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Fish Factor: Roadless Rule Exemption Proposal Facing Strong Headwinds By LAINE WELCH - The federal government’s plan to raze more roads through the Tongass National Forest is facing strong headwinds from fishermen, Native groups and coastal communities throughout Southeast Alaska.

Over 220 Southeast Alaskan fishermen signed a letter to the Trump Administration last week opposing the abrupt push to exempt the Tongass National Forest from a roadless rule in place for over a decade. The exemption would release more than 9 million acres from protection and open nearly 200,000 acres to logging.  

The U.S. Forest Service made the announcement on October 15  that it is seeking a full exemption from rules that ban more road building in the nation’s largest forest. Alaska would be the only state exempted from the current federal law. 

The fishermen’s letter, spearheaded by the Sitka Conservation Society and Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, was sent to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue telling him that fishing is the backbone of local economies and it relies on intact watersheds and salmon spawning grounds in the Tongass, which produces 80% of the salmon caught in the Southeast region. 

The push has quickly generated support from other fronts. 

The Skagway Borough Assembly passed a resolution last week in support of maintaining the roadless rule citing, among other things, the impact logging could have on tourism.

“I wonder what happens to that experience when cruise ships are passing by clear cut areas, or when cruise ships dock in a port and people take a flight through an area that has been clear cut or a place that you used to be able to fish like I’ve done in Baranoff that you can no longer do because the stream has been compromised,” said Mayor Andrew Cremata as reported by radio station KHNS .

Likewise, six tribal governments issued a joint statement condemning the roadless exemption. They include the Angoon Cooperative Association, Central Council of Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, Hoonah Indian Association, Hydaburg Cooperative Association, and the Villages of Kake and Kasaan.

Their statement accused the federal agencies of ignoring the concerns of the tribes and said they were “deeply disappointed” by the process, according to the Juneau Empire . 

The roll back of the roadless rules has the strong support of Alaska’s congressional delegation and “every statewide elected official in Alaska supports an exemption from the regulation,” wrote   Senator Lisa Murkowski in a September 25 opinion piece in the Washington Post called “Why I support Trump’s proposal to lift restrictions in the Tongass.”

“The one-size-fits-all roadless rule is an unnecessary layer of paralyzing regulation that should never have been applied to Alaska,” Murkowski said, adding that the rule has hurt the timber industry and also affects “mining, transportation, energy and more.”  

“When combined with national monument and other natural-setting land-use designations, more than 13 million acres of the Tongass are already explicitly restricted from resource development or are required to be managed as roadless areas. That’s nearly 80 percent of the forest,” Murkowski wrote. “It is also critical to understand that all of the designations listed above, and all of the protections they afford, will apply to the Tongass regardless of what happens with the roadless rule,” she added.

That doesn’t convince Sitka fisherman Eric Jordan who was highly critical of the way in which the Forest Service began working on new rules shortly after Governor Dunleavy met with Donald Trump aboard Air Force One in July. (That meeting also resulted in the abrupt pullback of protections for the Bristol Bay watershed by the EPA.)   

“Their record is one of irresponsible top down management without listening to their constituents,” Jordan said in a phone interview, adding that more people are actively meeting to make sure their voices are heard.

“ People are taking notice of the draconian policies of this state and Trump’s leadership and there's going to be consequences at the polls and in the courts,” Jordan said. “There will not be logging activities that they are envisioning because we're going to tie it up in courts and demonstrations forever.”           

The Forest Service has so far received over 140,000 public comments  on the proposed Tongass roadless rule with the majority being opposed to the change. - More...
Saturday AM - November 02, 2019  

Little brown bats remain a northern mystery
By NED ROZELL
A little brown bat rests on a glove.
Photo by Jesika Reimer

Alaska: Little brown bats remain a northern mystery By NED ROZELL - “There really could be bats in your belfry this Halloween, or it turns out, they may be snuggled up in your wood pile.”

