An federal court in Anchorage has decided in Anchorage that U.S. government officials did not violate their duties when they approved an emergency hunt in Kake, which is in Southeast Alaska town of Kake in the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic.
The ruling, which was announced on today by the judge Sharon Gleason, is the most recent chapter in a lengthy dispute between the Alaskan government Alaska with federal government officials about who is able to regulate subsistence fishing and hunting on public land in Alaska.
Gleason is also in charge of another, unrelated suit from US government against Alaska’s state Alaska in relation to the control of Kuskokwim River subsistence salmon fishing and the recently released verdict may shed some more light on the way Gleason decides to interpret the case.
In the decision of Friday, Gleason concluded that the Federal Subsistence Board, FSB was entitled to allow an emergency hunt for moose and deer close to Kake after the COVID-19 outbreak disrupted food production.
It was a successful hunt that was successful in delivered deer and moose’s meat for 135 families in Kake it was authorized under an article of Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, ANILCA, that obliges Federal land management agencies to give priority to subsistence hunting and fishing for rural residents.
The Alaska Constitution prohibits the treatment of urban and rural subsistence hunters differently. As a result, that’s why the Alaska Department of Fish and Game brought suit in 2020.
Gleason had previously refused her decision to make an official order to stop similar hunts in the future, and in 2021 she declared that the issue was not relevant since the hunt was been completed.
However, the state made an appeal before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in which it ruled Gleason must consider the merits of the case since an emergency hunt could be repeated.
This left Gleason to consider further arguments that led to the decision on Friday.
The core of the problem, Gleason said, was the state’s argument that there was nothing in ANILCA allowed to the subsistence authority of federal government power to allow hunting in the event that the state had already closed the hunt.
“The state claims that it cannot effectively manage the wildlife population when the federal government goes over the amount Congress has authorized and keeps allowing open season after season,” Gleason wrote.
However, Gleason pointed out that a federal law that has been in effect for more than 30 years permits the subsistence board to “‘immediately open or shut down public lands to permit the taking of wildlife and fish for subsistence use in the event of an emergency.”
The regulation is in place, Gleason said, because Congress specifically permitted to the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture to create regulations to enforce the provisions of ANILCA that cover fishing and hunting.
“The Court concludes that the FSB was not in violation of its authority as a statutory agency in Title VIII of ANILCA when it announced the emergency hunt in Kake’s Organized village of Kake in the early stages of COVID-19’s pandemic, for security reasons for the public, when it delegated authority to allow emergencies hunts for local land management officials of the federal government and then delegated to the OVK the authority to select who would take part in the hunt to its benefit to the entire community of Kake and the manner in which the meat would be distributed” she wrote.
The Alaska Department of Law, representing the Department of Fish and Game is still deciding whether to appeal Gleason’s decision.
“We’re unhappy with the decision of Judge Gleason. We’ll continue to study and consider our alternatives,” said Patty Sullivan as an attorney, who serves as the representative for the organization.
This article was originally published in Alaska Beacon and is republished here with permission.
