Ketchikan: Four charged with guiding clients to poach black bears in Southeast - Ketchikan and Klawock Alaska Bureau of Wildlife Enforcement State Troopers began investigation into what they called a large illegal big game transporter case in April 2006 which involves at least 8 people and several businesses owned and operated by Eric Palle of Salt lake City, Utah.

Hidden Inlet Black Bear Photograph by Jim Lewis ©2006

During the investigation it was determined that three non-resident aliens were hunting big game with out the services of a big game guide on board the M/V Sea Spray explorer yacht, a 100 foot vessel converted from a Bristol bay crabber. Two of the nonresident aliens were citizens of Spain and one was a citizen of Mexico. Investigation revealed that the nonresident aliens were issued the wrong tags and licenses for hunting black bear and did not have a guide as required by law. Investigation also revealed that they were planning on leaving the United States on April 30, 2006 to return to their respective countries.

Troopers were issued arrest warrants for these individuals and served the warrants on April 29th. The three nonresident aliens pled out in arraignment that was held immediately after the arrests.

During further investigation by Alaska Bureau of Wildlife Enforcement State Troopers between April 26th and November 2nd, the investigation revealed that vessels and employees of Shoreline Charters and the Sunnahae Lodge were taking black bear hunters into the field and remaining with clients while actively looking and hunting for black bears. Shoreline charters has a transporter license that only allows them to provided transportation services to from and in the field. The investigation reveled that employees of Shoreline Charters remained in the field with paying clients while they actively searched for black bears while driving slowly in boats along the beaches near Craig Alaska. - More...
Saturday - December 09, 2006

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Fish Factor: Halibut Catches In SE Could Drop in 2007 By LAINE WELCH - Halibut catches in Southeast could drop by 29 percent next year, while harvesters in other regions might enjoy a bit of a boost. Biologists with the International Pacific Halibut Commission are recommending a 2007 coast-wide catch of 66.56 half million pounds, which includes California, Oregon, Washington, B.C. and Alaska. That's down from a catch limit of 69.86 million pounds this year.

Alaska always gets the lion's share of the halibut harvest, and the state could see an overall increase to nearly 56 million pounds, up about a half million from 2006.

Preliminary numbers show slight increases for all regions in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea - except for Southeast. Biologists are recommending a halibut catch of seven and a half million pounds for the Southeast region, a drop of three million pounds from this year.

The IPHC based its numbers on a new model after recoveries of tagged halibut showed a greater movement of fish among regulatory areas than previously thought. Accordingly, the managers developed a coast-wide assessment based on a single stock, rather than assessments for each of eight regions. The result was some substantial changes in catch rates.

The catch recommendations, along with other halibut issues, will be considered by the IPHC at its annual meeting set for Jan.16-19 in Victoria, British Columbia. The catch limits may be updated, but they are not expected to change significantly, the Commission said. The IPHC will take public comments on the catch recommendations through December 31st. The fishery will open most likely in early March and last through mid-November. - More...
Saturday - December 09, 2006

Alaska: Scientists study decline in sea lions By ALEX de MARBAN - The days of state sanctioned sea lion hunts are long gone in Alaska, but fishermen and hunters who gunned down the sea lions are suspects in the latest study about the animal's crash.

Scientists puzzling over Steller sea lion numbers that plummeted about 75 percent in parts of Alaska in the last three decades have considered such theories as over fishing, changing climate, diet and killer-whale attacks.

But the consequences of fishermen blasting sea lions to protect fish or gear, and hunters harvesting thousands of pups for pelts, haven't been significantly studied, said researcher Henry Huntington. Yet sea lion shootings took place for decades until 1990, sometimes in large numbers, and might have played a key role in the collapse, he said.

