A subsistence hunt that was held in an emergency in Kake in the early stages of COVID pandemic was found to be legal, despite opposition from the government.
The decision of the United States District Court of Alaska in the last month strengthens the position of the federal government in the management of subsistence in Alaska.
The hunt was approved through the Federal Subsistence Board, and is managed through the Forest Service, Petersburg Ranger District after an inquiry from the Kake’s tribal government. Kake.
Kake, the Organized Village of Kake petitioned the Federal Subsistence Board in 2020 just after lockdowns across the country and disruptions to supply chains could have impacted the food supply for the 500 inhabitants of the village, which is located in Kupreanof Island, about 50 miles to the east of Sitka.
Hunters regulated by OVK were permitted to harvest two bull moose, as well as five male Sitka blacktailed deer a month, excluding the seasons that are controlled by the state for the animals. The harvested meat was given to 135 households in Kake.
The hunt was followed by an immediate legal response by the state, which was essentially an attempt to revive the three-decade-old conflict in Alaska and the ambiguity in the law of 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), or ANILCA which, in the simplest sense provides a subsistence-based rural priority, and the Alaska Constitution, which does not grant a rural subsistence priority.
The November. 3 decision of U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason reaffirmed that, when the time comes for shove federal laws override the state’s laws when it comes to subsistence.
In its first lawsuit regarding Kake hunt Kake hunt it argued there was no place in ANILCA exists a provision that allows subsistence hunts in emergencies, and they were not authorized by the Federal Subsistence Board lacked the authority to establish the hunts. The state argued the matter to an appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals this past March which even declared victory after justices ruled against the United States’ claim that the question was irrelevant, and remanded the issue back to Alaska District Court for review.
Gleason said that ANILCA granted an US Secretary of Interior wide discretionary authority to allow emergency hunts even if they’ren’t strictly defined.
“The Court finds that the Secretary’s regulations (at 50 C.F.R. SS 100.19) which allows the Federal Subsistence Board to ‘open . . . public lands to allow the hunting of wildlife and fish to protect the public is valid when it applies to the emergency hunt the board approved in Kake,” she wrote.
And Gleason made it clear to the state they could have seen it coming. In one of the most important subsistence cases that followed ANILCA, “Katie John,” Gleason wrote, “Congress was clear in the text of ANILCA’s that enforcing the priority of subsistence would require changing the equilibrium of power that exists between federal government and the State of Alaska and the federal government.”
