6.8 Million Acres to be turned into Wilderness Area

[Sourdough]

There is one portion of Alaska where almost all of the Caribou hunting is done by residents of Anchorage and Fairbanks.  This area contains the 40 mile Caribou herd, the most studied and looked at herd in the state.  This is an International herd, that crosses the border into Canada, and is managed by both the State of Alaska and the Canadians in a joint effort to grow the herd.  This area is the largest area accesiable by the limited road system in Alaska.  This is where many Alaskans go to recreate.  It also has the largest number of small gold mines in the state, producing a living for a lot of people. 

Draw a line from the Alaska Canada border at the ALCAN highway along the highway, passing just North of Fairbanks to the south side of the White Mountains.  Roughly 300 miles.  Then circle the mountains along their southern border around to the west, to the Yukon River.  Then up stream along the Yukon through the Yukon Flats, to the Porcupine River.  Then North East along the porcupine to the Canadian Border.  Inside this area are the communitees or Circle, Central, Caribou, Tetlin, Eagle, Jack Wade, Boundry, and Chicken.

If this area gets turned into Wilderness, that means no motorized vehicles off the hgihways.  All the mining trails will be off limits.  All the RS-2477 (traditional roads and trails to villages, recognized by the Feds) will be off limits.  These trails and roads are heavily used during hunting season to gain access to the areas Caribou Herd.  That means no hunting this herd.  The State Of Alaska and Canada, have spent millions of dollars studying and performing predator control to help the herd grow.  The Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race runs through this area.  This is a highly used area.

Now Ken Salazar, and his minions are wanting to place the entire area off limits to Alaskans.  BLM, US Fish and Wildlife, and the National Park Service have been working on this since Febuary, but have kept it under the table till last week.  They had a meeting last week here in Fairbanks, but only publized it in a manner few people would see it.  Virtually no one attended since no one knew about it.  The few that did were enviromental groups that are behind it all the way.  Luckily a few other people heard about it and have since gotten the word out.  One of our US Senators heard about it and has demanded a second hearing here in Fairbanks. 

We see this as a land grab by the Feds to keep people off their land, and from hunting their wildlife.  We see this as punishment from the Feds for killing wolves in the area to improve the Caribou herd.  The Wolves, Bears, and Caribou, legally belong to the State of Alaska, and the Feds hate that.  If they have their way this area will turn into a waste land, barren of wildlife, like so many other areas of the state that they control.  Denali Park is rapidly becoming such a waste land.  Few Caribou, and Moose live in the area of the park.  Wolves and Bears have killed them off.  Now most wolf packs migrate outside of the park to find food.  National Park Service likes to feed pradators.  Look at Yellow Stone.

[BUGEYE]

that husseins plan to lock people out of the woods.  and if he gets reelected, you won't have any guns to hunt with anyway...

[powderman]

SOURDOUGH. I hate to hear that. The feds have no business there, they need to be given the boot. More of the obaminations change. POWDERMAN. 

[ppine]

Sourdough,
I have sympathy for your situation.  I had a career in resource management and worked in SE Alaska several times.  Alaska has pitifully few roads, and a lot of the northern country is hard to move around in.  There is no doubt that states should have more say in how their lands are managed.

Wilderness doesn't prevent access, it limits the type of access.  I believe you are over reaching by suggesting that Denali is becoming a waste land and Fed management will decimate wildlife populations.  The Park Service gets mixed grades for their management policies, and there is no doubt that they favor predators more than state game and fish agencies.  Realize that it is important to have functioning ecosystems like Yellowstone with the full compliment of critters that existed pre European contact.

Wolves will always be controversial.  When they show up where they are not welcome, the remedy is simple.  I saw wolves here in Nevada last Sept hunting elk near the ID border.  Most of them will be shot and buried.  There are laws and official policies that can never be enforced out there in the big wide open.