At the risk of plagiarizing myself, that is the lead sentence of my first science column, which appeared on this day 25 years ago. One-quarter century later, we still don’t know a lot about the only bat seen in northern Alaska, the little brown bat.

Seven species of bats live in Alaska, but north of the Alaska Range people only see one - the little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus). Smaller than chickadees, little brown bats are on the very northern edge of their range in Alaska.

In fall, little brown bats may migrate from dry interior areas of Alaska and Canada to the coast. They may hibernate in middle Alaska, though the only ones found hunkering down here have wedged in crevices of human-built structures.

While living in Fairbanks for 33 years, I have never seen a bat in the city or surrounding forests or rivers. I didn’t see one while walking slowly from Valdez to Prudhoe Bay two summers ago. I have only seen three skittering through the air in Alaska: Once in Anchorage, in Yakutat and once near Tok.

Researchers who surveyed Alaskans in a bat-monitoring project from 2004 to 2012 recorded reliable bat sightings from many Alaska cities and towns.

In the study, authored by David Tessler and Marian Snively of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, people logged in with surprise bat sightings from Kotzebue (the only report from north of the Arctic Circle), White Mountain, Saint Michael and the Semidi Islands off the Alaska Peninsula.

Each of those eyewitness accounts was new to science, extending the range of the little brown bat. The encounter with the best timing was in Saint Michael, when on Halloween a worker for the Alaska Department of Transportation warmed up a warehouse and noticed a bat flying around inside. - More...
Saturday AM - November 02, 2019

JEFF LUND: Fishing in the Swamp - I have seen 0% of the Democrat debates live, only clips and recaps. The information I have gathered on the candidates has come from a few long-form interviews on podcasts and reading various newspapers online. Not online newspapers or websites. There is an important distinction. Anyway, here are my thoughts on a few of the candidates. Some I can’t get enough of a read on to really comment, so that, and space, are the reasons for omission. 

Read it, but don’t read too much into it.

Bernie Sanders seems like the type of guy who would show up to the river with a Leonard bamboo fly rod worth $1700 but has no idea it’s worth $1700. He’s got a box of dry flies he tied himself and as he’s getting rigged up he’s fuming over the evils of Capitalism. After squinting across the water for a second, he eyes where a fish should be and unravels a textbook roll cast. You’re thinking, “Wait, what’s going on here?” Boom, he’s hooked up. But he doesn’t smile and he hasn’t stopped talking about someone he met in Iowa who can’t afford her medication. By the time he’s on fish No. 8, you’ve stopped fishing and are just watching this cast and blast happen. You thought he was the somewhat charmingly angry, old dude – the idol of some millennials who donated $6, interested in a bumper sticker for their virtue signaling starter kit. But he’s the guy who’s always been like this, it’s just that no one knew until people outside of New England started paying attention eight years ago. 

Tulsi Gabbard would show up early. She’d take out her fly rod, assemble it, and give a quick look down the guides to make sure the ferrules are in line. She’d be the type to be present and only when it’s time to break for lunch, maybe indulge in a political pitch. It’s not that she doesn’t care, far from it, she just doesn’t seem like a person pretending to care, which would allow her to be present. At times you disagree with the fly she’s using, but don’t question her motivation. You also wonder if it’s worth it to wade out that far in the stiff, dangerous current, but she’s not scared. 

You know that dude who can’t seem to keep his fly out of the trees behind him, but seems oblivious to the frustration he should be feeling? I think of Andrew Yang. He’s got more enthusiasm than experience, but if you lose some flies behind you, it’s part of the learning process, right? An angler on the other side of the bank will look at him and think some people just aren’t cut out for fly fishing, but he doesn’t care. He just sticks with it. - More...
Saturday AM - November 02, 2019

Political Cartoon: Signs of the Times
By Jeff Koterba ©2019, Omaha World Herald, NE
Distributed to paid subscribers for publication by Cagle Cartoons, Inc.