Fishermen slaughtered sea lions for revenge - often aiming for adult females - because they punctured buoys, snatched fish and destroyed nets, said Clem Tillion, a former state lawmaker and commercial fisherman. - More...
Saturday - December 09, 2006

Rep. Tom Anderson (R) Photo courtesy Alaska Republicans

Alaska: Alaska State Rep. Indicted on Charges of Extortion, Conspiracy, Bribery & Money Laundering - A federal grand jury in Anchorage, Alaska, has indicted Thomas T. Anderson, a current elected member of the Alaska State House of Representatives, on charges of extortion, conspiracy, bribery, and money laundering, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division announced Friday.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin reacted with disappointment upon hearing news on Friday that former State Representative Tom Anderson (R) was arrested on charges of extortion, conspiracy, bribery, and money laundering. Based on charging documents, the crimes Anderson is accused of committing took place while he was a sitting member of the House of Representatives in the Alaska State Legislature.

"Alaskans deserve to trust that the public officials they elect are working in their best interest and the best interest of Alaska ­ always," said Governor Palin. "Keeping in mind that Mr. Anderson is innocent until proven guilty, serious accusations like these against a former state lawmaker make this a sad day for Alaska."

The seven-count indictment returned on Dec. 6, 2006, charges Anderson with two counts of extortion, one count of bribery, one count of conspiracy, and three counts of money laundering in connection with the use of a sham corporation to hide the identity of the bribery payments. The indictment further alleges that Anderson solicited and received money from an FBI confidential source in exchange for Anderson's agreement to perform official acts to further a business interest represented by the confidential source. - More...
Saturday - December 09, 2006

National: So much to say, so little time for GOP lawmakers By MARGARET TALEV - As an era of Republican control of Congress wound down toward adjournment this week, there was so much to say - and so much time spent saying it.

While unfinished legislation stacked up, retiring and defeated lawmakers consumed hours each day in the House of Representatives and the Senate saying their goodbyes before relinquishing the spotlight.

Their farewell speeches ranged from funny to angry, from weird to poignant, and sometimes a little of each. - More...
Saturday - December 09, 2006

National: House ethics panel finds no official misconduct in Foley probe By AMIE PARNES - The House ethics committee concluded Friday that Republican leaders were "willfully ignorant" of former Rep. Mark Foley's inappropriate conduct with congressional pages but that the lawmakers did not violate any rules of official conduct.

In a report released Friday, panel members found that current lawmakers and members of their staff did little to stop Foley's inappropriate communication with the teenage boys, even as his Internet messages escalated over time. - More...
Saturday - December 09, 2006

National: Surviving a hunting trip with Dick Cheney By JAMES ROSEN - Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Vice President Dick Cheney went quail hunting last week, and the senator lived to tell the tale.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford joined Cheney and Graham for two days of hunting on a private plantation that friends of Chambliss own in southern Georgia. - More...
Saturday - December 09, 2006

National: Mixed reactions to new questions on citizenship test By TIMOTHY PRATT - Quick. Name one of the authors of the Federalist papers.

OK, now that you've answered that one, let's move on. - More...
Saturday - December 09, 2006

Week In Review: A review of the week's top stories By THOMAS HARGROVE - U.S. troop deaths escalate in Iraq

At least 32 U.S. troops died this week in escalating violence throughout Iraq. Thursday was the bloodiest day, with 13 dying in firefights in Al Anbar Province and bombings in Kurkuk. Last weekend was also unusually bloody, with at least 11 American deaths. U.S. forces used air strikes to attack suspected al Qaeda strongholds. The Army said the attacks Friday killed 20 insurgents, including two women. "Al Qaeda in Iraq has both men and women supporting and facilitating their operations, unfortunately," the U.S. Central Command said in a statement. - More..
Saturday - December 09, 2006

Washington Calling: Presidential contenders...Sheehan abroad...senator's pjs By LISA HOFFMAN - Another week, another couple of U.S. senators announcing a serious flirtation with running for president.

With Indiana's Evan Bayh and Kansas' Sam Brownback the latest to announce they are "exploring" entering the nation's biggest popularity contest, the total number of sitting senators eyeing the White House has reached nine - six Democrats and three Republicans. - More...
Saturday - December 09, 2006

Alaska: We feed birds, so why not bears and deer By CRAIG MEDRED - Flocks of black-capped chickadees were swarming the alders in the front yard at daybreak, but it was hard to tell what the little omnivores were after.

