OPINION: Philosophical differences over game management are nothing new

Folks with personal predation philosophy problems are up in arms over the management of the Mulchatna caribou herd. Their latest effort was a passionate polemic from former Gov. Tony Knowles. The gist of their impassioned position is that managers should not intervene in what Knowles and friends consider “natural.”

I suggest we back off the emotions and think about a rational definition of management. Perhaps then we can discuss the disparate visions of what Alaskan wildlife management actually is and what it involves.

I started working at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in 1971. Back then, management was vaguely defined, but research was part of it. After 20 years working to apply research to management, I spent five years assigned to the gooey mix between state and federal management directions. Consequently, I’m ready to suggest a generalized definition that fits most management situations.

I suggest management is intervening in any established system to produce a predefined outcome. If you’re a financial manager, it’s making money. If you’re a human resources manager, your desired outcome is a productive workplace. If you’re a wildlife manager, you must be intervening to produce a predefined outcome.

Differences over what that predefined outcome should be lie at the root of most disagreements over what wildlife managers should do. Basically, we might ask, “Should managers even intervene in nature?” If you are the National Park Service, advised by Knowles, your desired outcome is perpetual, custodial preservation of ecosystems where man does not intervene.

If you’re the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, your constitutional mission is intervention to maximize sustainable use of ecosystems to benefit humans, primarily for food. These missions are complete opposites. This finally dawned on me after being mired between the conflicting outcomes of state and federal management schemes.

Knowles, a non-intervention guy, ended up trying to persuade readers to change the Alaska Constitution, a failed hallmark of his administration. Consequently, it figures he would use florid language like “Mulchatna massacre” to sensationalize the killing of predators in an extreme negative way. Nature is neither warm nor fuzzy, and management interventions often aren’t either.

So, when Mr. Knowles gets passionate about his perception of management, he’s really trying to manage you. He wants you to determine the outcome of management according to his predilection.

Of course, his emotional appeals include the usual arguments for turning the Alaska Board of Game away from its statutory mission — regulating human harvests — toward what he feels is suitable. He advocates pre-defining the philosophy of board members. None of this is new. From what has been “out there” for years, I’m guessing a chatbot could have done about as well as Mr. Knowles, but with less lurid language.

Mr. Knowles seemingly overlooks the very reason we have a Board of Game. That’s to prevent dictatorial management by the government’s executive branch. Our board, a corrective reaction to dictatorial management by the central government during territorial days, exists to make sure the public has a voice in harvest regulations.

The board is neither manager nor policy maker according to Alaska’s constitution. Alaska statutes, including the one currently driving Mulchatna caribou management intervention, define specifically how policy is to be implemented. As extreme as non-interventionist folks represent the Mulchatna caribou recovery effort, it is consistent with Alaska law. Administrative tradition — not law — calls for the program to be run through the Alaska Board of Game.

I don’t always agree with the Board of Game, but if you want to play in the regulatory arena, you must be attentive to details of board operation — and know the language. That’s challenging even for persons like me, who have been intermittently involved with board function for decades. In attempting to be transparent and efficient, the board sometimes seems cryptic in its announcements.

As governor, Knowles used executive power to dictate wildlife management according to his perception. His willing Department of Fish and Game accomplices, using the same undefined management definition, went along. In retirement, they are chafed by the messiness of modern management.

Today, Gov. Mike Dunleavy pointedly doesn’t dictate management policy. That’s appropriate because the Legislature has exclusive, constitutional responsibility for policy.

Since Knowles and his friends lost influence, the Legislature has clarified its constitutional policy responsibility with the intensive management law. So, while Knowles and his supporters “had their day,” it is time to face the reality that intervention in natural systems has always been mandated for Alaska. Knowles and his ideological allies can’t change the constitutional mandates by changing the Board of Game to include more folks with a flexible definition of management. It isn’t that easy.

Wayne E. Heimer, a retired Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist, spent decades struggling with the management ethos of his times. He is the author of “Dall Sheep Management in Alaska: From Pleistocene to Present.”

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