuals or 45 agencies the RAC can begin working on a proposal. 46 However, OSM, the Office of Subsistence Management, 47 will not accept them until that call goes out in the 48 Register. For that reason we do not have proposals 49 here before the RAC nor before the audience to review 50





1 them. 2 3 So I just wanted to be clear about that 4 and respect the process and the protocol. Of course, 5 once that call does go out in the Register, there will 6 be the customary and standard time for individuals to 7 prepare those proposals. So I just wanted to be clear 8 on that. 9

10 Are there any questions on that process 11 before we continue, through the Chair. 12 13 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead, anyone, 14 while we're waiting. Anyone have a question on the 15 format for proposals. Go ahead, Maya. 16 17 MS. LUKIN: I don't have a question, 18 but I think she was done with her presentation. 19 20 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yes, they were done 21 with their presentation, but I think what they wanted 22 us to do is -- what you guys wanted us to do, accept it 23 in the Council format or what? Or, no, it's just a 24 report? Okay, I was informed different. Okay. We 25 will go on to the next one then, the caribou. 26 27 I'm referring to Proposal 36, the one 28 that was just given earlier, remember? 29 30 MS. LUKIN: That's a State proposal. 31 32 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Oh, that's a State 33 proposal. So nothing has to be done is what you're 34 saying? I'm getting so many..... 35 36 MS. MAAS: Lisa Maas for the record. 37 Hillary and Brandon were just presenting information 38 about moose and they're done with their presentation. 39 So now is an opportunity for the Council to discuss and 40 submit any moose proposals on Unit 23 that they might 41 want to submit. 42 43 MS. ROBISON: Hillary Robison for the 44 record. Just to clarify, Attamuk, Brandon had given 45 parts of that presentation to the Board of Game and at 46 that time it was called Proposal 36, which is maybe why 47 you saw that on a slide title, so that might have been 48 confusing for people. 49 50





1 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, I was give a 2 note that we have to worry about the moose proposals. 3 That's where I'm getting mixed up. I apologize for it. 4 5 MS. ROBISON: Yeah, I realize that was 6 confusing. Sorry about that. 7 8 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay, it's confusing. 9

10 11 MS. ROBISON: So Brandon and I 12 presented data and information. At this point you guys 13 can entertain proposals like Lisa said. 14 15 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. I could see 16 people looking at me and they're wondering when could 17 they give their presentation on moose proposals. Like 18 Zach said, they've got to go through the process and 19 it's got to go to the Federal Register. That's just 20 the way I hear it. Correct me if I'm wrong. 21 22 MS. MAAS: Currently, now is the time 23 for the Council to make a motion and submit -- you 24 know, their intention to submit a proposal. 25 26 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead. 27 28 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 29 I'll provide an example here to illustrate the process. 30 In the past, what the RAC had done at our previous 31 meeting in October in Selawik was to make a motion. I 32 believe it was Member Kramer who introduced a motion to 33 provide for a closure of Federal public lands in Unit 34 23 to moose hunting by non-Federally qualified 35 subsistence users. Then after that motion was 36 introduced, Staff worked to initiate that analysis and 37 carried that recommendation forward. 38 39 In that same way now, if there were a 40 request for proposals, in this case on moose, those 41 could be introduced through a motion by any of the RAC 42 members for consideration and those would then further 43 be developed in accordance with protocol through OSM. 44 45 Again, I think the opportunity now is 46 to, with the moose data shared, to provide an 47 opportunity for our RAC members to make a motion if 48 they have one to address any moose-related proposals. 49 50





1 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 2 3 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: It only has to come 4 from the Council not from the public, is that what 5 you're saying? Can someone from the public do it? 6 Because I know I have one that was addressed earlier 7 that they wanted to have a moose proposal. 8 9 MS. MAAS: Through the Chair. This is

10 the time for the Council to submit proposals. 11 12 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Only the Council. 13 14 MS. MAAS: If individuals -- I mean 15 they can come up and ask the Council to submit a 16 proposal, the same proposal that -- you know, if they 17 would like a proposal, then the Council is welcome to 18 entertain and submit that proposal, but we're not 19 considering proposals from individuals at this time. 20 Although if the Council would like to submit the same 21 proposal the individual is asking for, then..... 22 23 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay, I get you. 24 Just from the Council Members for now. Okay, I got 25 you. 26 27 Go ahead, Zach. 28 29 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 30 To Lisa Maas's point. I know that earlier we had a 31 gentleman, Mr. Cusack, present for consideration by the 32 Regional Advisory Council several proposals. It's my 33 impression that the Regional Advisory Council has the 34 ability to review those proposals and make a decision 35 on the record whether or not to carry those forward to 36 the Board. 37 38 A point of clarification. Mr. Cusack 39 or any member of the public for that matter may choose 40 to submit proposals individually of their own to the 41 Board as well when the call for proposals is announced, 42 but I think the intent as I see it from Mr. Cusack was 43 to respect the board, to go through the board for 44 clarification. 45 46 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 47 48 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. So the way I 49 understand it, in order for us to respect and honor and 50





1 let it go through, we need to see the proposal in front 2 of us and I don't see it, so we've got to do it on the 3 next process, right? I don't see it in front of me. I 4 don't see his proposal at all. 5 6 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. My 7 understanding is that Mr. Cusack had prepared a copy 8 that..... (Discussion with Mr. Peltola) 9

10 MR. STEVENSON: Pardon me, I'm going to 11 turn this to the Chair. I believe Ms. Hardin has a 12 clarification. 13 14 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead, Ms. Hardin. 15 Come up. 16 17 MS. HARDIN: I'm right here. 18 19 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Oh, okay. Sorry. 20 21 MS. HARDIN: Jennifer Hardin for the 22 record. I just wanted to clarify that right now we 23 don't have a call for proposals. As Zach already 24 mentioned, this is an opportunity for you, the Council, 25 to start working on proposals that you would eventually 26 like to submit to the Federal Subsistence Board related 27 to wildlife. Not just moose, but any proposals you're 28 interested in developing. 29 30 Also it's an opportunity for the public 31 if they'd like to present ideas to you as the Council 32 about proposals that you might consider submitting as a 33 Council, we would encourage the public to do that, have 34 that conversation with you at this time. Of course, 35 should you choose not to do that, anybody in the public 36 can submit a proposal once there's a call for proposals 37 can submit those proposals on their own to the Federal 38 Subsistence Board. 39 40 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay, thank you. Go 41 ahead. 42 43 MS. HARDIN: Just one more piece of 44 information. Once Mr. Peltola comes up to do the 45 legislative update, he will add a bit more information 46 that will hopefully remove a bit more confusion, if any 47 consists, about where we are in the Federal process 48 right now given the transition of administrations. 49 50





1 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Go ahead, 2 Zach. 3 4 MR. STEVENSON: The process as I see it 5 right now is that we have the opportunity for the 6 Council to address moose-related proposals. 7 8 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. I see it. 9 Thank you. Do I have a motion from the Council Members

10 on moose. 11 12 Go ahead, Mike. 13 14 MR. KRAMER: Yeah. Just hearing 15 Brandon's report earlier -- oh, Mike Kramer, through 16 the Chair. Hearing Brandon's presentation he did 17 earlier, I know that 17-02 will be submitted on the 18 next Federal Subsistence meeting. Am I correct? At 19 the next one. 20 21 MS. MAAS: Are you talking Special 22 Action 17-02? 23 24 MR. KRAMER: Special Action, yeah. 25 26 MS. MAAS: That will be presented to 27 the Council later in the meeting, but right now it's 28 just a Special Action, not a proposal. 29 30 MR. KRAMER: I mean I'm just wondering 31 where are we at on this Special Action Request 17-02. 32 I mean is that going to be submitted at the next 33 Federal Subsistence meeting? 34 35 MS. MAAS: I mean right now it's still 36 in the analysis phase. Like I said, it will be 37 presented to the Council and the Council will have an 38 opportunity to discuss it and make a motion on it, but 39 it will be probably -- I'll let Jennifer. 40 41 MR. KRAMER: Okay. Well, my proposal 42 is that we need to align harvests on the Federal side 43 to match the State's so that way we coincide with 44 subsistence users. That's one of the proposals I'd 45 like to bring up since we have the opportunity to do 46 that right now. It's to where we're aligned with the 47 State on the Federal side where we have the same 48 closures as they State does. That way we conserve the 49 cows. 50





1 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you, Mike. 2 3 Go ahead. 4 5 MS. HARDIN: I'm not sure if this is 6 necessary. Jennifer Hardin again. Just to answer your 7 question about the special action, Mr. Kramer, through 8 the Chair. Once the analysis is complete, the analysis 9 will be submitted to the Interagency Staff Committee

10 and once that process is done it will go to the Federal 11 Subsistence Board and it will be up to the Chair at 12 what point the Board will take up that special action 13 and deliberate and make a decision on that special 14 action. 15 16 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you. 17 18 Go ahead, Zach. 19 20 MR. STEVENSON: This is a question for 21 Ms. Hardin. Addressing Member Kramer's point about 22 attempting to align State and Federal regulations, it's 23 unclear to me whether or not that would be a standalone 24 proposal or rather an aspiration and intent that would 25 affect any future proposals. I'm unclear whether that 26 would require a motion or that's simply an intent to 27 inform future proposals. 28 29 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 30 31 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead. 32 33 MS. HARDIN: Through the Chair. I 34 believe there are two parts to that answer. The first 35 would be that the Council may wish to take into 36 consideration the information they receive from the 37 State today when you talk about the special action that 38 is later in the agenda. So that may play into your 39 recommendations on the special action. Then it sounds 40 like you are proposing a proposal to the Federal 41 Subsistence Board through the regulatory process to 42 align the Federal regulations with the changes that 43 have been made under the State regulations. 44 45 MR. KRAMER: (Nods affirmatively). 46 47 MS. HARDIN: That would be -- the 48 process you would follow is developing your proposals 49 for the Federal Subsistence Board so that once there's 50





1 a call for proposals your coordinator can then finish 2 drafting those and submit them to the Federal 3 Subsistence Board. 4 5 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you. 6 7 MR. BALLOT: Mr. Chairman. 8 9 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, go ahead,

10 Percy. 11 12 MR. BALLOT: As I understand it, right 13 now is the call for wildlife Federal proposals that we 14 want to put on the table or anyone wants to put on the 15 table. Usually when we go through this, the history 16 that I've been on this is that in the fall time we 17 would look at what kind of proposals we want to work on 18 and our staff would be working on the proposals and the 19 data and all that. I don't see nothing in here that 20 has to do with that right now. But the procedure right 21 there is to approve the proposals that we might want to 22 send to the Federal Subsistence Board. 23 24 We should have all that in right now. 25 26 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: I understand. I 27 don't have the process in front of me right now because 28 my name tag wasn't there. It's nobody's fault. I 29 understand what you're saying, Percy. That's the way I 30 understand it and that's the way we've been going 31 through. But we're getting so much different 32 information the last two different meetings. I'm 33 trying to get mixed up and we need to get back and we 34 need to go through that process and no more step by 35 step. Need to be written down and how we should take 36 it. I mean I'm just trying to make it clear, easier 37 for us. 38 39 Yeah, go ahead, Gene. 40 41 MR. PELTOLA: Good afternoon, Mr. 42 Chair. Thank you, Regional Advisory Council Members. 43 Gene Peltola, Assistant Regional Director for the 44 Office of Subsistence Management. 45 46 I planned to do this earlier, but I 47 think it's a good time to insert it right now. Part of 48 the challenge of the Federal Subsistence Program right 49 now is that a lot of the items that we normally address 50





1 with the Office of Subsistence Management within the 2 Regional Advisory Council meeting process is determined 3 by rulemaking. 4 5 We currently have a delay on rulemaking 6 and how does that affect the proposal process. In 7 order to have a call for proposals, we have to publish 8 in the Federal Register, which we have been precluded 9 from doing to this point. So what you are being asked

10 as a Regional Advisory Council to do at this meeting 11 is, one, provide the intent of what proposals you would 12 like to address. 13 14 If you want to address a proposal for a 15 wolverine, if you want to address a proposal for 16 marten, you could inform the Office of Subsistence 17 Management what your intent would be. What we do for 18 the RAC, like we do for any members of the public, is 19 to help formulate that into an official proposal. 20 21 Once we get guidance from the 22 Department of Interior and the White House Liaison in 23 Washington, D.C. on timing and appropriate release, we 24 will publish in the Federal Register an official call 25 for proposals. At that time any member of the public, 26 the RACs or any other agency could formally submit a 27 proposal to the Federal Subsistence Program. At that 28 time, then we go through the normal process. We 29 receive the proposal at OSM, we write an analysis, we 30 bring it back to you during the fall meeting, you 31 provide your comment on that, then it goes through. 32 33 The challenge is that here in the last 34 year and a half or so we still have not finalized the 35 final rulemaking for the last wildlife cycle. That is 36 still outstanding. Because of the change in 37 administration, all the rulemaking has been put on 38 hold. In addition, we have to publish the intent for 39 the fisheries proposals, which the Federal Subsistence 40 Board just acted upon in January. After that we have 41 to address some specific rulemaking for the Kenai 42 River. 43 44 So the next wildlife cycle, which we 45 are starting to initiate now, we still have to do some 46 catch-up work with regard to the legal documents. I 47 hope that clarifies. 48 49 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yes, thank you. 50





1 Thank you. Anything else from the board here. The way 2 the cycle is, we're so far behind it's pitiful. Okay. 3 So at this time I think we need to move on. We don't 4 have to go through these proposals, right? Or we need 5 to go through Mike's proposal, what he's trying to 6 submit. I'm trying to clarify that part right there. 7 You need to make a motion. 8 9 Go ahead, Zach.