Seeds of alder cones, maybe, or the eggs or larva of woolly alder aphids? Or, better yet, the spawn of the woolly alder sawfly, a nasty little invasive species that has caused the defoliation of alder thickets across Southcentral Alaska? - More...
Saturday - December 09, 2006

Match of the Month: November 2006 Holly and Lindsey Ketchikan: Match of the Month: November 2006 by NANCY COGGINS - Often we hear about a "Big" experiencing the magic of youth through being matched with a "Little" - a chance to do kid stuff again, a reminder of the time when he or she was younger. Sure enough, even though Lindsay is a senior in high school (which isn't that far away from when she was a kid), her match provides that chance to "play" again. You may be thinking that the "Big" may get as much out of such a relationship as the "Little." And you are absolutely correct. - More... Saturday - December 09, 2006

Bob Morgan: Lewis, the Lightning Bug - Lewis was a lightning bug, but he was no ordinary lightning bug! When he lit up, he really lit up! He was so bright that you could see for miles and miles, even on a very dark night. All of the other lightning bugs would not play with him because he was so strange. But he was a very good bug and so sad because the other bugs would not play with him.

In some places in the world, Lewis would be called a "Firefly." Would Lewis be called a "Lightning Bug" or a "Firefly" where you live? Lewis liked to be called a "Lightning Bug," but he is a nice bug and he wouldn't mind at all if you called him a "Firefly." - More...
Saturday - December 09, 2006

Bob Morgan: The Ugly Birdhouse - Now, most bedtime stories begin with "Once upon a time", but not this one. This one happened just a few weeks ago. Here is the story and what really happened.

It was springtime and a family of robins were on their way north for the summer. A lot of birds do this. They like to spend the summer in the north where it is cool, and they like to spend the winter in the south where it is warm.

There was the mother robin, and her name was Etta. Then there was the father robin, and his name was Mike. And there was the little baby robin. His name was Daniel. - More....
Saturday - December 09, 2006

Political Cartoonists Iraq War Study Group Artist Bob Englehart, The Hartford Courant Read Today's Political Cartoons, Click Here Viewpoints Opinions/Letters Basic Rules High Cost of Oil and Gas - Give us a break! By Janelle Hamilton - Saturday Outrageous Salaries! By Robert D. Warner - Saturday High cost of fuel By R.K. Rice - Saturday Christmas Lights Around Town By Diana Chaudhary - Saturday Ketchikan Lions Club By Jim Sundahl - Saturday Apology owed to NTVFD By Liz Hook - Saturday Will Ketchikan's gas prices ever go down? By Richard John Jr. - Saturday Ketchikan's high gas prices By Jon Van Essen - Saturday RE: House Approves Measure to Preserve WWII Internment Camps By Shirley A. Weiss - Saturday The Sam Pitcher Memorial Scholarship Concert By Judith Green - Thursday Senior center By Gretchen Klein - Thursday RE: Gas Prices By Jerilyn Lester - Thursday Thank you to those who serve By Anita Hales - Thursday About KPU giving Bad Service By Scott Willis - Thursday When do we get help!! By Laurie Price - Wednesday Gas prices By Chuck Moon - Wednesday More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter Ketchikan Ketchikan Police Report AK Troopers Daily Dispatch Today's Forecast Satellite Today's Weather Images Marine Forecasts Ketchikan Weather Data Current AK Weather Map CLASSIFIEDS Auto-post your ad in the proper category, or email your ad & photos to ads@sitnews.us  CLASSIFIEDS' CATEGORIES Announcements For Sale / Free Stuff Garage Sales Homes / Apts/ Property Pets Wanted Lost & Found Local Services December 2006 Archives Click on a date to view that front page. S M T W T F S           01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31             More Front Page Archives

Mary Guss: The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch - Jim Lynch lives and writes in Olympia, Washington - an unlikely place for the unlikely hero of his first novel. That hero is 13-year old (but looking 9) Miles O'Malley. Wishing he were tall, dark and handsome, he is instead self-described as "short, pink and ordinary." Don't you believe it. While he may be the first two, Miles is far from ordinary. - More...
Saturday - December 09, 2006

Mary Guss: The Blue Bear and The Last Shot by Lynn Schooler - Lynn Schooler is a wilderness guide and 35-year resident of Juneau. On his boat the Wilderness Swift he takes people out to observe and photograph Alaska from Misty Fjords to Prince William Sound. He also writes. Over the past five years he has written two nonfiction books that deal with watery topics. The stories are set over a hundred years apart and have vastly different subjects and protagonists. But each provides the reader with an engrossing tale. - More...
Saturday - December 09, 2006

Dave Kiffer: Still 'Fishy' After All These Years - Recently, I wrote about Seattle coming up with a new "brand," calling itself the "Metro Natural" place.