[Sourdough]

Unlike the lower 48 many here in Alaska hunt not for sport but to put meat on the table.  A for instance the Central Alaska Range Caribou heard numbered 30,000 in the late 80s.  Wolves came out from Denali Park and started killing Caribou.  My partner and I sat and watched them rip the bellies open on over 200 animals one evening.  The wolves were having a jolly good time playing with the Caribou.  When the wolves tired of playing they left, leaving all those Caribou standing with their intestines hanging out to the ground or lying dead or dying.  Today that herd number 1300. 

As for the Fortymile herd, at one time they numbered 568,000 animals.  Then due to poor management and high losses due to predators, the number dropped to 5,000.  Since the mid 90s we have doubled the size of the herd from 20,000 animals to over 40,000 animals, by limiting hunting and predator control.

The problem is all this land belongs to the federal government.  The animals per the Alaska Constatution belong to Alaska.  The Feds disagree with the way Alaska manages the animals.  The Feds also disagree that the rivers and all navigatable waters in Alaska belong to the state as stated by the courts.  The Feds feel if the river runs through their land it's their river, and they want to control it.

You say Wilderness does not prevent access, right one can still walk into the area.  But for hunting, a Wilderness designation (no motorized vehicles) shuts the area down.  No one is going to walk five to 15 miles from the highway, kill a Caribou then pack it out.  There are only tow highways in this area, the Steese and the Taylor.  To hunt Caribou you have to go where the Caribou are, and they seldom are on the road.  We use old mining trails, to gain access.  Once a Wilderness designation is in place these mining trails will be OFF LIMITS to motorized vehicles.

Yes we have painfully few roads in Alaska.  Only the south eastern corner of the state has normal roads.  The Dalton Highway does go from Fairbanks to Dead Horse, but there is a 10 mile corridor, five miles on each side of the highway, that no firearms are allowed.

[Victor3]

 Sickening, isn't it?
 
 When I was growing up, Southern CA was an outdoorsman's paradise just 50 miles outside of Los Angeles. My Dad and I would camp, hunt, ride dirt bikes and explore 100's of miles of dirt roads in the local mountains/desert without a care in the world. I didn't even know the Rangers were Law Enforcement Officers until I was about 12. The ones we knew became friends we looked forward to meeting. They mainly wanted to make sure we were okay and warned us of weather, fire and road conditions. Never once asked to see a hunting licence or hassled us about anything.
 
 Fast-fwd 40 years; in the same areas I now need to pay for and display an annual pass to park my truck off of the pavement for a minute to relieve myself. 90% of the dirt roads Dad and I rode are off limits to vehicles. No camping allowed outside of established campgrounds, and a permit is required even to use a propane stove. Hunting with lead ammo is illegal since most of our old haunts are in the "CA Condor zone."
 
 Rangers have asked us "What are you folks doing out here?" I've felt like asking "What are you doing out here?" (some of the Rangers are still very friendly, but some not so much).
 
 Couple of years back in an area of the local desert I've been hunting in most of my life, I was greeted by this sign...
 

 
 No slingshots, bicycles or loud music? 
 
 I tried to read it to this rattlesnake who was eating a protected kangaroo rat, but he wouldn't listen. 

[BUGEYE]

ppine's assertion that wilderness doesn't limit access is only partially correct.
I can't throw on a heavy backpack and walk into the area and there's plenty like me.  we ARE locked out.
here at the Cohutta in Ga., I've parked my truck and looked into the area, really pretty, but since I can only walk about 50yds from the truck, the area is useless to me.

here's hoping that a new prez will put some thinking people in FWS and the park service.
Alaska is too precious to put a padlock on the gate...

[Conan The Librarian]

Saw a favorite area in florida turned to wilderness area last week. Lots of restrictions on access now, and special permit required. There was no good reason to do this. It wasn't a pressured area, and viitors have always been respectful.


The only people who entered were the ones willing to walk a while to get to it. That eliminates almost everyone.


Ironically, they were doing some backhoe work in this "sensitive area", and they had just added a bunch of parking spaces.