10 11 That's where I'm getting mixed up. 12 13 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 14 Following the points made by Mr. Peltola and to the 15 points raised by Member Ballot, given the delay that is 16 occurring now in a call for wildlife proposals in the 17 Federal Register, the intent now is to get the 18 intention here from RAC members about what Federal 19 wildlife regulatory proposals you would like to put 20 forward for this coming regulatory cycle. I believe 21 we're now addressing wildlife proposals for moose. 22 23 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 24 25 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Go ahead, 26 Mike. 27 28 MR. KRAMER: Do I need to make that a 29 motion? 30 31 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, just the way I 32 hear it, yeah. 33 34 MR. KRAMER: Okay. I hereby make a 35 motion for the Federal subsistence regulations to align 36 with the State's regulations. 37 38 Also I would like to see -- they want 39 the closure of cows and caribou are getting harder and 40 harder to get and people are not getting their caribou. 41 There's got to be some kind of alternative source for 42 them to get meat. So I'd like to see a village quota 43 process for cows because we just can't completely cut 44 people off. I mean if it's five cows per village, at 45 least that's some kind of meat that that community 46 could still harvest and still have meat in their 47 freezers. 48 49 With that kind of a quota system after 50





1 December 31st, after the RM880 shuts down, then that's 2 when that quota can kick in, but let's just say Kiana 3 only got four cow moose and Selawik already got their 4 five and they could use one more for the community, 5 then that one moose can get transferred to Kiana or 6 however, vice versa. 7 8 At least that way -- you know, a lot of 9 boats last fall came home with no caribou, so they rely

10 on moose. There's got to be some kind of backup plan 11 in case people cannot fill their freezers. I mean 12 whether it's a run of luck they don't get anything or 13 just some bad juju, these people still need to be able 14 to put meat in their freezer. So there's got to be 15 some kind of a process to allow them to be able to get 16 something, an antlerless cow or antlerless moose after 17 the closure of the RM880. 18 19 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you, Mike. He 20 made a proposal. Any second. 21 22 MR. MITCHELL: Second. 23 24 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Second by Enoch. 25 Yeah, go ahead. 26 27 MS. MAAS: Thank you. Through the 28 Chair. This is Lisa. Just a clarification since I'm 29 the one who will be analyzing these proposals. When 30 you say align State and Federal moose regulations, do 31 you mean everything; the seasons, the hunt areas, the 32 harvest limit, everything? Because right now the 33 Federal season is three months longer than the State 34 season. So just clarify what you mean by align. 35 36 Thanks. 37 38 MR. KRAMER: I guess what I'm kind of 39 getting at is because right now the biggest thing is 40 that people want to cut back on the cow harvest. 41 Somewhere to where they align where antlerless moose 42 the season gets shortened. If that special action 43 request 17-02 goes through, then we also have to take 44 a cut. We need to have something in there to where if 45 need be that these communities, the people in the 46 communities, if they can't get caribou, then they can 47 harvest moose. 48 49 MR. BALLOT: Mr. Chairman. Does 50





1 anybody got a copy of that 17-02 Special Action 2 Request? Where is it? 3 4 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, that's what I 5 was going to ask. Where is the proposals that we're 6 going to talk about? I need to see them and the rest 7 of the Council need to see them also. 8 9 Go ahead, Vern. You put up your hand,

10 no? 11 12 MR. BALLOT: I recognize his concern, 13 but I kind of need to -- before I support a motion that 14 says align with State regulations I need to see where 15 all the balances between those before I decide to vote 16 on something. But if you make a motion to say look at 17 the data, look at whatever work there is, than this 18 trying to make the same, that would be fine, but to 19 just pass it, I'm not going to be going for that. 20 21 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: I understand what 22 you're saying, Percy. Yeah, we need to see it. That's 23 what I was going to say, we need to see it because it's 24 hard for us to decide, you know, if it's not in front 25 of us. 26 27 Go ahead, Louie. 28 29 MR. COMMACK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 30 I think there needs to be more discussion and more 31 clarity on this issue of aligning with the Feds and the 32 State. Remember we do have a Federal under potluck 33 middle of the winter. When there's a death in the 34 village, we have a Federal permit to get a caribou or a 35 moose. Would that include that also? That's my 36 concern, how we're going to go about trying to put this 37 proposal together without seeing any paperwork before 38 us. 39 40 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Yeah, we need 41 to see it. That's the mix up we're having here in 42 consideration. Are they going to go make copies? 43 44 MS. MAAS: Yeah, there's copies out in 45 the hall of the Federal and State regs. 46 47 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. In the future, 48 this is going to our coordinator, if we're going to 49 talk about proposals or anything, we need to see it in 50





1 our packet and just say look for it later. I mean I'm 2 not trying to go after you hard, Zach, but we need to 3 have them on hand for us. That's where the mix up is 4 at. Because I was looking for it earlier and I could 5 not find it. So we need to straighten out and put the 6 packet in right together. 7 8 Go ahead, Zach. I'll get back to you, 9 Mike.

10 11 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 12 Again, proposals have not been developed. That's why 13 we can't share anything. There are no proposals right 14 now. It's the opportunity for the Council to develop 15 them. There have been none developed at this point. 16 This is the opportunity to develop them to be very 17 clear. 18 19 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: This is why I said 20 that. Mike was talking about a proposal and I don't 21 even know. And you're saying it's not in there, so 22 that's where the mix up is at and everybody -- there's 23 no proposals, so okay. 24 25 MR. STEVENSON: This is the opportunity 26 now. This is the time to develop those proposals. 27 28 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: You want to make a 29 proposal. That's what you want. Okay. Mike, go 30 ahead. 31 32 MS. HARDIN: Through the Chair. May I 33 just add on to Lisa's question about what Mr. Kramer's 34 motion is. I believe, if I'm understanding this, Mr. 35 Kramer, that you would like the Federal regulations to 36 reflect the same changes that were made under Proposal 37 36 with the Board of Game through the State system, is 38 that correct? 39 40 MR. KRAMER: Yeah, I was going to call 41 Brandon up. 42 43 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, Percy is asking 44 like me, we need to see it in front of us. That's what 45 Percy was asking too if we could see it and that way we 46 could decide what we're deciding on. 47 48 MR. KRAMER: Hey, Brandon, can you give 49 us a quick -- because we want to try and align ours 50





1 with your guys, but we also would like, like Louie 2 said, we want to also be able to harvest moose for 3 either burial or -- what was the other word he said. 4 5 MR. SAITO: Ceremonial harvest. 6 7 MR. KRAMER: Ceremonial harvest, yeah. 8 Also if each village were to get like a quota, say five 9 moose per village, that way if people didn't get

10 caribou that fall, then they can still get -- there's 11 still some other meat source out there that they can 12 harvest. Can you let us know what your regulations are 13 and the closures for antlerless cows. 14 15 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Sure. For the 16 ceremonial harvest that's a completely different 17 system, so that would just be an application that they 18 put in and then we could give them that for a potluck 19 or a funeral. That would be completely separate than 20 the actual regulations. 21 22 For our regulations we have two 23 different sets. There's one that's north of the 24 Singoalik drainage, so that's just up north of -- you 25 know, it's the Point Hope area. For the RM880 it's 26 July 1st through August 31st and that's for one bull 27 and that's up there at the Singoalik area. Theirs 28 opens earlier just because there's very few moose up 29 there and they changed it to happen earlier just in 30 case a bull actually wandered up through in that area 31 during that time. 32 33 They're a little bit different and then 34 it changes to one moose from November 1st through 35 December 31st and that's the part we changed. Instead 36 of it being one moose we changed it to one antlered. 37 So it's always one bull, one antlered bull from July 38 1st through December 31st. So that would be north of 39 including the Singoalik drainage. 40 41 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you. 42 There was a proposal on the floor from Mike to make it 43 in compliance with the State. 44 45 MR. SAITO: Just add in the remainder 46 part. That's the rest of the unit. That's a big part 47 of our area. That's August 1st through October 31st is 48 one bull and then November 1st through December 31st is 49 one moose. So we just changed that November 1st 50





1 through -- the regulation as it stands now is just -- 2 for the remainder is August 1st through December 31st 3 is one antlered bull. 4 5 MR. KRAMER: And what about the 6 antlerless? 7 8 MR. SAITO: And there's no antlerless 9 bull. There's no antlerless moose on State. And

10 that's just antlered. It can have just little spikes, 11 anything just so you can identify it as a bull. 12 13 MR. KRAMER: Yeah. And then like on 14 the Federal side what I was trying to talk about is for 15 ceremonial or burial or if a community had a rough fall 16 and didn't get very many caribou that each village 17 would be allotted so many cow moose either by a quota 18 or special permit. 19 20 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay, go ahead, 21 Enoch. Raymond, you'll be next. 22 23 MR. MITCHELL: It's kind of like what 24 we did with the snowmachine, how the State passed that 25 proposal so we could position ourselves with 26 snowmachine and then the Federal side did the same 27 thing to align with that one. So I'm kind of thinking 28 we're trying to do the same thing, Mike, to align with 29 the State regulations on the Federal side? 30 31 MR. KRAMER: No. What I'm trying to 32 talk about is as of right now my RM880 is good to the 33 end of the month, March 31st. If we could make it to 34 where we could harvest antlerless moose during that 35 window like you said, what was that, November 1st to 36 December 31st? 37 38 MR. SAITO: Yeah. 39 40 MR. KRAMER: Where we could at least 41 harvest so many antlerless moose during that period on 42 Federal lands, whether it be by quota, whether it be by 43 special permits for subsistence users for either 44 ceremonial use or hardship, I'd say hardship where they 45 didn't get any caribou. And then to try and align all 46 the other Federal moose harvest timelines the same. 47 48 I'm getting kind of mixed up. Right 49 now the biggest thing is, like you guys say, we need to 50





1 slow down on harvesting cows, but I don't want to have 2 cows completely eliminated. But if we could just have 3 it to where a few can get harvested for hardship, 4 ceremonial use, burial use, to where it's not 5 completely eliminated but it's minimized. Very, very 6 minimized. 7 8 If the 17-02 goes through, all Federal 9 lands are closed to non-Federally qualified users, then

10 at least we are taking our cut as subsistence users. 11 It's balancing. That's what I'm trying to get at. 12 When we align with the State, is we're trying to take 13 cuts if the non-Federally qualified people are taking 14 cuts. 15 16 That way we're kind of balancing the 17 whole system out and trying to align -- see, the key 18 thing here is I was trying to align with State 19 regulations also because we always butt heads somewhere 20 in the middle. That way we're trying to stay aligned 21 and we're not trying to stray away and be different. 22 23 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay, Michael. The 24 ceremonial is a completely different thing. Just worry 25 about the antlerless moose and the moose that we get, 26 the State's proposal. Stay away from the ceremonial. 27 That's a completely different thing. 28 29 Lisa, you had a comment and I have 30 another one back here. Go ahead. 31 32 MS. MAAS: Okay. Thanks. Yeah, I was 33 going to clarify that point as well. It sounds like, 34 Mike, your intent is just to limit the cow harvest on 35 the Federal side, but you don't necessarily want to 36 limit the cow season, correct, or do you want to 37 restrict the dates you can harvest cows..... 38 39 MR. KRAMER: Yeah. 40 41 MS. MAAS: .....or just the number? 42 43 MR. KRAMER: The only time that cows 44 would be allowed to be harvested, to a minimum though, 45 would be November 1 to December 31st. Anything after 46 January 1st is closed on Federal land. 47 48 MS. MAAS: Okay. So that would be -- a 49 clear Federal proposal would be for Unit 23 moose to 50





1 limit cow harvest -- for cows to only be able to be 2 harvested November 1st to December 1st and we could 3 apply that to all the hunt areas throughout Unit 23. If 4 that's the proposal, we understand the intent and we 5 can go with that if that's what your intent is. 6 7 If you want to implement a quota 8 system, you could also put that in your proposal that 9 cows may only be harvested from November 1st to

10 December 1st with a quota of X number. 11 12 MR. SAITO: I think it's the 31st. 13 14 MS. MAAS: Oh, 31st. Thanks. 15 16 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: And we've got to 17 remember we had a proposal here already. Did I call 18 you, Raymond? No, I don't think so. 19 20 Brittany, you'll be next. 21 22 MR. STONEY: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I 23 don't think none of you was in that meeting when the 24 proposal passed for ceremonial, burial, for any game. 25 It did pass 15 years ago. None of you were there. In 26 fact, we discussed this last fall again. Under the 27 Federal law what was passed in this proposal was that 28 any game is legalized to use for ceremonial or burial 29 regardless whether it's closed or not closed, including 30 muskox. That's what 31 passed 15 years ago. We don't have to discuss that 32 again. 33 34 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: I understand what 35 you're saying, Raymond. That's why I say stay away 36 from the ceremonial. It's already been passed. 37 38 MR. STONEY: Yeah. 39 40 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Go ahead. 41 Brittany was next. 42 43 MS. SWEENEY: Thank you. 44 45 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, you have to come 46 up to a mic, please. 47 48 MS. SWEENEY: Thank you. So at the 49 time when I raised my hand was prior to when Mr. Kramer 50





1 and Lisa had their discussion about the dates. But I 2 was going to say if your intention is to reduce cow 3 harvest but not eliminate it entirely, then shortening 4 the season is kind of the middle ground. So it sounds 5 like you sorted that out through your conversation. 6 It's taking a step toward reducing the cow harvest but 7 leaving some opportunity on Federal lands. 8 9 MR. KRAMER: Yeah, that's what I'm

10 trying to get at. Like this right here says, you know, 11 the antlerless moose would be November 1st to December 12 31st as the State. That way we would align with the 13 State. That way we're trying to take our cuts also. 14 Because if we don't take our cuts, then the 15 non-residents have ammunition against us because we're 16 not taking a cut. I mean you guys aren't taking a cut, 17 but we can, so we've got to try to balance out the 18 system there. 19 20 As this right here states right here, 21 it says one moose, no calves or cows with calves and 22 it's an antlerless moose and the current season would 23 be November 1st to December 31st. The RM880 would be 24 from August 1st to, what did he say, November 1st or 25 31st? 26 27 MR. SAITO: 31st of December. 28 29 MS. SWEENEY: This is Brittany Sweeney 30 again. Just one further point of clarification. I 31 believe this slide or this piece of paper which was 32 handed out to you was from the Board of Game 33 presentation and this passed, right? 34 35 MR. SAITO: Yes. 36 37 MS. SWEENEY: So this is the old -- 38 what's written in white is the old and the yellow is 39 what's now passed. So where it says current and 40 proposed, that's not -- now it's the old and the new. 41 So this is what the State has now, is the yellow. They 42 don't have any antlerless anymore. 43 44 MR. SAITO: Yeah, the yellow is just 45 the part that changed. It's still August through 46 December 31st. Then there's those two parts. There's 47 the north at the Singoalik, which that starts in July, 48 and then there's the remainder, which is the rest of 49 Unit 23 and the remainder is August through December 50





1 31st for just bulls. 2 3 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you. So 4 many different people I'm getting so confused. We'll 5 go back to the proposal, Mike's proposal. The problem 6 is he was adding the ceremonial. To make it simple, 7 Mike, for clarification, you need to put the proposal 8 just the way you want to have it for that bull moose 9 only.

10 11 MR. BALLOT: Mr. Chairman. 12 13 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead, Percy. 14 15 MR. BALLOT: The way I'm understanding 16 right now is that we're able to hunt antlerless moose 17 from November to March 31 on Federal lands and he's 18 wanting to align our regulations to State law. The 19 State law says nothing on November 1 to March -- 20 December 31, that's what I'm understanding, right? 21 22 So what are you trying to do there? 23 24 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, go ahead, 25 Saito. 26 27 MR. SAITO: The current Federal season 28 goes until March 31st and so he'd be shortening it down 29 to December 31st. 30 31 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. You guys 32 understand Michael's proposal. I need to hear a second 33 and we need to put it on the Federal Register. That 34 way it could be approached. I don't want no more..... 35 36 MS. MAAS: Through the Chair. If Mike 37 could restate his proposal, that might be the best 38 thing to do. 39 40 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Restate it how you 41 want it and try not to get mixed up no more than we are 42 mixed up right now. We're all -- I'm getting confused. 43 44 45 MR. KRAMER: Okay. Since we are RM880 46 holders, we need to take a cut in taking cow moose. 47 What I would like to see, my current proposal is that 48 we be allowed to take cows from November 1st to 49 December 31st, but when it comes down to the fall 50





1 RM880, we align with the State's regulations. This way 2 what we would be eliminating is we would be eliminating 3 January 1st to March 31 for antlerless moose. That 4 would be eliminated. That would be gone. So we would 5 be able to only take antlerless moose, cows, from 6 November 1st to December 31st not accompanied by a 7 calf. Is that clear? 8 9 MS. MAAS: Yes. I just want to make

10 sure I'm 100 percent clear on this. So from January 11 1st to March 31st under Federal regulations you would 12 still be able to harvest bull moose or you want to 13 eliminate that season completely where you can't 14 harvest any moose? Because currently the Federal 15 season goes until March 31st. 16 17 MR. KRAMER: Any suggestion from the 18 board on harvesting bulls? 19 20 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: I think right now to 21 help Mike you guys need to work with him. I think we 22 need to take a five-minute break and straighten it out 23 and solve this. Otherwise we're going to go on and 24 we're going to be behind on our agenda. 25 26 Hang on. Go ahead, Louie. 27 28 MR. COMMACK: Thank you, Mr. Chair. On 29 the issue of one bull, antlered or whatever, that's 30 being proposed. In my lifetime, we don't get a bull 31 moose during the winter. Never did. It's always a 32 female without a calf. That's tradition because of the 33 fat content of the female moose. Nobody gets a bull 34 moose middle of the winter. Nobody does. It's not 35 been that way for the last 100 years. It's always a 36 female without a calf because they're so fat and meat 37 is so tender. 38 39 The reason I brought up the ceremonial 40 issue, and we're going to get into this, that we 41 protect that inherent right we have, that it's 42 protected. We still gather for our burials and 43 potlucks and everything. That is one thing we must 44 maintain the protection. That's why I brought it up, 45 that we don't lose sight of it. 46 47 Thank you. 48 49 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you, 50





1 Louie. It's always been like that and it's going to be 2 like that. Let's take a five-minute break and that way 3 Mike can straighten it out and end this confusion. And 4 we'll go back to your proposal. 5 6 That way you could be on the Federal 7 Register. 8 9 Okay, five-minute break.