I also noted that Ketchikan went through a similar "branding" exercise last year, which gave us "Our Lifestyle, Your Reward."

But a friend asked me a couple of weeks ago whether or not it was time to take another look at whether or not the longtime slogan "The Salmon Capital of the World" really fairly describes "The First City."

"Other places have a lot more salmon," he noted. "Bristol Bay, the Copper River, Pike Place Market."

I had to admit he was right. There are other places that land more salmon than Ketchikan.

Ketchikan probably was never the true "salmon capital" of the world anyway. Maybe we were the salmon "canning" capital once upon a time, but even that "unparallelode gram" is as long gone as the floating fish trap. - More...
Saturday - December 09, 2006

Rob Holston: Kids Grow In Many Ways - Are your school district health and physical education curriculums addressing the major health concerns of your community's students? Because our school district's goals include students demonstrating abilities in mathematics, language arts, reading, social studies and science, we should also expect our students to demonstrate a healthy body, proper eating habits, nutritional awareness and good physical development. Report cards for students traditionally place values for demonstrated performance. "A" means you're doing great, "C" means you're average and "F" means you are failing.

If your school is an average school in an average American town, recent studies show that 25% of all students are overweight and in just four years that percentage will jump to 50%. That means that by 2010 we will begin graduating 50% of our local young people with a "conditional diploma". A high school diploma is a certificate signifying certain academic accomplishments to aid graduates in their pursuit of abundant life, happiness and successful careers. The unfortunate 50% who are overweight, obese, morbidly obese &/or simply out of shape get the "conditional diploma" that guarantees a shorter life, filled with agonizing health problems, premature aging and early death. - More...
Saturday - December 09, 2006

Thomas P.M. Barnett: Despite failures in Iraq, nation-building on our plate - Incoming Secretary of Defense Robert Gates declares one of his goals will be improving our military's performance in postwar environments. It's tempting to assume any pullback from Iraq signals the end of messy nation-building efforts, but recent history says otherwise, making Gates' commitment vitally important.

During the Cold War, America engaged in nation building once every decade, but since then it's been closer to once every couple of years, especially when you consider the inevitable splintering of fragile states. Iraq, for example, is logically considered three separate efforts: the good (Kurdish region), the bad (Shiite provinces) and the ugly (the Sunni triangle).

This higher frequency in what the Pentagon calls "post-conflict reconstruction and stability operations" corresponds to the sharp rise - since Bush 41, mind you - in the use of American forces in both crisis responses (e.g., civil strife, disaster relief) and regime-toppling exercises designed to round up bad guys (e.g., Panama's Noriega, Serbia's Milosevic & Co., Afghanistan's Taliban and al-Qaida, and Iraq's "deck of cards"). - More...
Saturday - December 09, 2006

John Hall: Bush's way forward - If he chooses, President Bush can claim that the Baker-Hamilton report, despite the grim language of failure in which it came wrapped, is not entirely a repudiation of his Iraq policy.

While rejecting "stay the course" as a way forward, it accepts his central theme - that walking away prematurely from Iraq will hand al-Qaeda a base of operations in the heart of Islam.

Even while it suggests that American combat groups should be mainly out of Iraq in little more than a year, the report suggests that Americans retain a foothold in Iraq. It expressed concern that al-Qaeda will have "a still stronger base of operations" after American forces pull out and its top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, will use the departure as a recruiting tool to redouble terrorist efforts in the region and around the world.

The study group said the United States should ask the Iraqi government for "temporary" U.S. bases in Iraq to prevent this from happening after the main body of U.S. combat forces leaves. But the grim and pessimistic description of the situation in Iraq sounds like all of this is very far away and many rivers will have to be crossed before the United States can even get to that point. - More...
Saturday - December 09, 2006