[Sourdough]

We have had run ins with USF&W, Park Service Gestapo, and BLM Employees.  They all feel that the public has no right to go into wilderness areas.  It's belongs to them and we are to stay out.  That is their attitude.  Don't know where PPINE worked, but he is behind the times.  Once they designate an area in Alaska as Wilderness, they treat it just like it is a National Park.  Don't pick a flower, don't pick up a shed Moose Antler, and don't leave any sigh you have been there, such as moving a small tree that has fallen across the trail.

Last year out US Congressman, Don Young went into the US Fish and Wildlife office of the woman that managed the Yukon Charley Preserve to discuss an issue with the Park Rangers she had patrolling the river outside of their jurisdiction, on state waters.  He asked her to withdraw her Rangers.  She refused and ordered him out of her office.  He asked if she knew who he was.  She said "No and I don't care"  wrong answer.  This year her funding was cut to the bone, where she can no longer afford to have Rangers Patrolling the river.  There was also a rider in the budget bill that prohibits her from recieving or transferring funds from anywhere else in US F&W or the Park Service.

By the way, the Feds own 74% of Alaska.  More and more of it is being placed OFF LIMITS every year.  Directly violating ANILCA which said "NO MORE" parks, preserves, and wilderness areas.

[james]

What good is a pristine wilderness if no one can see it.   Many older people cannot the enjoy the existing public wilderness because they can't hike that far.  I'm sick of seeing "no motorized vehicle signs" where I have driven for the past 20 years. We (the public) own the land, so I say leave it as is with no more stringent regulations.

[ppine]

Sourdough,
I already expressed sympathy for your plight in Alaska which is the one state where the centralized Fed govt control over your lands creates the most problems.  I resent your statement that I am behind the times.

I live in Nevada where 87 percent of the lands are Federally owned and am well aware of the all the problems related to Fed land mangament.  I worked for the BLM for one year and quit because it was like working for the enemy.  I have worked on contracts with every Fed agency you can name multiple times for over 30 years.  As a reitred person I have plenty of time to fish and hunt and spend time in the outdoors.  We have new wilderness areas here every year.  Please realize that urbanites vote, and they influence the political process without having much experience except a trip to a National Park.  We have a little movement here called the "Sagebrush Rebellion" that will not go away.  States rights will eventually start to resist the Fed govt control of wild lands.

[corbanzo]

If it was criss crossed with roads and trails and there was actual access all over it would be different, but the truth is when you look at 7 million Alaskan acres, there are probably only a couple hundred thousand of those acres that are within a reasonable distance from a road or trail.  The rest of the access is over hard terrain with atvs or hiking.

I think people misunderstand how wilderness works. If we make a trail, animals love it. Bears and moose use human trails all the time. Moose have much easier winters due to human roads and trails. Ptarmigan and grouse are on roads all the time getting gravel for their gizzards. Of course these animals don't want to be in direct contact, but if there are areas where humans frequent, they move!  And it's not like we are building giant cities everywhere... They move away from a camp... And they are back a couple days later.  No harm no foul.

And nature sucks at wildlife management!!  Why do animals have such huge cycles naturally???  Anything left unchecked grows until it crushes itself trough disease, predator growth, scarcity of food, scarcity of habitat, etc. if we arent out there to keep a look on it....  Buh bye.  See you in fifty years when you are healthy again..

[Conan The Librarian]

I just heard that the coast guard is grabbing for jurisdiction over mille lacs lake in minnesota. This will mean that all of the seasonal fishing guides have a whole new layer of costs and bureaucratic garbage to contend with, and for no advantage. It also will add new requirements to everyone operating a boat on that lake. Coast guard wants the jurisdiction because it means bigger head count and larger pensions.
 
Legal basis for it is that the lake was once used to transport logs, and therefore it's federally navigable.

[corbanzo]

Does it share a Canadian border?   I'm annoyed with the coast guard having anything but foreign accessible waters. Especially since in most states troopers have water access also. I'm ok with police making sure water bodies are kept safe, but not fed control. Everything the Feds touch they try and regulate - not just patrol.

[Sourdough]

The Feds have really stepped up harassment in the last three years.  We had some problems before,  but now it has really grown.  A few people that will talk to us say it is coming down from the top.  DC is behind all the moves. 