10 11 (Off record) 12 13 (On record) 14 15 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. We have two 16 missing. We have a quorum, so we can go ahead and get 17 started. Are you ready to rephrase, Mike, and we can 18 move on and end the confusion. 19 20 Who's going to address it? 21 22 Go ahead, Mike. 23 24 MR. KRAMER: Okay. After butting heads 25 and straightening out our hair we fixed it. 26 27 (Laughter) 28 29 MR. KRAMER: Okay. My motion would be 30 as follows: bulls would be August 1st to October 31st 31 on Federal lands. Cows would be only open, antlerless 32 moose with no calf would be November 1st to December 33 31st and that is any moose, whether bull, cow. But 34 mainly bulls would be only open between October 1st -- 35 August 1st to October 31st. So the remainder of 36 December 31st to March 31st for antlerless cows would 37 be eliminated. 38 39 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you, Mike. 40 41 Go ahead. 42 43 MS. MAAS: Just for clarification. 44 What Mike just read was for Unit 23 remainder and for 45 the other hunt area north of the Singoalik River it 46 would be similar. It would just be bulls July 47 1st to December 31st and then any moose, so that 48 includes cows, November 1st to December 31st. It's 49 just a different hunt area, but one month difference. 50





1 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead. 2 3 MR. KRAMER: Is that correct, Brandon? 4 That's correct. 5 6 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: That's his proposal. 7 Do I have a second. Go ahead, Enoch. 8 9 MR. MITCHELL: Second.

10 11 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Second by Enoch. 12 13 MR. CLEVELAND: I call for question. 14 15 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Call for question. 16 All in favor signify by saying aye. 17 18 IN UNISON: Aye. 19 20 (No opposing votes) 21 22 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thanks, Mike. 23 Now we have one more from Chugiak on his proposal. 24 That way it could make it to Federal Register. 25 26 MR. CUSACK: Once again I'm Louis 27 Cusack from Chugiak, Alaska. I'm just going to speak 28 to the portion of -- it's not a proposal by me 29 actually. It's just a recommendation to ask the 30 Regional Council to consider making a motion for this. 31 All I wanted to recommend here today right now was the 32 moose portion. 33 34 What I'd ask the Council to consider 35 was to change the Federal subsistence regulation to one 36 bull moose and I kept the 37 description and I kept the season dates the same as 38 identified in the Federal subsistence guidelines. 39 That's just three areas. One area is open from July 40 1st through March 31st. The other area is open from 41 August 1st through March 31st and the remainder is open 42 from August 1st to March 31st. 43 44 And then I'd ask the Regional Council 45 to consider putting a motion forward that would add a 46 subsistence winter registration any moose hunt. What 47 my thoughts were there was to consider this as an 48 option where families have not taken an annual quota 49 what they need or, in the case of potluck, that it 50





1 would be a special registration hunt authorized by the 2 State of Alaska where a village or an individual would 3 ask for that permit and receive it based on need. And 4 that was my recommendation. 5 6 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you. 7 Are you putting it in proposal form just the way you 8 say it or what? That way I need a second if you're 9 going to put it in proposal form or are you just

10 recommending? 11 12 MR. CUSACK: I was recommending on the 13 assumption that I could not put a proposal forward. 14 15 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you. 16 Now we could move on. The other speaker is -- oh, he's 17 right there by the door. We need to get back to old 18 business. Because I think we all know we've got a new 19 President. I'll tell you one thing, I'm worried what's 20 going to happen in the future. We might not even be 21 here, Council Members. 22 23 Yeah, go ahead. 24 25 MR. PELTOLA: Thank you, Mr. Chair and 26 RAC Members. Once again, Gene Peltola, Jr., Assistant 27 Regional Director for the Office of Subsistence 28 Management. I spoke to the Federal rulemaking aspect 29 of the Federal Subsistence Program and this slight hold 30 that we're on at this time. 31 32 The other aspect of that is with the 33 change in administration we also will have a change in 34 Secretaries. This morning Ryan Zinke was appointed as 35 the Secretary of Interior by a 68-31 margin. The other 36 half of the Federal Subsistence Program, which is 37 Agriculture, that has yet to be determined. They're 38 still enacting within that department. Once that 39 confirmation does occur then we'll forward it on to the 40 Federal Subsistence Program participants. 41 42 So there's two immediate effects of the 43 change in administration on the Federal Subsistence 44 Program. One is process-related. The other is with 45 regard to the leadership. I would try to address any 46 specific questions you or any of the Regional Advisory 47 Council Members may have at this time to the best of my 48 ability. 49 50





1 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Enoch here. So about 2 how long do you find out where we stand when they 3 change? I mean what will happen, about how long? 4 5 MR. PELTOLA: It would be hard to try 6 to determine what direction the new Secretary of 7 Interior will have in addition to Agriculture, which is 8 the other half of the Federal Subsistence Program. But 9 what has been available through the public with regard

10 to Secretary Zinke is that he's a strong advocate for 11 Federal lands, he's from a western state and he has a 12 strong track record with regard to working with tribal 13 entities in those western states, specifically Montana 14 where he's from. So based on that we can hopefully 15 anticipate that we'll have a good working relationship 16 from the Regional Advisory Council level from the 17 Federally qualified rural user level based on what 18 we've been exposed to so far. 19 20 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you. 21 22 Any questions from the Council Members. 23 24 (No comments) 25 26 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thanks, Gene. 27 28 MR. PELTOLA: Taikuu. 29 30 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: So we're back to 31 11(d). No, we've got caribou data, right? We had one 32 on moose on 11(a). We never get to the caribou yet or 33 did you go through the caribou already? Is someone 34 going to speak on the caribou? Go right ahead. You 35 have got the floor. 36 37 Go ahead, Zach. 38 39 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 40 I believe we're still on agenda item 11, new business, 41 item (a) review of data, and I believe we're now at 42 caribou data. 43 44 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, that's what I 45 was saying. We need to go to the caribou, we're done 46 with the moose. Who's going to give the presentation? 47 Okay. Got to go back to her computer. 48 49 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Saito and Robison. 50





1 You're Robison, right, the new..... 2 3 MR. HANSEN: I'm Hansen. 4 5 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Hansen. Yeah, go 6 ahead, you have the floor. 7 8 MR. HANSEN: Okay. So I didn't have a 9 whole lot. I just wanted to introduce myself mainly

10 and, you know, looking forward to working with all of 11 you as we work on this Western Arctic Caribou Herd. 12 I'm excited to be here and hopefully we can make some 13 great things happen together. 14 15 Can everybody see that? I don't have a 16 lot of slides, but let me just provide a little input 17 here. I just wanted to do a quick recap on our current 18 population. I'm sure you've seen all this before, so I 19 won't dwell on it a lot. We've moved into that 200,000 20 animal range and that's kind of where we're at. 21 22 As we know -- the clicker is not 23 working. Can I just call for the next slide. 24 25 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: So the blue dots 26 are how many caribou? 27 28 MR. HANSEN: That is correct. The 29 question was asked what the blue notes were and those 30 are the estimated population size. 31 32 So this is kind of the guidance from 33 the Western Arctic Herd Working Group. We find 34 ourselves here in the red circle here, so this is kind 35 of our population. This is what we're kind of looking 36 for as far as harvest goes, so I just wanted to 37 reiterate that point real quickly. 38 39 We're starting to see some good news. 40 Hopefully things will continue to turn that direction 41 but we're starting to get more calf recruitment and our 42 goal to female cow survival is going up. That's that 43 line going down actually. That is an indication of 44 survival, so we're excited about that. I guess we'll 45 see what the near future brings. I just wanted to let 46 you know that we're very concerned about that. We're 47 monitoring that and keeping a good eye on it. 48 49 Here's just a quick overview of some 50





1 biological data. As I mentioned, female survival is 2 high. This is what we saw in '15-'16, which is very 3 good, that 90 percent survival. So that's a good sign. 4 That's a good metric for the herd right now. Also 5 recruitment is high. Getting 23 young yearlings coming 6 in to join the productive aspect of the herd there. 7 8 Also this is our calf survival. I'm 9 going to talk about this a little more in detail, but

10 we're going to kind of propose a calf survival study. 11 So this calf survival, just to let me clarify, is calf 12 survival when we catch them on the Kobuk there at Onion 13 Portage. So that time from when they come down on 14 migration they cross the Kobuk and that is that 15 survival just so that you're not confused on that one. 16 17 Our calf production is high. Calf 18 weights are high. Again, this is the weight as they 19 cross the Kobuk there at Onion Portage. Their body 20 conditions are high. I've heard from a lot of members 21 of the Council that they're finding caribou, they're 22 fat and healthy and that's great to see. We appreciate 23 that information from you. 24 25 This is a new piece of information 26 here. We just did our herd composition. We want to 27 maintain our bull:cow ratio at 40 bulls to every 100 28 cows and we're within that range, which is a good 29 metric and we're excited about that. Again, 54 calves 30 to 100 cows. Both of those are high, so I just wanted 31 to share that we have some good information to share 32 with you from our 2016 composition studies. 33 34 As I mentioned, we have interest in 35 doing a calf survival study. We could start as early 36 as this June. This would be something that was done up 37 on Eagle Creek on the calving grounds. So we would 38 actually get -- the information that we're looking for 39 would be to find out when and where that mortality 40 takes place before they make that transition down 41 toward the wintering grounds. 42 43 So that's a piece of information that 44 we don't have on this herd right now. We take some 45 guesses, but this kind of study has been done in other 46 parts of the state on other herds and it's been good 47 information, so that's what we're looking at. 48 49 We would certainly love to hear from 50





1 you, what ideas you have on that and maybe we could 2 work together on that and get a good proposal together. 3 We're actually working on that now, so that should be 4 coming forward soon if we can pull it off. This will 5 be like a three-year study, so hoping to get started 6 this June if we can get all the pieces in the right 7 spots. 8 9 And I guess just kind of a quick

10 overview here. We still have quite a few caribou in 11 the herd right now. It appears, based on those 12 metrics, that the decline is slowing a little bit. 13 Caribou are looking healthy, they're doing well, so 14 we're excited about that. 15 16 As we've discussed, we're getting 17 toward that 200,000 mark, we're concerned about that. 18 We want to make sure that our harvest doesn't exceed 19 our surplus, our harvestable surplus there. That's 20 something we need to monitor. 21 22 As such, one of the things that's come 23 into place is the new Board of Game approved 24 registration permit. This is for Unit 23 and 26A. 25 We'd love to get your input on that and how we can 26 promote that because if we can get the information back 27 from the hunters out there, we have a better idea of 28 what the harvest rates actually are. We're kind of 29 guessing right now and it would really help to have 30 that information. 31 32 This new permit, which will be called 33 RC907 will become effective July 1st this year. As I 34 mentioned, we just need to get people to get the 35 registration permit, number one, and then of coursed 36 return the harvest report. 37 38 I'm here in town, so if you have any 39 ideas or if you want to come over to the office and 40 chat me up, we can talk about that, but we'd love to 41 get your ideas on how we can get everybody to 42 participate in that. That would be awesome. 43 44 That's all I have for now. I believe 45 Hillary has some more stuff. 46 47 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Are you going to take 48 questions because I've got a question on the survival 49 rate of calves on the calving grounds. 50





1 MR. HANSEN: Okay. Go ahead. 2 3 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: That's what it is. 4 Are you guys going to look into the future what the 5 survival rate of the calves at the calving grounds? 6 7 MR. HANSEN: Yes. Thank you, Mr. 8 Chairman. Yeah, that is something we want to find 9 out. We don't 100 percent know what the survival is on

10 the calving grounds and that would be the design behind 11 the study that we're proposing is to take a look at 12 that more in depth. It's been done in other herd units 13 and they have a pretty good idea what happens there, 14 but we're kind of missing that piece. We know what the 15 survival is after they cross the Kobuk and then they 16 come back up, but we don't know what the survival is 17 between the calving grounds and when they get to Onion 18 Portage per say. 19 20 Does that answer your question? 21 22 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yep. Go ahead. Did 23 you want to add something. 24 25 MR. HANSEN: Any other questions? 26 27 MR. COMMACK: I've got one. 28 29 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead, Louie. 30 31 MR. COMMACK: I see a number that's 32 12,000. Is that the number of caribou that the hunters 33 in our region take every fall? It's something like 34 12,000 to 15,000, is that..... 35 36 MR. HANSEN: Yeah. Right now the 37 harvest in the Unit 23 is somewhere around 12,000. 38 That's kind of the peak. The highest harvest..... 39 40 MR. COMMACK: Right there. 41 42 MR. HANSEN: .....is where we're 43 talking, Louie. 44 45 MR. COMMACK: Okay, yeah. Is that in 46 one year? 47 48 MR. HANSEN: Yes, this is per year. So 49 the highest harvest is about 15,300 and change. On the 50





1 low end, the harvest is around 10,000 and change. So 2 it's between kind of this area is what the harvest has 3 been every year. I might also reiterate that we can 4 get a better grasp on that number as we get this new 5 permit out and as we get the information back as it's 6 reported back to us. 7 8 Does that answer your question there? 9

10 MR. COMMACK: Yeah. So that includes 11 the wintertime count. 12 13 MR. HANSEN: As far as harvest? 14 15 MR. COMMACK: Yeah. 16 17 MR. HANSEN: Yes, this would be total 18 harvest for year round. 19 20 MR. COMMACK: I didn't know you'd have 21 to fill out a permit or report if you get a caribou as 22 of right now, today. 23 24 MR. HANSEN: Actually this is just a 25 new system that's coming, the new registration permit. 26 That will be starting July 1st. 27 28 MR. COMMACK: Okay. All right. Thank 29 you. 30 31 MR. HANSEN: Thank you. 32 33 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you, 34 Louie. Since he brought that up I have a question. We 35 have a harvest of 12,000. I want to hear this. Is it 36 for the whole migration route of the caribou from 37 Barrow to Unalakleet or is that number only in Unit 23? 38 39 MR. HANSEN: So that is basically our 40 harvest on the Western Arctic Herd. That harvest could 41 take place all the way up to all the way down and we're 42 trying to track just what is harvested within the 43 Western Arctic Herd itself. 44 45 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: What I'm trying to do 46 is I don't believe that Unit 23 is the main harvesters 47 of all the caribou, this number. I'm trying to see -- 48 because if they say, okay, we need to take a reduction, 49 it's got to be from the migration route from Barrow to 50





1 Unalakleet. 2 3 That's what I'm saying. 4 5 MR. HANSEN: Okay. 6 7 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Because if we're 8 going to have a limit, it's going to affect the whole 9 migration route, not only Unit 23. We can't take the

10 burden alone and Nome could take what they want and 11 upper could take what they want. That's what I'm 12 saying. Got to be fair. 13 14 MR. HANSEN: Yeah. For sure. We're 15 definitely taking that into consideration. So the 23 16 and the 26A will be on the same harvest ticket or 17 harvest registration permit. 18 19 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you. Anyone 20 else from the Council. Go ahead, Mike. 21 22 MR. KRAMER: Mike, through the 23 Chairman. I just wanted to make sure that -- the one 24 question I had was that, you know, if we're taking 25 cuts, Seward Pen, Western Interior, North Slope also 26 needs to be able to -- I mean that's why I kind of 27 requested a joint meeting, but it got tossed out the 28 back window. I just want to make sure that we're all 29 on the same page because if we're taking measures and 30 they're not, what's the point. You know, they need to 31 also be taking measures because they supported us in 32 the past on a lot of our decisions. 33 34 MR. HANSEN: Yes. Thank you, Mike. 35 We're working with them on the same registration 36 permit, so we're certainly taking that into account and 37 making sure our harvest is tabulated between the two 38 units. 39 40 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you. Go ahead, 41 Zach. 42 43 Hannah, you'll be next. 44 45 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 46 I'm responding to Member Kramer's point a moment ago 47 about the request that was made, the October 6th 48 meeting in Selawik. The request to have a joint 49 meeting was not thrown out the window, but in fact a 50





1 joint meeting in Shungnak was not financially possible. 2 As was communicated with the RAC, there was the 3 opportunity at the RACs discretion to form a wildlife 4 working group so that information can be shared amongst 5 regions at the will of the RAC. 6 7 So I just want to make clear that that 8 request was heard, but financial constraints did not 9 allow for a meeting in Shungnak. Again, at the

10 discretion of the RAC, there can be a wildlife working 11 group formed if the RAC so chooses. 12 13 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 14 15 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay, you heard that. 16 We all want to have a meeting at Shungnak, but if you 17 happen to run into some money, OSM, you need to have a 18 meeting in Shungnak now or sometime in the future 19 because that's part of the migration route for the 20 caribou. I think it will be hard for us to decide who 21 is going to sit on the caribou -- the part of the group 22 to -- you know, the meeting because we're all takers 23 for the caribou from our village, all of our villages 24 for Unit 23 starting from Louie down to me. And we 25 hate to be left out because it's going to be hard, but 26 if it's needed, I will gladly step down and let some 27 people that take more caribou than I do. 28 29 Okay. Is there anything else. 30 31 MR. HANSEN: That's all that I have, 32 Chairman. 33 34 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead, Louie. 35 36 MR. COMMACK: During our Upper Kobuk 37 fish and game meeting, during our discussion, given the 38 current situation we are in now with the decline of the 39 caribou it was noted from five to three. Food for 40 thought. If this continues to decline, if the 41 population of the caribou continues to decline, then 42 we'll have to face real facts here. 43 44 I remember in the Upper Kobuk when we 45 decided to go from 15 to 5 and now the new discussion 46 was from five to what to help out the population 47 growth. If there's any way we could help, I mean all 48 of us in Unit 23, this is only food for thought for all 49 of us. 50





1 Thank you. 2 3 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you, Louie. 4 5 Go ahead, Hannah. 6 7 MS. LOON: Before the moose season we 8 do get moose permits from our IRA office in Selawik 9 before June 15, around there, there's a deadline. Do I

10 understand we will also under State regs we will be 11 getting caribou permits, register for caribou, or has 12 it always been registering for caribou. 13 14 Thank you. 15 16 MR. HANSEN: Yes, Hannah. We're 17 talking about the new registration permit. That will 18 be new starting July 1st and that permit we're working 19 on how it actually lays out, but basically it will be a 20 layout and it has 10 permits on it or so that you can 21 record the harvest for 10 animals. Upon completion of 22 the harvest of those 10 animals or say at the close of 23 the season, then you can report that harvest back to us 24 however way you want to. You can send it in the mail 25 or call us or online. Does that address your question? 26 27 MS. LOON: Yes. Thank you. I had 28 another question. 29 30 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead, Hannah. 31 You have another one. 32 33 MS. LOON: I was thinking in the same 34 line as Louie. We need to make a cut too. It's pretty 35 critical our caribou are going down. In the 1970s 36 there were 100,000 caribou and now we're 190, maybe 37 less, I don't know. But maybe something to think about 38 for our fall season upcoming fall season meeting to 39 consider in the future down to five, four or three. 40 41 Thank you. 42 43 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you. 44 You got an answer. 45 46 MR. HANSEN: Yeah, certainly, you know, 47 within the subsistence we're going to be harvesting 48 about 95 percent of the caribou. So certainly, you 49 know, as you addressed, Hannah, and also Louie, we 50





1 probably as subsistence users -- sorry, I'm including 2 myself but I'm not one yet. Hopefully in the future. 3 But we would have to take a cut as well because, you 4 know, as we're harvesting the greatest number, we want 5 to be able to preserve that for our future, for our 6 children, for our grandchildren. We need to think 7 about that a little bit. 8 9 Hopefully we'll see this kind of taper

10 off and downturn because caribou naturally are up and 11 down and that's just the way it works. Hopefully it 12 will turn around and come back up, but we certainly 13 need to be prepared. As you mentioned too, maybe 14 rachet back our harvest just a little bit and think 15 about constructive ways to do that so we can still have 16 the meat that we need and the food for our freezers. 17 18 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you. Go ahead. 19 Hannah, you'll be right behind Percy. 20 21 MR. BALLOT: I was just going to ask 22 for your last data count and how did you do it. Last 23 year, this year? 24 25 MR. HANSEN: Yeah, the census was 2016. 26 I can't give you too many specifics because I wasn't 27 here at that time, but that was a photo census and it 28 put the numbers at about 200,000 for total population 29 count. 30 31 MR. BALLOT: I'm trying to remember if 32 that's when Jim was still on and that's when we were 33 having a bad weather count time. 34 35 MS. MAAS: That was 2015. 36 37 MR. HANSEN: Yeah, I think that was 38 2015. 39 40 MR. BALLOT: That was the last time it 41 was done. The numbers aren't really current yet, but 42 the observation of calf mortality what do you guys 43 know? 44 45 MR. HANSEN: To address your first 46 question, the current number is current. It was as of 47 October of 2016. So it's the latest information. So 48 200,000 is the number we have to work with right now. 49 50





1 Thank you. 2 3 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Go ahead, 4 Hannah. 5 6 MS. LOON: Thank you. Because we live 7 -- the caribou and human and other predators like bear 8 are Federal subsistence, reads one bear by State 9 registration. I believe since we have so much issues

10 with them, us living in the communities and being 11 harassed and food taken and whatnot, I think it would 12 be a good idea to have no limit instead of just one. 13 No limit. 14 15 Thank you. 16 17 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you, Hannah. 18 Anyone else. 19 20 Go ahead, Vern. 21 22 MR. CLEVELAND: No limit on what, 23 Hannah? 24 25 MS. LOON: On brown bear. 26 27 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: That's a different 28 thing we're talking about. Okay. Anyone else. 29 30 If not -- go ahead, Louie. 31 32 MR. COMMACK: My question concern is 33 about the data that was dealt with going two, three 34 years back. I'm just curious if the Teshekpuk Herd 35 was included in the data with the Western Arctic 36 Caribou. 37 38 MR. HANSEN: To address your question, 39 the Teshekpuk Herd is counted separately, so they're 40 looked at as two different units. 41 42 MR. COMMACK: Well, that's what we've 43 -- we've heard over the years there was some counting 44 going on with Teshekpuk Herd and our herd somehow 45 getting together between here and Barrow. That was a 46 concern I have and I wanted to bring it up. 47 48 Thank you. 49 50





1 MR. HANSEN: Thank you. 2 3 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you, Louie. 4 5 Go ahead, Zach. 6 7 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 8 I would like to suggest that given the information that 9 has been provided by the Alaska Department of Fish and

10 Game regarding the latest information on caribou and 11 the information presented there, if the Council had any 12 proposals addressing caribou that they would like to 13 bring forward. 14 15 Oh, my apologies. I've just been 16 informed that there's some additional information that 17 Ms. Robison would like to address regarding caribou. 18 19 My apologies. 20 21 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you. 22 Are we done with 11(a) now so we can move on to 11(b) 23 wildlife proposals. 24 25 MR. STEVENSON: Mr. Chair. We have one 26 more presentation from Ms. Robison regarding caribou 27 data. Is that correct, Hillary? 28 29 MS. ROBISON: Yes. 30 31 MR. STEVENSON: Yes. Thank you. One 32 more piece. 33 34 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. I stand 35 corrected. Go ahead, Robison. 36 37 MS. ROBISON: Good afternoon, Council 38 Members. Hillary Robison, wildlife biologist, for the 39 record, for the National Park Service. I wanted to 40 follow up Alex here and just summarize some key points 41 from the Western Arctic Caribou Herd Working Group 42 meeting. 43 44 At the meeting there were break-out 45 groups where members of the working group got into 46 groups and discussed what things they thought were 47 important and if there was a continued decline, what 48 actions they thought might be worth considering moving 49 forward. 50





1 One of the things -- so there came up a 2 summary of bullet points that I shared to the working 3 group based on input from that break-out group from 4 people from Unit 23. These are the items they 5 identified, that harvest reporting was important. They 6 wanted to have us evaluate recent regulatory changes 7 that shortened the cow season. They were wondering 8 what effects that had had on the population and they 9 understand that might take a few years to get enough

10 information to evaluate the effects of that change, but 11 that's something they were interested in seeing. 12 13 There was discussion that they 14 preferred changes to daily and annual bag limits rather 15 than a shorter hunting season. They were interested in 16 considering or discussing an annual cow bag limit 17 change as a first step to reduce harvest should that be 18 necessary. And there was an interest in considering 19 what cow harvest regulations would make sense for 20 communities on the winter range because bulls and cows 21 are available to villages in different areas depending 22 on the migration. So some villages may have access to 23 both bulls and cows and some may have just more access 24 to cows and less access to bulls. 25 26 There was an interest in considering 27 sub areas since Unit 23 is so large and a majority of 28 the harvest is in the unit. We talked a little bit 29 about the effects of cow survival on population 30 trajectory. There isn't a similar wheel for moose, but 31 in 2009 the Park Service did some models to look at the 32 effects of overall harvest and the percentage of which 33 are cows to see what the effect would be on the trend 34 of the population. The data that were used were from 35 Jim Dau's research on estimates of female survival, 36 birth rates, harvest and calf survival. 37 38 From this graph it looked at what the 39 population size was in 2009 and looked to see if 10,000 40 animals were harvested and 40 percent of them were 41 female, what would that look like for the population. 42 What would the trajectory of the decline look like. So 43 this was just kind of an experiment to see what might 44 happen at the level of 15,000 caribou, if 15,000 45 caribou were harvested at a rate of -- with 60 percent 46 of those being female. That is sort of the trajectory 47 we've seen most closely in this decline. This just 48 demonstrates the effect of female survival on the 49 potential declines in the population based on what 50





1 percentage females are of the harvest. 2 3 Another thing the Unit 23 break-out 4 group discussed is they were concerned about the role 5 of predators and that if harvest reduction was needed, 6 they would also want the State to consider predator 7 control. They were interested in recommending changes 8 to the State proxy system in order to make it possible 9 for high harvesters to hunt for others in the

10 community. So that I guess is decided by the 11 legislature because it's a statute, so Fish and Game 12 clarified it would have to go through the legislature 13 to change. 14 15 So that is a summary of some of what 16 was discussed by the working group just to bring it 17 back to this group. Also Jan Caulfield, who is the 18 facilitator for the Western Arctic Caribou Herd Working 19 Group, wanted us to point out that the Western Arctic 20 Caribou Herd Working Group made a pledge to write a 21 couple of proposals to the Federal Subsistence Board. 22 23 One of those would be to require a 24 harvest registration permit to make the same proposal 25 as the State Board of Game Proposal 2 to the Federal 26 Subsistence Board so that the same type of individual 27 harvest reporting would also be required for the 28 Western Arctic Caribou Herd harvest on Federal lands 29 and waters. 30 31 The reason behind that was that if 32 you're getting information from the State side about 33 harvest but you're not getting the same information 34 from the Federal side about harvest, then you're 35 missing half the story and you're not getting good 36 information about harvest through both the Federal and 37 State systems. So they decided to write a proposal 38 like this to align the State and Federal reporting so 39 that we could get the best information from both sides. 40 41 The other proposal that they agreed to 42 submit was a closure of caribou hunting to non- 43 Federally qualified subsistence hunters in Unit 23 for 44 July 1, 2018 through June 30, 2020. So those were the 45 two proposals that Jan will be working with them on as 46 the call for proposals comes out and goes through the 47 process. 48 49 The Wildlife Special Action to close 50





1 Unit 23 to caribou hunting to non-Federally qualified 2 users, which went into effect last July 1st, Wildlife 3 Special Action 16-01, was submitted because of concern 4 over the decline of the caribou herd as well as to 5 reduce user conflicts. The closure has brought up some 6 issues for people. 7 8 The closure reduced conflicts around 9 Noatak, however in other areas we heard at the SRC

10 meetings from Trooper McGinnis and Dan Stevenson in 11 their reports to the Subsistence Resource Commissions 12 that non-local hunters shifted to State 13 land and people reported conflicts in other areas, such 14 as the Wulik and the Kivalina Rivers. 15 16 A closure would not necessarily 17 decrease the harvest because 95 percent of the harvest 18 is by local users. One issue that was brought up was 19 people who grew up in the villages of Kotzebue but now 20 live in Anchorage, like some of your relatives or like 21 Maya's son who can't hunt on Federal lands. An elder 22 had lamented to an SRC member that he couldn't teach 23 his grandson to hunt because his grandson lives in 24 Anchorage. 25 26 An option this group could consider to 27 decrease conflicts but not have some of those issues is 28 closing some but not all areas of Unit 23. This could 29 close areas where people would like to avoid conflicts, 30 but would address the problem of concentration by 31 spreading out non-local hunters out over State 32 and Federal lands. 33 34 I spoke with a NANA shareholder who 35 sits in on the meetings and said that NANA is concerned 36 that shareholders who have to move to Anchorage for 37 economic reasons can't hunt on closed Federal lands but 38 only on State and NANA lands. So I bring this up 39 because just to speak to the fact that we're talking 40 about how to address the decline and whether or not 41 this was effective to help address the decline. So 42 there are other options that might be considered. 43 44 My last slides are about caribou 45 migration timing and location. These are from collared 46 caribou that have GPS collars on them and looking at -- 47 this is 2014 and 2015. I have a lot of other years, 48 but it gets very busy if they're all up there at once. 49 50