Last year a miner was moving in equipment to his mine in early summer.  Going in on the road he has used for over 40 years a portion was washed out.  The miner did what he has always done.  He took his dozer and moved the washed out gravel back up from the dry stream bed to fill the ditch across the road.  BLM had already noted the washout, and reclassified the road as unusable.  Only they failed to tell anyone.  When they found out the miner had repaired the road, BLM charged him with distruction of natural habitate.  They fined him.  Then BLM took equipment in and removed the fill.  Only instead of there being a three foot wide, four foot deep ditch across the road.  The ditch is now six feet wide and twelve feet deep.  Then they billed the miner for habitate restoration.

The Federal Government told us 30 years ago any established roads and trails would be honored as State Roads under RS-2477.  Alaskans have been using these trails and roads since the Gold Rush in the early 1900s.  suddenly in the last three years BLM has started refusing access across BLM lands on these roads.  BLM now refuses to recognize RS-2477.  BLM refuses to discuss the issue either with anyone.  They say that the land is theirs and they have the authority to refuse access at any time.

ppine:  When you say Wilderness designation does not lock up the land, maybe in your openion it does not, but to Alaskans it sure does.  It's 32 miles from the highway to my cabin on state land.  I have to cross BLM land.  Once that land is designated Wilderness, they have locked me out of my cabin.  I am not going to walk through 32 miles of swamp.  Under the Statehood Act Alaska got to choose lands, So the state chose lands that could be developed.  Lands where there is gold, copper, timber, coal, and other valuable minerals and resources.  Now here comes the BLM and they designate Wilderness areas, or Preserves, between the state lands and the nearest highway.  In some cases, they totally surround the state land with wilderness.  Locking out the miners, or lumbermen.  Alaska is tough unforgiving terrain.  Without a motorized vehicle, you are not going far.  People say use horses, BLM don't like horses on their land either.  but Alaska is not the kind of ground to use horses anyway.  They work in the mountains, sometimes.  But they can not cross flat land because it is always swampy.  I've had horses sink in up to their withers in the mud.  Once a horse does that you will never get that horse to step on wet ground again.

[Victor3]

And nature sucks at wildlife management!!  Why do animals have such huge cycles naturally???  Anything left unchecked grows until it crushes itself trough disease, predator growth, scarcity of food, scarcity of habitat, etc. if we arent out there to keep a look on it....  Buh bye.  See you in fifty years when you are healthy again..

 And it's not just animals...
 
 In the Western US, over 20,000,000 acres have now been decimated by bark beetles and the Forest Service estimates that ~100,000 trees are falling daily due to their effect. The FS doesn't have funding to keep up with the damage to watershed and infrastructure (trees falling across roads, power lines, etc.), not to mention the multiple huge fires fueled by dead wood that we have every year.
 
 After years of drought coupled with heavy restrictions on logging, the result is that there isn't enough water to support the abundance of trees, which makes them vulnerable to the beetles.
 
 So what's the Forest Service doing now? Courting the timber industry to help with the problem. Sorry folks; too little, too late. Costs too much to transport logs to the few remaining, far-flung mills anymore. 

[ironglow]

 The "wilderness area" smoke screen is just another way for those who worship ghovernment to grab more power for a concience starved, dictatorial government.  The govt is seizing more land for itself alll the time in it's quest for total dominance of the people.  Is it just a coincidence that it is always lefties trying to expand govt wherever and whenever possible ?
 
    Remember, you who don't like taxes..each acre the feds take over from private ownership..no longer pays taxes..

[ppine]

Victor,
Don't get me started with the US Florist Service.  I have a Master's Degree in Forestry and could never even apply for a job after about 1980 because I am a white male.  Since 1992, the annual allowable cut on USFS lands has been 10 percent of the previous and sustainable volume of harvesting.  You are correct about the current problems with insects and disease.  These problems will not be overcome in my life time.  Catastrophic wildfire will continue to increase, not because of globla warming but because of fire protection and a lack of harvesting.  Forests are over-stocked with too many trees competing with each other which makes them susceptible to drought, insects, disease and fire.l  I will stop there so my blood pressure can recover.