1 So you can see in 2014 the majority of 2 the collars migrated further east and last year in 2015 3 there was a pulse that came through in both the east 4 and in the western part of the Noatak River drainage 5 and onto the Kobuk. Then this is a histogram of what 6 it looked like in previous years, 2013, 2012, 2011 and 7 2010. 8 9 So in 2011, if you'll look at that,

10 it's on the lower left-hand side, a number of animals 11 migrated through that section of river and in years 12 after that they were -- the proportion was lower. It 13 was slightly higher in 2014 and 2015 is about the same 14 as 2011. 15 16 With that I'll take any questions. 17 18 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Any questions 19 from the board. Go ahead, Louie. 20 21 MR. COMMACK: I would like 22 clarification on Federal lands and waters. I'm just 23 kind of confused what you're talking about. 24 25 MS. ROBISON: That is the language that 26 was used by the Western Arctic Caribou Herd Working 27 Group. So Federal lands and waters would be right now 28 the gravel bars above the water line and below the 29 high-water mark in Noatak National Preserve are 30 considered State land. That's currently in litigation 31 and they're currently considered State land. 32 33 So this might be -- and someone else 34 can clarify this as well, but this might be referring 35 to, for example, in Kobuk Valley, the water within 36 Kobuk Valley National Park is considered Federal waters 37 is my understanding. So that might be why that's in 38 there, but if someone else has a different 39 understanding, they can clarify that. 40 41 Is that your understanding, Susan? 42 43 MR. COMMACK: I know there's litigation 44 between the rivers running through Park Service. 45 They're trying to decide who owns the water. So that's 46 why I'm trying to find out where you're at with this 47 Federal lands and waters. I don't know. What are you 48 trying to say. 49 50





1 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thanks, Louie. Go 2 ahead, Susan. 3 4 MS. GEORGETTE: Yeah, Louie, I think 5 the way the Federal subsistence rules work is that the 6 rivers that flow through Federal units, like the Parks 7 and the Preserves and the Refuges, fall under Federal 8 Subsistence Management, so all these hunting 9 rules apply to the rivers that flow within the Refuges

10 and the Parks. There's different issues about boats 11 and all, but when it comes to hunting caribou they fall 12 under Federal subsistence regs. 13 14 MR. COMMACK: So leading up to the 15 high-water mark that's basically what you're saying. 16 17 MS. GEORGETTE: No, it's the edge of 18 the water -- it's the water itself. So if you're 19 shooting caribou in the water. And then the stuff 20 above the high-water mark, but that stretch between the 21 edge of the water and the high-water mark are State 22 lands at least on the Refuge and in the Preserve. 23 24 It's really confusing and it goes back 25 to a lot of laws that don't have anything to do with 26 ANILCA. 27 28 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thanks. Go ahead, 29 Vern. 30 31 MR. CLEVELAND: We closed Federal 32 lands, now all there's water. If you come out of 33 Anchorage and you come out hunting, you can't even hunt 34 on water. What the heck is going to happen? Who owns 35 water? Federal and State, I noticed they're really 36 having a -- you know, it's just like it's split right 37 down the middle. 38 39 Like me, I'm trespassing during hunting 40 season and I see someone hunting in the waters and he's 41 not Federally recognized, everybody else that's in that 42 area shouldn't be hunting there then, right? Is that 43 what it is in Federal water? 44 45 MS. GEORGETTE: Right. If they're not 46 Federally qualified, they should not be hunting on the 47 water. They can hunt on the gravel bar. 48 49 MR. CLEVELAND: Thank you. 50





1 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead. 2 3 MS. MAAS: Through the Chair. I 4 wouldn't get too hung up on waters. This is just how 5 the working group submitted the proposal. On our side 6 when we analyze it, it doesn't matter if they say lands 7 and waters. The waters is kind of grouped under lands. 8 So I mean they explained what they meant by waters, but 9 as far as proposals go it doesn't really make a

10 difference if they specify water or not. If they just 11 said Federal lands, it would still apply to the water. 12 So I wouldn't get hung up on that. 13 14 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead, Kramer. 15 16 Thanks. 17 18 MR. KRAMER: Yeah, Mike here. We put 19 16-01 in to prevent conflicts on the Noatak River. One 20 month prior or a little more to the hunting season Park 21 Service announced that all gravel bars and anything 22 below the high tide mark would be State. I know Enoch 23 had complained that local subsistence users were 24 sitting on the bank and non-resident hunters were 25 shooting from behind them at caribou across the river 26 with no way or intent to be able to go over there and 27 get them. 28 29 We put that in place because 90 percent 30 of the conflicts are on the Noatak River. By 31 benefitting and helping the Noatak River because it's 32 their first northern river that they have to cross in 33 their migration, it makes it easier for them to 34 continue to come down. That was one of the reasons why 35 we shut down Federal lands to non-Federally qualified 36 subsistence users. Then the Park Service went ahead 37 and stuck us in the knees by opening up the waterways. 38 In other words, it's kind of like a slap in the face. 39 40 But that was still continuing conflict. 41 That's why I'm trying to push away from these entities 42 from continuing conflicts between subsistence users and 43 non-residents. That was one of the 44 purposes we shut that down was to cut back on the 45 conflicts and to also help with the migration 46 southbound and to help conserve the caribou herd that 47 we have. 48 49 I think that's one of the reasons why 50





1 the Western Arctic Caribou Herd had put waters in 2 there. I was really hoping they would have coincided 3 and helped us and considered Federal waters that were 4 surrounded by Federal lands would be considered as one. 5 That way it would have helped us instead of going 6 around us and causing conflicts and other things that 7 were all congested on the river. If they would have 8 just stuck to the plan, we wouldn't have had that 9 problem.

10 11 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you. 12 13 Go ahead. 14 15 MS. ROBISON: Through the Chair. Just 16 to clarify, Mike. I understand your frustration with 17 that. The way the law was written is the law is 18 written that it is State land, so that wasn't something 19 the Park Service or the Federal government pulled out 20 of their pocket. It was existing. 21 22 Because it's in litigation right now 23 between the State and the Federal government, the 24 Federal government believes that they have a claim to 25 the water. The State believes they do. So it's in 26 litigation. But as the law stands right now and even 27 before the Wildlife Special Action went in, is that the 28 water line to the high-water mark was State land and 29 has been prior to that ever going in. So just to 30 clarify the law. 31 32 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah. Go ahead, 33 Mike. 34 35 MR. KRAMER: Because I know back in the 36 day, and Ken Adkisson can also back me up on that 37 because I had asked him back quite a few years ago when 38 we were allowed to hunt sheep, because I asked him, I 39 said, would I be able to take an ATV from the mouth of 40 the Aggie to the area of Black Mountain to harvest 41 sheep. He said no. I said, well, if I'm staying 42 within the gravel bars and the navigable waterway, 43 that's State and he said no. So what's going on here? 44 Is it two knives stabbing each other or is there just 45 two different versions? Because I was told no, that I 46 cannot drive an ATV on gravel bars because that's 47 Federal, that's Parklands, and I explained to him, I 48 said, well, that's State because it's below the high 49 and he said it's not. So there needs to be a severe 50





1 clarification because, see, I could have -- it would 2 have saved me walking about 25 miles. 3 4 MS. ROBISON: Through the Chair. Mike, 5 I would encourage you to go talk with Dan Stevenson, 6 our law enforcement ranger, to talk about that and 7 clarify that because it's something you should have 8 clarified. 9

10 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you. 11 12 Calvin. 13 14 MR. MOTO: Yeah, I was wondering -- you 15 know, you were talking a little bit about predator 16 control. What I was wondering is there some kind of 17 proposal you wanted to submit to the Federal 18 Subsistence Board on how we could -- because, you know, 19 if we have abundance of caribou moose, naturally the 20 predators are going to multiply too. 21 22 So what are you looking for for 23 controlling the predators? Are we going to use 24 airplanes or poison or something? If we have too many 25 predators, the population would probably drop again and 26 this is something we don't want to see. By the same 27 token, we don't want to really destroy all the 28 predators because they have their uses like we have our 29 uses. They control some of the bad, sick animals and 30 stuff like that. 31 32 So I was wondering what were you 33 looking for? Would that be with the Federal? Is there 34 anything Georgette could say on that or anybody who is 35 with the Federal? 36 37 MS. ROBISON: Through the Chair. Hi, 38 Calvin. I was just pointing out some of the summary 39 points that the Western Arctic Caribou Herd Working 40 Group, Unit 23 break-out group had identified that they 41 were considering should the herd decline what changes 42 or recommendations might they make and that was one of 43 them along with changes to the State proxy system and 44 being in favor of daily bag limit or annual bag limits 45 instead of shortening seasons and other things. So I 46 was just trying to summarize that, so I'm not looking 47 for anything. I'm just giving you information. 48 49 MR. MOTO: Yeah, some of the predators, 50





1 especially the bear, they only take certain part of the 2 animal they killed and they go after another one. This 3 is something we have to -- because right now we've got 4 abundance of bear around our community all the time. 5 This is something that concerns us quite a bit because 6 where we go fishing there's a lot of bears too. 7 They're just kind of dangerous. So I don't know. I 8 just thought I'd bring that up. 9

10 Thank you. 11 12 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, go ahead, Zach. 13 14 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 15 By point of order I just wanted to clarify that per 16 Member Moto's question, right now we are wrapping up on 17 the caribou data discussion. So I just wanted to 18 confirm that right now we're presently not addressing 19 predator control data per se, but rather caribou data. 20 21 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 22 23 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you, Zach. 24 Anything else on your caribou data? 25 26 MS. ROBISON: (Shakes head negatively). 27 28 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: So is there going to 29 be anything else on caribou? 30 31 MS. ROBISON: No. We're finished. 32 33 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: You're finished. 34 Okay. We need to take at least a 10-minute break. We 35 haven't had a break and we need to stretch a little 36 bit. So a 10-minute break and 20 to 4:00 we'll start. 37 38 (Off record) 39 40 (On record) 41 42 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: I'll call the meeting 43 back to order from our break. Do we have any more on 44 caribou proposals for 11(a)? 45 46 (No comments) 47 48 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. No more data 49 on caribou. We need to go to the proposals for moose 50





1 and caribou or just caribou? 2 3 MS. MAAS: Caribou and everything else. 4 5 MR. STEVENSON: Mr. Chair. 6 7 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead, Zach. 8 9 MR. STEVENSON: For clarification, we

10 are now on agenda item 11(b) call for Federal wildlife 11 proposals. Given the information that was just shared 12 with us on caribou, I would recommend that the Council 13 introduce any Federal wildlife proposals regarding 14 caribou that it would like to share with the Federal 15 Subsistence Board that will be developed with 16 assistance from the Office of Subsistence Management 17 for review with any analyses by the RAC at its fall 18 meeting. So now is the opportunity to address any 19 wildlife proposals regarding caribou. Of course, after 20 addressing caribou we will consider any other proposals 21 regarding any other wildlife that the Council would 22 like to introduce as well. 23 24 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 25 26 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you, 27 Zach. Are the proposals in our packet or they're not 28 written up yet? 29 30 MR. STEVENSON: Those proposals have 31 not been written and now is the opportunity for the RAC 32 to introduce, to start any proposals at this 33 opportunity now. 34 35 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay, thank you for 36 explaining it. So anybody want to introduce proposals 37 for the Western Arctic Caribou Herd. 38 39 Go ahead, Enoch. 40 41 MR. MITCHELL: Here it is, Mr. Chair. 42 With your permission I'd like to call for four 43 proposals. 44 45 Proposal 1 would be a wildlife working 46 group. I'd like to make a proposal to develop a 47 wildlife working group to work with other neighboring 48 RACs and share information on subsistence resources and 49 wildlife. When we work together in unity, we work good 50





1 and we work for the caribou and for the people. 2 3 The second proposal I'd like to do is a 4 special action closure for caribou. Nome, Noatak and 5 Kivalina didn't get much caribou and also Kobuk didn't 6 get much caribou. There's a conservation concern. 7 Also the caribou is declining. Also it will provide 8 for the people to have a better opportunity to harvest. 9 Also it will reduce conflict. Also science shows that

10 the caribou declining is consistent with the Western 11 Arctic Caribou Herd Working Group Plan. Also to 12 reduce caribou for culture and tradition for younger 13 generations, our younger people. Also for the health 14 of our young children, our elders and those that are 15 sick. Also for the health of the population of the 16 herd. 17 18 The recommendation would be beneficial 19 by letting us get our caribou again, it will reduce 20 conflict and it will help the herd get back to healthy 21 populations. It is consistent with the Western Arctic 22 Caribou Herd Working Group Plan. The recommendation 23 will be beneficial by letting us get our caribou again, 24 help the herd grow. Again, it will be beneficial for 25 the health of our people and for the health of the 26 caribou. Also the recommendation will not restrict 27 other uses but will definitely help us. Our culture 28 and our tradition in the past three years before the 29 closure was dying off and it was difficult for us to 30 teach our younger generation our tradition and our 31 culture without the caribou. That's a special action 32 proposal. 33 34 Proposal number three is a regulatory 35 proposal on the caribou using the same justification 36 that I just spoke on the 37 special action caribou. There is a conservation 38 concern, caribou declining, it will help the people out 39 and a better opportunity to harvest. Using the same 40 justifications I used for the special action. 41 Documentation will be beneficial for all the people and 42 it will be beneficial for the caribou health, 43 population to grow. It is consistent with the Western 44 Arctic Caribou Herd Working Group Plan. Again, it will 45 help our tradition and our culture. It is dying off 46 without our caribou. 47 48 The fourth proposal. In the past, 49 before the closure, our tradition and culture pretty 50





1 much died down because the people of Noatak did not get 2 much caribou for winter. Not because of natural 3 elements like weather, climate change, migration, stuff 4 like that. There was caribou here, but we did not get 5 it because of the high density of non-rurals on the 6 migration route and on our traditional hunting grounds. 7 8 9 Not only that, but it also caused

10 diversion of the herd and it ceased caribou from going 11 through the passages of Squirrel, Eli and Aggie Rivers. 12 The people there are concerned that it will become 13 permanent. The closure did help, but it did not close 14 them on these passages, on the Eli, Squirrel and Aggie 15 Rivers. This fall we'll get caribou, but need lots of 16 gas to go upriver to go get it by Sapun Creek. Today 17 we're still using a lot of gas to get up to Sapun. 18 19 Today we still have more families 20 pooling their monies together to hunt fall time. There 21 are a lot of others that can't afford to hunt. Also 22 for the health of our children, our caribou population, 23 our elders and those that are sick. Also it is 24 important too that when our children are not busy they 25 get in trouble and when they're busy working with the 26 caribou with our culture and tradition it keeps them 27 out of trouble. 28 29 So that fourth proposal is to close the 30 passages of Squirrel River, Eli River and Aggie River. 31 So close nonrural hunting on these rivers. 32 33 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 34 35 Those are the four proposals I've got. 36 37 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Did you get all that, 38 Zach? 39 40 MR. STEVENSON: Yes, Mr. Chair. If I 41 may, I briefly want to just list those four recommended 42 proposals that Mr. Mitchell had mentioned. The first 43 -- and correct me if I'm mistaken, Mr. Mitchell, the 44 first was to form a wildlife working group. The second 45 proposal was to submit a wildlife regulatory proposal 46 calling for the closure of Federal public lands in Unit 47 23 to caribou hunting by non-Federally qualified users. 48 49 Is that correct, Mr. Mitchell? 50





1 MR. MITCHELL: Yes, sir. 2 3 MR. STEVENSON: Thirdly, to initiate or 4 start a special action calling for a closure of Federal 5 public lands in Unit 23 to non-qualified users to 6 caribou hunting. Is that correct, Mr. Mitchell? 7 8 MR. MITCHELL: Yes, sir. 9

10 MR. STEVENSON: Lastly, item number 11 four was to initiate a Federal wildlife regulatory 12 proposal to start a closure of Federal public lands in 13 the area of the Squirrel and Aggie River to non- 14 Federally qualified users for caribou hunting. Is that 15 correct, Mr. Mitchell? 16 17 MR. MITCHELL: Also the Eli River. 18 19 MR. STEVENSON: And Eli River. 20 21 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yes, sir. 22 23 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 24 25 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Sorry, I was taking 26 notes. We will start with the first one, the wildlife 27 working group to form. 28 29 MS. MAAS: Can I ask a clarification 30 question? 31 32 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead. I'm just 33 going to go one by one for now. 34 35 MS. MAAS: Just to clarify. So you are 36 submitting a proposal to close all Federal public 37 lands, but then also a proposal to close only some 38 Federal public lands. 39 40 MR. MITCHELL: Public lands on Unit 23. 41 42 43 MS. MAAS: So I'm just wondering the 44 main -- like are you submitting proposal number four in 45 case number three is not supported? I mean because if 46 you closed all Federal lands, then the passages in the 47 Squirrel River, Aggie River and Eli River would also be 48 closed. 49 50





1 MR. MITCHELL: I'm requesting that 2 these passages be closed. I don't know whose land they 3 belong to, but only close these passages. 4 5 MS. MAAS: Are you talking -- I guess 6 I'm just not clear what your intent is on number four. 7 8 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Maybe the simple 9 question will be from someone who knows. Aggie, Eli

10 and Squirrel, are they in Federal land? Just a simple 11 question. Someone answer yes or no. 12 13 MS. MAAS: It's a mix. 14 15 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Because I think they 16 all are on Federal lands. 17 18 MR. STEVENSON: Mr. Chair. 19 20 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead, Zach. I 21 think they're all on Federal lands. 22 23 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 24 In the area of the Eli, Aggie and Squirrel Rivers you 25 have matrix lands, which are a combination of both 26 State and Federal. To Lisa Maas's question a moment 27 ago directed to Member Mitchell, just for 28 clarification, the point being if the Council were to 29 approve and go forward with your second request, the 30 closure of Federal public lands, that proposal would 31 accomplish your fourth objective. 32 33 The Office of Subsistence Management 34 only has jurisdiction and can only address Federal 35 public lands. So if that were the case and you were to 36 proceed -- if the Council were to proceed with your 37 second request, the closure of Federal -- to submit a 38 request to the Board to close Federal public lands in 39 Unit 23 to caribou hunting, that would also accomplish 40 your fourth objective. 41 42 Is that clear? 43 44 Pardon me. 45 46 Was that your point, Lisa? 47 48 MS. MAAS: That was part of my point, 49 yes, and also just what you mean by passages and where. 50





1 You know, if you just say Squirrel River, does that 2 mean the Squirrel River drainage, does that mean 3 Federal public lands within the -- you know, like just 4 along the river. So just clarifying number four 5 basically. 6 7 MR. MITCHELL: Okay. 8 9 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, I think, Enoch,

10 I think the Aggie, Eli and Squirrel Rivers are on all 11 Federal lands and it will fall into number two. 12 13 MR. MITCHELL: Like Zach said, some of 14 it falls on Federal and some of it falls on Federal and 15 some of it falls on State, right, Zach? 16 17 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. 18 That's correct and this group only has the ability to 19 address the former, which is Federal lands. 20 21 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. That's what 22 I'm trying to clarify. 23 You need to keep it simple as possible, not try to mix 24 it up or add to what he's saying for now. 25 26 MR. STEVENSON: Yeah. 27 28 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Just keep it what 29 Enoch is saying. Go ahead, Mike, while they're 30 talking. 31 32 MR. KRAMER: I'm pretty sure what he's 33 trying to say is to continue and re-enact Special 34 Action Request 16-01 including all Federal waters. I 35 know it's in litigation right now and it's in a battle, 36 but I would like to see it including all Federal 37 waters, 16-01 will be re-enacted. 38 39 I know that a portion of the Aggie, 40 possibly five miles up to the mouth, that's State, but 41 that also falls under the no-fly zone -- or controlled 42 use area. So they're unable to operate within that 43 area anyway. 44 45 BLM, most of the landing strips are up 46 above the high-tide water mark. None of them are down 47 below. So the Squirrel River is already protected 48 because a lot of the landing strips in the Squirrel are 49 all above the high-tide water mark. So the Squirrel is 50





1 already covered. 2 3 In other words, we should just be re- 4 enacting 16-01 for another year and with the addition 5 of all waterways. 6 7 MR. MITCHELL: Okay. I looked at a map 8 here and there is Federal land, BLM land, NANA land and 9 State land. Okay. The closure will cover the Federal

10 land and we're just going to cover -- let's say it just 11 cover Eli, okay, just saying, just to make a point 12 here. Let's say that the Federal land is just on Eli 13 and the Squirrel is on BLM and Aggie is on NANA and 14 State. So okay, number two, a special action will be 15 good for the Squirrel, but now I want this group to 16 work with BLM, NANA and State to close down those 17 passages. See what I'm getting at? 18 19 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: When you say NANA, 20 are you trying to come back -- because Aggie is 21 considered to stay in the Federal. The low one is 22 State. 23 24 MR. MITCHELL: There's some NANA land, 25 State land, BLM land. So it's okay. Let's say the 26 closure, proposal 2 will take care of some of it, but 27 the rest of it is still open. See what I'm saying? So 28 I want this group with this proposal to put it out to 29 them too, the BLM, NANA and State, and see if they will 30 go with that. 31 32 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. I understand 33 what you're saying. I think, Enoch, you need to get 34 with Zach and her to clarify a little bit and we take a 35 five-minute break while you guys clarify. Otherwise it 36 will keep going on and on and on again. So let's take 37 a five-minute break. 38 39 (Off record) 40 41 (On record) 42 43 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Everybody take 44 your seats. Let's continue on with Enoch's 45 recommendations or proposals. Everyone take your 46 seats. 47 48 Where are we at, Zach? Correct me. 49 We're at Enoch's proposals one through four. Is there 50





1 a clarification you guys have come up with so far? 2 3 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 4 So Enoch Mitchell had, again, proposed four proposals. 5 The formation of a working group and a motion was made 6 to form the working group and I believe that we have 7 not seen a call or a vote by the Council to form that 8 working group. 9

10 One of the items that was addressed was 11 whether or not it was Mr. Mitchell's intent to have 12 that working group simply interact with other Councils 13 or to provide a means for sharing information outside 14 of our meeting cycle amongst the Council Members 15 themselves. I'm still unclear of the intent there. 16 17 If Mr. Mitchell could clarify that, 18 through the Chair. 19 20 MR. MITCHELL: Yes. To clarify, the 21 intent is to share information with other RAC members 22 and I'd like to request for a vote on call for wildlife 23 working group. 24 25 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. I understand 26 what you're saying, Enoch. Due to time, I think we 27 need to do it one by one. I think we need to start 28 working on your wildlife working group and we'll take 29 the next proposal. Otherwise if we keep going and 30 talking about the others we're going to run low on 31 time. 32 33 Let's work on your first one. Wildlife 34 working group out of this Council. So about how many 35 do we think we need for this? They're running out of 36 money and they need certain people. I would like to 37 see it from Upper Kobuk, Noatak, Selawik and just 38 spread it out. Buckland, Deering or Kotzebue. I don't 39 know how many. 40 41 Go ahead, Zach. You'll be next, Mike. 42 43 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. 44 Thank you, Mr. Chair. The constraints that OSM faces 45 right now that I have been informed is that we do not 46 have the funds, the resources right now to provide for 47 travel or meetings outside of our normal regularly 48 scheduled meeting cycle. 49 50





1 What I understand, and correct me if 2 I'm mistake, Mr. Mitchell, is that what Mr. Mitchell is 3 requesting is a working group that could speak by 4 teleconference, by telephone, and allow for the sharing 5 of information regarding wildlife outside the regularly 6 scheduled meeting cycle. 7 8 That was the first item that's before 9 the Council.

10 11 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 12 13 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. If we're going 14 to do that, let me ask you this. If we have our 15 meetings here in Kotzebue, how much burden is going to 16 be on the Federal to have a meeting in a place like 17 Kotzebue or Anchorage instead of the -- because I think 18 for cost effectiveness. 19 20 Go ahead, Maya, you had something? 21 Come to the mic, please. Only time I get to tell you 22 what to do and you're going to listen. 23 24 (Laughter) 25 26 MS. LUKIN: Thank you. For the record, 27 this is Maya Lukin, Superintendent for the Western 28 Arctic National Parklands. In your proposal to develop 29 a working group for wildlife -- in the NPS agency 30 report we're going to report on a working group that 31 was established from the Kobuk Valley SRC, so we have a 32 working group for caribou already right now. And I 33 don't know if it takes action to develop another 34 working group. Maybe Hannah will -- I think anybody is 35 invited to the working group. 36 37 MS. ATKINSON: Yeah. 38 39 MS. LUKIN: So we already have a 40 working group and we meet once a month. So if you'd 41 like to be on that working group, it's teleconference 42 or we meet in Kotzebue. I just wanted to make sure 43 that you guys knew that there was a working group just 44 for caribou for now, but we can, of course..... 45 46 MS. ATKINSON: This is Hannah Atkinson 47 with the National Park Service. I wanted to clarify 48 the working group that the SRC created last fall is 49 addressing caribou hunter education, so it's pretty 50





1 narrow in scope, but it's open to anyone who wants to 2 participate in making caribou hunter education better 3 within our region. 4 5 Of course, there's other working groups 6 like the Western Arctic Caribou Herd Working Group that 7 does address caribou, but I don't know if any of that 8 is getting at what Enoch is looking for, which is 9 communication between the RACs.

10 11 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: So, Enoch, you want 12 it to come out of the -- because we had a meeting 13 before and they were looking for volunteers. 14 15 MR. MITCHELL: Yeah. And 16 communication, to build good communication with the 17 RACs, RAC to RAC, you know, like North Slope RAC, NANA 18 RAC and among ourselves, this RAC. 19 20 MS. ATKINSON: I just want to respond 21 to that. I definitely hear what you're saying with 22 that and that is not what we're working on right now 23 with the SRCs and the National Park Service. So I hear 24 what you're saying with the need and I agree that there 25 is nothing right now that's exactly addressing what 26 you're requesting. 27 28 MR. MITCHELL: So that's why I'm doing 29 this request for a wildlife working group. 30 31 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: So you want it to 32 just come out of the Federal Advisory Board. So about 33 how many people would you recommend be there? I would 34 like to see each area to be well covered. 35 36 MR. MITCHELL: I would like that to be 37 discussed with this group. 38 39 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Go ahead,Mike. 40 41 MR. KRAMER: Okay. I'd like to see 42 this working group consist of us members as is here 43 because we represent a wide variety within the Game 44 Management Unit 23. Since funding constraints, they 45 could just send us in two days prior and we could have 46 the working group meeting two days prior to our 47 Advisory Council meeting. 48 49 We could also have two others from 50





1 North Slope, Western Interior and Seward Peninsula also 2 on that, but I think mainly just here as a working 3 group because we cover a wide range of subsistence 4 resources. But if it consisted of the current Advisory 5 Council, then there wouldn't be any extra money spent 6 shipping people anywhere. 7 8 What we'd be doing is we'd be 9 consisting of all of us, we'd go in two days prior,

10 we'd have our working group meeting two days prior, 11 we'd cover issues, we'd take care of the issues, we'd 12 come up with wildlife proposal, and then our next two 13 days would be our Advisory Council meeting. 14 15 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. I hear you, 16 Mike. 17 18 MR. KRAMER: And then we'd be able to 19 submit our proposals and that way we have time to 20 brainstorm, get our ducks in a row 21 and be able to get these things on paper while we're 22 not going in circles. 23 24 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you. I 25 would recommend that until this is all worked out that 26 we -- if it's going to happen, that we have it under 27 teleconference until we decide what steps need to be 28 taken, otherwise we start in the blind. Let's work 29 this out and everybody willing to work under 30 teleconference set a day and we talk about it until we 31 finalize how we want to handle this. 32 33 Right? That's the way I see it should 34 be done. That way everybody will be covered. All of 35 us could be sit down for how many meetings under 36 teleconference. We call in. Let's work it out like 37 that and in the end we need to have a wildlife working 38 group from this board. 39 40 MR. MITCHELL: Exactly. That's what 41 I'm trying to say. 42 43 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thank you. 44 Anything else on your first proposal, Enoch? 45 46 MR. MITCHELL: I'd like to clarify -- 47 I think that's it for proposal number one. 48 49 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. On your 50





1 special action closure in the Federal lands. Remember, 2 we have 45 minutes, my friend. 3 4 MR. MITCHELL: I'd like to call for a 5 motion. I'd like to make a motion to a special action 6 for caribou for a regulatory 2017 to '18. 7 8 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Are you talking about 9 Proposal 16-01?

10 11 MR. MITCHELL: No. It's going to be 12 another special action. It's the same as 16-01, but I 13 believe that will get another number. 16-02 maybe or 14 17-01, but it's going to be the same motion. 15 16 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead, Percy. 17 18 MR. BALLOT: Yeah, I'm just wondering. 19 I wanted to clarify what his motion is. To do what? 20 21 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: It's a closure like 22 we did on Federal lands for non-Federal users. That's 23 what 16-01 is all about. When we had meeting at 24 Selawik. 25 26 MR. MITCHELL: For moose or caribou? 27 28 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Caribou. This is all 29 on caribou. 30 31 MR. MITCHELL: 16-01 was on caribou? 32 33 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah. 34 35 MR. MITCHELL: And it's up in June and 36 we're going to do another one. It's like 16-01, but 37 we've got to do another one for '17 to '18. 38 39 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Do I have any 40 comments from the board on this proposal to continue or 41 do you have any different ideas how we should go about 42 it. 43 44 I know the WACH did a proposal to 45 closing the Federal lands what you guys did and I don't 46 if it was adopted by the Board of Game. I didn't hear 47 nothing. Was it adopted? 48 49 MR. MITCHELL: What's that? 50





1 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: That 16-01, the one 2 you guys recommended to the Federal Board -- I mean the 3 State, sorry, State Board of Game meeting. I thought 4 you were..... 5 6 MR. BALLOT: Mr. Chairman, I have a 7 question. 8 9 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah.

10 11 MR. BALLOT: 16-01 was a proposal that 12 was passed and I don't know how long it's still in 13 effect. It's supposed to be in effect. But it's still 14 in effect right now? 15 16 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Until July, I think. 17 18 MR. BALLOT: Until when? 19 20 MR. STEVENSON: Mr. Chair. 21 22 MR. MITCHELL: June 30. 23 24 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: June 30, okay. I'm 25 trying not to get mixed up here. What I'm saying is 26 the Western Arctic Caribou Herd put a proposal to keep 27 closure in the Federal lands, right? My question is 28 simple. 29 30 MR. MITCHELL: To recognize the caribou 31 herd working..... 32 33 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: The State Board of 34 Game, when they had meeting, did they support it, deny 35 it or did they reject it? 36 37 MR. MITCHELL: The Board of Game go 38 against it. 39 40 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. That's all I 41 want to hear. Go ahead, Louie. 42 43 MR. COMMACK: So what you're asking for 44 is a continuation of the prior proposal that was dealt 45 on Federal land. Our current status on that issue is 46 I, myself, did not hear any complaints, but we, as a 47 region, we're beneficial to this whole thing. 48 49 My statement. 50





1 Thank you. 2 3 MR. MITCHELL: A continuation, but new. 4 5 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you, Louie. Go 6 ahead, Zach. 7 8 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 9

10 MR. BALLOT: Mr. Chairman. Maybe a 11 recommendation that we're supporting the continuation 12 of -- whatever that was. 13 14 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: 16-01. 15 16 MR. BALLOT: We need to do a new 17 proposal, but just state that this board supports the 18 continuation of 16-01. 19 20 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. I understand 21 what you guys say and when it gets done I still have -- 22 I still want to make a few changes to it. 23 24 Go ahead, Zach. I called on you 25 earlier. Go ahead. 26 27 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 28 To Member Commack's question, Wildlife Special Action 29 16-01, which called for the closure of Federal public 30 lands to non-Federally qualified users for caribou 31 hunting, that ends and it was only for 12 months. That 32 12-month closure ends on June 30th of this year. 33 34 If I'm not mistaken, what Member 35 Mitchell is proposing is to continue what I've just 36 stated beyond the date of June 30th for another 12 37 months. That would be considered a special action. A 38 special action is only for 12 months. A regulatory 39 proposal is longer. They can be submitted at the same 40 time. That's been done in other regions before. But 41 what I understand is being discussed on this issue 42 right now is continuing that 12 month closure through a 43 special action to your question. 44 45 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 46 47 MR. COMMACK: I'd like to comment that 48 we could offer special amendments to this proposal if 49 need be. 50





1 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, we could 2 probably do a different one if we want after we talk 3 about it a little bit. 4 5 Go ahead, Hannah. I think you had your 6 hand up. 7 8 MS. LOON: Mr. Chairman, did he make a 9 motion?

10 11 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: He motioned, but 12 there was no second yet because we're still trying to 13 talk. You make a motion, there's a second, we 14 could..... 15 16 MR. COMMACK: I second it, Mr. 17 Chairman, with a special provision that amendments are 18 to be made, then we make amendments to the proposal if 19 we have to if there's any new ideas for the betterment 20 of our region. 21 22 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Anybody else. 23 I would like to recommend something. 24 25 Go ahead, Hannah. 26 27 MS. LOON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I 28 think I finally understand this. It was Enoch's motion 29 to have 16-01 special action run through 2017 to 2018. 30 I would like to second that one in formal wording. 31 32 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. I'm going to 33 put my two cents in there. Due to what I'm hearing out 34 there and what's going on out there, I'm supporting up 35 to a point 16-01 that we should -- remember, Enoch, I 36 called it that we should keep the rest open, just close 37 at Noatak, and they told me that it was up to Sapun 38 from here to Sapun to have a closure on the Federal 39 lands. 40 41 That way our relatives that live in 42 Anchorage could go hunt toward Kiana or towards Selawik 43 in the State and Federal lands. That way they won't be 44 against the regulation that's out there. What I'm 45 trying to say is only do that Noatak. That way we 46 won't have any problems because the main problem is 47 Noatak and Kivalina, is where the conflict is at. 48 49 You guys, just think about it. 50





1 I'm just trying to put my two cents out 2 like you guys. 3 4 Go ahead, Enoch. 5 6 MR. MITCHELL: Yeah. Yesterday we had 7 a little meeting and a few were saying -- these guys 8 was in favor of it too. I asked them if they want to 9 step out of it or just keep it for just Noatak, but

10 they liked that closure too and I guess they want it 11 too. 12 13 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Are the 14 agencies hearing anything out there about this Federal 15 closure or what might happen or what's going on? 16 17 (No comments) 18 19 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: No. Because the 20 reason why is I'm trying to make it fair for the people 21 that live in Anchorage that want to hunt. Your 22 relatives, my relatives can't go hunt in the Federal 23 land. They could go hunt in the State land. We all 24 know that. But I'm just trying to be fair, you know, 25 because the majority of the people that go hunt don't 26 go hunt toward Noatak anyhow. A lot of them go hunt 27 toward Kiana because the river is a lot easier on our 28 equipment. 29 30 That's all I'm really saying. Try to 31 think about it. 32 33 Go ahead, Vern. 34 35 MR. CLEVELAND: I call for question. 36 37 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Question been called 38 for. All in favor signify..... 39 40 MR. BALLOT: Mr. Chairman. 41 42 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yes. 43 44 MR. BALLOT: It's been moved and 45 seconded. I'm just wondering. There was a motion to 46 amend to strike -- to include your comments in the 47 motion. 48 49 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah. I was just 50





1 asking what Enoch -- what the Noatak people say when I 2 call Noatak about this to keep Noatak closed and keep 3 Kiana and other places open. 4 5 MR. BALLOT: I want to make sure, Mr. 6 Chairman, that this motion there is a continuation 7 of..... 8 9 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah.

10 11 MR. BALLOT: .....that one, but we want 12 to include an amendment to it to allow for our 13 shareholders to be able to hunt, our tribal members to 14 be able to hunt on Federal land, correct? 15 16 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead, Zach. 17 MR. KRAMER: Can we take five minutes? 18 19 20 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Let's take a five- 21 minute break. 22 23 MR. COMMACK: I have something to say. 24 25 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead. 26 27 MR. COMMACK: The amendment, is that a 28 compromise? If we're going to allow so many people 29 that are State citizens, then that opens up the whole 30 portion of that land to everybody? 31 32 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: No, it won't open to 33 everybody. What I'm really recommending is just close 34 Noatak for this Federal closure on Federal lands. Just 35 that Noatak, but keep the rest open that hunt and 36 harvest toward Kiana on the State and Federal lands. 37 Because I get a call from an elder saying I want to 38 show my grandson how to hunt, can you keep Kiana open 39 and close Noatak because very few from Kotzebue or 40 anybody hunt toward Noatak due to the shallow waters. 41 That's all I'm trying to say. 42 43 MR. COMMACK: My concern is the flyway 44 that's above Noatak on the Refuge. A couple years ago 45 we were talking about airplanes by the hundreds up 46 there. 47 48 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yes, but -- Louie, I 49 understand what you're saying because Noatak said 50





1 they'd be okay with it. That's what I was told by the 2 administrator unless that was totally different than 3 what they're telling Enoch. 4 5 It's just a thought, you know. Let's 6 take a short break and talk about this. A few minutes. 7 8 9 (Off record)

10 11 (On record) 12 13 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Let's get started. 14 15 MR. COMMACK: Mr. Chairman. Can we 16 clarify the motion for the record. I kind of 17 understand it. I just want to make sure there's 18 understanding for everybody here. 19 20 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: What Enoch is saying 21 is this Proposal 16-01 he want to continue it to 2018. 22 That's what he's saying. The reason why I brought this 23 up is I get calls from elders and I'm trying to -- that 24 way I could tell them if they ask me did you say it, I 25 said it. Bottom line, I didn't agree with it, but I 26 had to say it because I was asked by an elder. He 27 wanted to teach his grandson. 28 29 MR. COMMACK: Right. That's quite 30 honorable, but I think we're ready to make a motion 31 that's on Enoch's proposal. If he would just say -- 32 okay, go for it. 33 34 MR. MOTO: Mr. Chair. 35 36 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah. 37 38 MR. MOTO: Once a motion is made and 39 seconded and the question is called, then you have to 40 say -- you ask Staff recommendation and if they vote it 41 down, then you could do all this over again. But the 42 only way we could discuss any more of this is after we 43 vote. That's Robert's Rules of Order. I know. So 44 we've either got to vote or we've got to say no. 45 46 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. We'll vote on 47 it. Go ahead. 48 49 MS. HARDIN: Mr. Chair..... 50





1 MR. BALLOT: Mr. Chairman. Just for 2 the record. If you make a motion and it's seconded, 3 you need to ask if there's any comments or something to 4 the motion. You made a suggestion about somebody 5 saying something. For the record, you know, I would 6 have supported that, but after having discussion with 7 these guys here, I know they're not -- it's not going 8 to get nowhere. So, for the record, I would support 9 allowing tribal members or whoever, people from our

10 village, that are out there to go on there. 11 12 Okay. Bye. 13 14 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: I got you, Percy. 15 Thanks. Yeah, go ahead. 16 17 MS. HARDIN: Mr. Chair. For the 18 record, my name is Jennifer Hardin. I just want to 19 clarify the motion if I might, please. I understand 20 that the motion is to submit a new special action that 21 is identical to what was submitted for WSA16-01, but I 22 just want to make sure that everyone is aware that -- 23 because that special action will expire on June 30, I 24 want to make sure the motion is to submit a new special 25 action rather than -- I heard some discussion about 26 continuing it, but what the board would need to 27 consider is a new special action in order to have a 28 closure go on beyond June 30th. 29 30 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: So we need to come 31 out with a..... 32 33 MS. MAAS: No, we understand the 34 intent. 35 36 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Pardon? 37 38 MS. MAAS: Yes. I just need you on the 39 record that you're submitting a new special action. 40 41 MR. MITCHELL: Yeah. That 16-01 was 42 just for 12 months, so we're doing a new special 43 action. 44 45 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, go ahead. 46 MR. COMMACK: Question. 47 48 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: The question has been 49 called for. 50





1 MR. MOTO: I would recommend asking 2 each individual how they vote. 3 4 MR. KRAMER: A roll call vote. 5 6 MR. MOTO: Yeah, a roll call vote. 7 8 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. I'll call a 9 roll call vote. Secretary Hannah. You're the

10 Secretary, you can call it. 11 12 MR. BALLOT: Mr. Chairman, I think I 13 was made Secretary by the way. 14 15 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Oh, okay, okay. 16 17 MR. BALLOT: You guys appointed me. 18 19 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. I'm sorry, I'm 20 sorry. I'm so used to having Hannah there. 21 22 MR. BALLOT: I'm not used to being 23 Secretary, but I'll try. 24 25 (Laughter) 26 27 MR. BALLOT: You just asked for roll 28 call vote, I'll just ask by your name and Kiana. 29 Raymond Stoney. 30 31 MR. STONEY: Yes. 32 33 MR. BALLOT: Beverly Moto, who is not 34 here, from Deering. Hannah Loon, Kotzebue. 35 36 MS. LOON: Yes. 37 38 MR. BALLOT: Michael Kramer, Kotzebue. 39 40 MR. KRAMER: Yes. 41 42 MR. BALLOT: Percy Ballot. Yes. Vern 43 Cleveland, Sr. 44 45 MR. CLEVELAND: Yes. 46 47 MR. BALLOT: Louie Commack, Ambler. 48 49 MR. COMMACK: Yes. 50





1 MR. BALLOT: Enoch Shiedt, Sr. 2 3 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yes. 4 5 MR. BALLOT: Enoch L. Mitchell, Noatak. 6 7 MR. MITCHELL: Yes. 8 9 MR. BALLOT: Calvin Moto, Deering.

10 11 MR. MOTO: Yes. 12 13 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thanks. So 14 we're going to go back to the agenda. It's 4:38. 15 Maybe we should recess until 9:00 in the morning. You 16 think we'll finish tomorrow? I'd like to finish 17 tomorrow. 18 19 MR. BALLOT: For clarification, Mr. 20 Chairman, are we on 11 yet under new business? 21 22 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah. We are at 11 23 yet and we still have to do Enoch's three and four 24 tomorrow. 25 26 Go ahead. 27 28 MS. MAAS: As a clarification, the 29 number one, wildlife working group, was never actually 30 seconded and you never voted on it. A motion was made, 31 but no vote or second. 32 33 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, you're right. 34 We just said we'd do it by teleconference. I'm trying 35 to think of the process of going back. We can just go 36 back and say on this first proposal to do a 37 teleconference and work on it later, I'll just ask 38 anyone to signify by saying aye. 39 40 (No comments) 41 42 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: I thought there was a 43 second on this. No, am I wrong? 44 45 MR. STEVENSON: No, you don't have a 46 second on it. 47 48 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: We don't have a 49 second. I'm corrected. 50





1 MR. COMMACK: There was a second. 2 3 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: That's what I 4 thought. 5 6 MR. CLEVELAND: Question. 7 8 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah. Now they're 9 telling me it was.

10 11 MR. STEVENSON: Okay. 12 13 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: The question has been 14 called for. All in favor signify by saying aye. 15 16 IN UNISON: Aye. 17 18 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you. 19 20 MR. CLEVELAND: All opposed same sign. 21 22 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: All opposed same 23 sign. 24 25 (No opposing votes) 26 27 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Everybody is 28 getting tired. We'll go back to Enoch's three and four 29 tomorrow at 9:00 o'clock in the morning. You don't 30 want to go home? Okay. We'll stay until 7:00. I have 31 no problem with it. 32 33 MR. BALLOT: Mr. Chairman. What is 34 three and four? 35 36 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: I'll just simply ask. 37 Do you guys want to continue with three and four until 38 we finish? That's Enoch's proposals. Special action 39 on non-Federal lands. 40 41 MR. BALLOT: Enoch, I'm available for 42 lobbying tonight. 43 44 (Laughter) 45 46 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead, Zach, 47 correct me. I'm tired. 48 49 MR. STEVENSON: That's all right. What 50





1 I understood Member Mitchell addressing regarding 2 proposal number three. We actually switched them. 3 Proposal three was seeking to accomplish a closure, if 4 I'm not mistaken, Member Mitchell, a closure of Federal 5 public lands in Unit 23 for caribou hunting by 6 non-Federally qualified users using a Federal wildlife 7 regulatory proposal. 8 9 Is that correct, Member Mitchell?

10 11 MR. MITCHELL: Yes, sir. 12 13 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 14 15 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Somebody correct me. 16 Is that close to number two? 17 18 MR. MITCHELL: It's the same, but it's 19 permanent or longer. Longer than one year and more 20 permanent. The same action. 21 22 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Let me ask the agency 23 or somebody. If we take this action to make it longer, 24 do we need to take a different step? 25 26 Go ahead. 27 28 MS. SWEENEY: This is Brittany Sweeney. 29 So right now the call for Federal wildlife proposals 30 has started. If you put one in, it would go into 31 effect in 2018 and then it would last until 2020. 32 33 So I believe the previous one you voted 34 on that Enoch proposed was to take care of 2017 until 35 2018. Then putting in this proposal would do from 2018 36 until 2020. 37 38 MS. MAAS: Just a point of 39 clarification. It would be 2018 until indefinitely 40 until it was changed again. 41 42 MR. MITCHELL: Yeah. Who put that 2020 43 in there? 44 45 MS. SWEENEY: That was me. I 46 apologize. I was thinking the next book that gets 47 printed. But, you're right, it would go in the book 48 and it would stay in the book until otherwise. 49 50





1 MR. MITCHELL: Yeah, that's exactly, 2 yeah. I didn't propose 2020. 3 4 MS. SWEENEY: Sorry. My mistake. I 5 apologize. 6 7 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Then if our 8 caribou happened to rebound after the summer census, 9 what's going to happen? Are we going to keep it closed

10 until 2020? 11 12 MR. MITCHELL: No. Until someone want 13 to take it off or we take it off. It's permanent. 14 15 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. In the Federal 16 Register, how long that would have to take to the 17 process? I know we have to go through Federal process 18 to reopen it, right? Yes, we have to go through a 19 Federal process. That's why I'm trying to understand 20 it. 21 22 MR. MITCHELL: The proposal from '17 to 23 '18 because it will take one year to work on the 24 regulatory one. 25 26 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: No, what I'm saying 27 is under the Federal process in order for us to reopen 28 it we have to -- it takes a process maybe six months or 29 so. I don't know. Tell me and tell the rest of the 30 board. I know that under Federal Register it has to be 31 done like that. 32 33 MS. MAAS: Through the Chair. This is 34 Lisa with OSM. Yeah, you're correct. If this proposal 35 was submitted, so it would be a permanent, quote 36 permanent, regulation. Again, this is just the 37 proposal stage, so the Council will see this again at 38 their fall meeting and we'll be able to see the 39 analysis and make a recommendation on the fall meeting 40 and then the Federal Subsistence Board will meet next 41 April in 2018 and actually make a decision. 42 43 So if it actually is adopted, then to 44 change it you would need to submit another proposal. 45 So in like two more years if you wanted to change it if 46 it actually is adopted, you would do the same process. 47 So Enoch's right. Once you submit it, it takes about a 48 year for it to go through the analysis and go into 49 effect. 50





1 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Go ahead. I'm 2 just trying to understand the Federal process of how 3 long it would take to reopen it. 4 5 MS. MAAS: Also you could put in if it 6 was closed under permanent regulation, you can also 7 submit another special action to open it, which, again, 8 special actions will only be for one year. 9

10 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: You guys got it? 11 What I'm trying to do is make sure we're in compliance 12 on both sides so we won't stab ourselves in the back 13 because they might say, hey, you guys make a proposal 14 to close it. You can't open it. I'm trying to 15 understand. 16 17 Okay. Thank you. 18 19 For the third proposal do I hear -- you 20 made a motion, right, Enoch? 21 22 MR. MITCHELL: I'd like to make a 23 motion for a regulatory proposal for caribou. 24 25 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Is there a second. 26 27 MR. STONEY: Second. 28 29 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Second by Raymond. 30 How do you guys want to vote on this? Signify by 31 saying aye. 32 33 MR. MITCHELL: I'd like to do it the 34 same way we did the special action. 35 36 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: I think Louie was 37 asking what's this proposal about. 38 39 MR. MITCHELL: It's the same thing, but 40 it's permanent. The special action is for one year, 41 the one we did, number two, was only for one year, '17 42 to '18. But because this regulatory proposal is going 43 to take one year to work on, that's why we did that 44 special action for '17 to '18. It will be closed by 45 special action. Then the regulatory proposal for 46 caribou will be permanent. That's what we're doing. 47 The same thing but permanent. 48 49 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: What Enoch is saying 50





1 it's going to be closed until 2020 if it's adopted, 2 from 2018 to 2020. 3 4 MR. MITCHELL: No, no, no. No 2020. 5 Forever. Forever. 6 7 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Forever? 8 9 MR. MITCHELL: Forever until we open.

10 Only until someone opens it. 11 12 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: I misunderstood. Go 13 ahead, Maya. 14 15 MS. LUKIN: So when you voted earlier, 16 your roll call vote, that was for a special action for 17 one year. 18 19 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: One year. 20 21 MS. LUKIN: What he's proposing now and 22 it came through and it was proposed is the same thing 23 the Western Arctic Caribou Herd Working Group voted on 24 and proposed, is to submit a regulatory change. 25 26 So my question to Zach -- this is the 27 discussion time. My question to Zach is does the RAC 28 have to do a new proposal or can they support the 29 proposal that's already being written by the Western 30 Arctic Caribou Herd Working Group? 31 32 MR. MITCHELL: Can I answer that? The 33 Western Arctic Caribou Herd Working Group comes from 34 the State side, so that wouldn't work, yeah, right? I 35 know when they said -- somebody said that when we did 36 that they said -- the Statesay, oh, what did you guys-- 37 you guys are doing the same from your own. The 38 Western Arctic Caribou Herd comes from the State, 39 doesn't it? 40 41 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: She's asking 42 different. For us to support what the Western Arctic 43 Caribou Herd did. No? 44 45 MS. LUKIN: I'm just asking for 46 clarification..... 47 48 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Oh, clarification. 49 50





1 MS. LUKIN: .....from Zach. 2 3 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead, Zach, 4 clarify. 5 6 MR. STEVENSON: So, as was distributed 7 earlier this afternoon, was an email message with some 8 notes from Jan Caulfield with the Western Arctic 9 Caribou Herd Working Group and I'd like to draw your

10 attention to that note that was handed out to all of 11 you. 12 13 I'll reread bullet point number one 14 from Jan Caulfield of the Western Arctic Caribou Herd 15 Working Group, which reads as follows: The following 16 are the motions and vote outcomes. This again comes 17 from the Western Arctic Caribou Herd Working Group who 18 submitted two proposals to the Federal Subsistence 19 Board again once the call for proposals has been issued 20 in the Federal Register. This is again brought to the 21 RAC's attention. 22 23 The first reads as follows, underlined: 24 Proposal to the Federal Subsistence Board - closure to 25 non-Federally qualified subsistence hunters. Motion by 26 Enoch Mitchell, seconded by Oliver Peetok, to submit a 27 regulatory proposal to the Federal Subsistence Board to 28 continue the closure of Federal lands in Unit 23 to 29 caribou hunting by non-Federally qualified subsistence 30 users for July 1, 2018 through June 30th, 2020. Motion 31 carried 11 in favor, 3 opposed. 32 33 So that was one of the outcomes. I 34 don't want to go into the second because that's not the 35 subject being addressed right now. 36 37 To the question from Superintendent 38 Lukin, and correct me if I'm wrong, leadership, the RAC 39 has the ability to submit a proposal whether that 40 replicates or carries forward that of the Western 41 Arctic Caribou Herd Working Group appears to be 42 immaterial. That's what I hear them proposing right 43 now. 44 45 Ms. Hardin, do you want to clarify 46 that? 47 48 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 49 50





1 MS. HARDIN: That's correct, Zach. The 2 Council can submit their own proposal. You could also 3 determine you want to write a letter of support for one 4 or more proposals that are submitted, but that's your 5 discretion about whether you want to submit a proposal 6 of your own. 7 8 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay. Thanks. 9 There's a motion on the floor and it was seconded by

10 Raymond. 11 12 Go ahead, Hannah. 13 14 MS. LOON: I call for question. 15 16 MR. BALLOT: I have a question, Mr. 17 Chair. I understand what he's trying to do, but 18 remember when we were making these proposals we were 19 using data and I don't know how it's going to go in 20 2020 or whatever, but it seems like we're trying to 21 make a ruling before that comes around. I don't know. 22 I think it's good, but we need to have information. If 23 the caribou herd population would change or get a lot 24 better by then, to make a determination -- or run out 25 of caribou or we're hearing things are getting better 26 now. I don't know. That's my comment. 27 28 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay, thank you. I 29 understand, Percy, what you're saying on number two we 30 have it until 2018 and the next proposal would be there 31 forever. The first when we did that Buckland is when 32 we heard the caribou were declining. I understand what 33 you're saying. 34 35 MR. BALLOT: Yeah, I just want to put 36 in the proposal that we recommend that's going to be 37 passed by Federal Subsistence Board and making sure 38 we've got all our information and all our stuff correct 39 so it passes and not just -- I understand the concern, 40 but I want to make sure that if we pass a proposal, 41 it's going to be passed by the Board. 42 43 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Are you saying by the 44 Federal Board? 45 46 MR. BALLOT: Yes, yes. 47 48 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Okay, I hear you. By 49 the Federal Board..... 50





1 MR. BALLOT: Or make another request 2 for a special action for one year. In one year a lot 3 of things can happen I'm told maybe by some of that 4 graph and stuff, but we all know differently by what 5 comes and locals say. You know, I'm just trying to say 6 that we are putting a proposal in and I'm hoping it 7 will pass, but we also have a special action request 8 that's going to be good for one year. 9

10 To put something permanent that might 11 change for the future is kind of -- you know, we've got 12 hunters and people that live out of town and other user 13 groups that we've got to think about. So I just wanted 14 to bring that up for food for thought. 15 16 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, that's what I 17 was coming out with earlier. 18 19 Go ahead, Louie. 20 21 MR. COMMACK: I just want to comment 22 that I think we did very well when we extended 23 proposals for a year. When we start saying permanent, 24 then with this Trump Administration coming forth and 25 not even settled down year and we don't even know the 26 thoughts and the fast-forward progress that will be 27 made within the Interior Department, I feel 28 uncomfortable going permanent. I just don't think we 29 should be doing this kind of stuff. 30 31 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: I hear you. I hear 32 you, Louie. For your information, proposal number 33 three I will not support if we're going to do it yearly 34 basis by yearly because we don't know what Trump is 35 going to do. 36 37 MR. COMMACK: That's right. You are 38 right on that one. 39 40 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: I have a right on how 41 I want to vote and I think you're right because the 42 Federal Board, the guys higher up from us will 43 completely deny it and it's going to fail. I mean it 44 might not. 45 46 Vern, if you've got a comment, can you 47 come to the mic. We need to hear instead of in 48 between. 49 50





1 MR. COMMACK: I'm just afraid for the 2 ramifications that might happen to us. We must protect 3 our region and not get too radical and start doing this 4 stuff. These are my comments and I'm allowed to say. 5 6 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yes. That's what 7 we're allowed to say and that's why in between -- hold 8 your comments in between yourself. Make it in public. 9

10 Yeah, go ahead, Enoch. 11 12 MR. MITCHELL: I think we should not be 13 too worried about Trump, but we should be worried about 14 our people. Taikuu. What I'm trying to do here is for 15 our people. 16 17 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yes, we are. 18 19 MR. MITCHELL: And we're tired of this 20 scrambling for caribou, going hungry. Trump is not 21 helping us, so why should we get worried about him. 22 With or without him we are going to struggle, but we 23 should try to make it better for our people. That's 24 why we are here. Make it better for our people, not 25 for Trump. 26 27 Thank you. 28 29 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: No, what we're trying 30 to say -- I'll get to you, Vern -- that we don't want 31 it to fail. Go ahead, Vern. 32 33 MR. CLEVELAND: Someone call for the 34 question. We've got to vote for this. 35 36 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: I think it's more 37 under discussion right now. I think we have a right. 38 39 MS. LOON: I call for question. 40 41 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: The question has been 42 called for. I think we need to take a roll call vote 43 on this, Percy. 44 45 MR. BALLOT: It's been asked for a roll 46 call vote, so I'll start with Raymond Stoney. 47 48 MR. STONEY: Yes. 49 50





1 MR. BALLOT: Beverly Moto is absent. 2 3 MR. COMMACK: What's the question? 4 5 MR. BALLOT: The motion is to put in a 6 proposal..... 7 8 MR. COMMACK: Permanent. 9

10 MR. BALLOT: A permanent one. 11 12 MR. COMMACK: Not one year, permanent. 13 14 MR. MITCHELL: It's going to be 15 permanent, but we can take it off any time we want to. 16 17 MR. BALLOT: Okay. Hannah Loon. 18 19 MS. LOON: Yes. 20 21 MR. BALLOT: Michael Kramer. 22 23 MR. KRAMER: Yes. 24 25 MR. BALLOT: Vern Cleveland. 26 27 MR. CLEVELAND: No. 28 29 MR. BALLOT: Louie Commack. 30 31 MR. COMMACK: No. 32 33 MR. BALLOT: Calvin Moto. 34 35 MR. MOTO: No. 36 37 MR. BALLOT: Enoch Mitchell. 38 39 MR. MITCHELL: Yes. 40 41 MR. BALLOT: Percy Ballot. No. Enoch 42 Shiedt. 43 44 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: No. 45 46 MR. BALLOT: What was the -- I forget 47 to write the number down. Did you get the number? 48 49 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Five to four. 50





1 MR. BALLOT: Five to four no? 2 3 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yeah, five to four in 4 favor of no. We can always extend the first proposal 5 number two. 6 7 Okay, are we done? We might as well 8 just finish number four, his proposal for Aggie, Eli 9 and Squirrel River. Can you explain a little bit,

10 Enoch, your last proposal. 11 12 MR. MITCHELL: Oh, okay. I need to 13 make a clarification on my last proposal. Since 14 closure of this special action was in favor, so it will 15 cover the Federal lands on the Squirrel, Eli and Aggie 16 River. If there's any State lands, then we have no 17 authorization to close it. So with that I'd like to 18 cross off proposal number four. 19 20 Thank you. 21 22 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: So you want to lift 23 proposal four and not go on with it. 24 25 MR. MITCHELL: Yeah. 26 27 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Go ahead, Zach. 28 29 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 30 I understand what Mr. Mitchell is doing is withdrawing 31 proposal number four and stating that its objectives 32 have been addressed under the new special action to 33 continue the closure, the 12-month closure I should 34 add, to caribou hunting on Federal public lands to 35 non-Federally qualified users, which was initiated 36 under Wildlife Special Action 16-01. 37 38 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 39 40 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: So it was withdrawn 41 by Enoch. 42 43 MR. CLEVELAND: It just died. 44 45 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: It just died. Okay. 46 47 48 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. It 49 is 5:00 o'clock now and just for point of order we're 50





1 on item 11, new business and presumably tomorrow we'll 2 continue with the approval of Fiscal Year 2016 annual 3 report. 4 5 MR. COMMACK: Motion to recess. 6 7 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Yes. What I'm trying 8 to do is we'll continue tomorrow for 11(c). That's all 9 I'm trying to do. Let's recess.

10 11 Go ahead. 12 13 MS. MAAS: We just covered caribou and 14 moose proposals, so if people have proposals for any 15 other species we can continue that tomorrow. 16 17 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Lisa. 18 19 CHAIRMAN SHIEDT: Thank you. 20 21 (Off record) 22 23 (PROCEEDINGS TO BE CONTINUED) 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





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 NORTHWEST ARCTIC FEDERAL SUBSISTENCE REGIONAL ADVISORY 14 COUNCIL MEETING, VOLUME I taken electronically on the 15 1st day of March 2017 at Kotzebue, 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 11th 27 day of March 2017. 28 29 30 31 Salena A. Hile 32 Notary Public, State of Alaska 33 My Commission Expires: 09/16/18 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50


northwest arctic regional advisory council 3/1/2017 · 42 my name is hannah paniyavluk loon....

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