[corbanzo]

I still think that the term "federal lands" is unconstitutional. The us government was supposed to arrange agreements between states, not force controls upon them. The district of Columbia should be the only "federal lands."

I hear about the trees. It's ridiculous around me. Whole brown hillsides waiting to burn. Guess what???  All national forest!!  Weird I know!  But here it's not drought, it's lack of sun due to overpopulation. They got plenty of water, but just not enough sun to produce sap to fight them off.

But hey, it will burn and the natural cycle continues... Problem is with a little forestry management (cutting) we could make the cycle longer, and have less fires and less personal loss due to those fires....  That's just my crazy talk though I guess it just doesn't make sense. Did Obama join this forum??  Can he talk some sense into me???

[Conan The Librarian]

I don't even know why we have constitutional scholars anymore. The constitution isn't worth the paper it's written on. In fact, the paper may be more valuable if it's a good form of vellum or similar high quality paper.

[corbanzo]

Sad I know. Accountability is out the window. The law and the constitution is only a hold on the government if it is convenient and marketable.

I'm sure telling all the people in California how much land and caribou and sheep they save from us horrible Alaskans and our ways makes them really popular.

[Sourdough]

Look at all the millions of acres that we let burn here in the interior every year.  Some years the smoke is so bad in the city, that those of us with health issues have to pack up and leave.  We have already had three fires near Fairbanks and I believe five in the Delta area.  One day lighting is going to strike and all of the North Pole area is going up in smoke.  We've had a few close calls.

A large portion of the area being considered for Wilderness designation burned back in 2006 or 2007.  BLM refuses to allow harvesting of the trees, or anything else in the area.  They like pristine charcoal. 

[corbanzo]

Well yeah, charcoal filtered, filters the river waters they don't want us to use either.

[Victor3]

Victor,
Don't get me started with the US Florist Service.  I have a Master's Degree in Forestry...

 Sorry ppine, but seeing as how I've already got you started and you're educated in such things, I'd like to hear your take. 
 

Since 1992, the annual allowable cut on USFS lands has been 10 percent of the previous and sustainable volume of harvesting.  You are correct about the current problems with insects and disease.  These problems will not be overcome in my life time.  Catastrophic wildfire will continue to increase, not because of globla warming but because of fire protection and a lack of harvesting.  Forests are over-stocked with too many trees competing with each other which makes them susceptible to drought, insects, disease and fire.

 How is it that you understand these little details about forest management but the big wheels employed by the USFS can ignore them and still keep their jobs?
 
 Two Rangers I've discussed the situation with in the past few years agreed with everything you note above and were sympathetic to my complaints about what's happened to my favorite places on Earth. I imagine many of the front line folks in the USFS feel similar, since they're often the ones who have to deal with the mess.
 
 In 2005, a friend of mine lost two homes to a wildfire right at the edge of the Los Padres National Forest. ~30% of the trees within a mile of his properties were dead due to bark beetles. In 2007, a fire outside of Julian, CA took a cabin, four outbuildings and bee hives owned by my Wife's Aunt & Uncle. Their home was just barely saved by the fire dept. Again, dense surrounding trees in the Cleveland NF were killed by beetles.
 
 So this problem isn't just about some bugs killing trees out in a "wilderness area." It could be viewed as crossing a line from mismanagement into criminal negligence.

[ppine]

Victor,
Since you asked I will try and respond.  Natural resource management has little to do with science now and best management practices.  It has been politicized.  For the price of a stamp anyone can write a letter and cob up the works.  Timber harvesting and fire are still considered by many people (especially urbanites) to be bad.  Disturbance is normal in wildlands.  If we preclude fire then we have to make up the difference with more harvesting.

The fires you describe are a different problem- the urban-wildland interface.  People with money like to move to rural areas with acreage for the view, wildlife and the quiet.  Most of them don't know the first thing about making their property fire safe.  Our society spends lots of money on fire suppression and some on fire rehabilitation.  Fuel reduction money is almost non-existent.  Thinning forests, reducing brush, building fire roads and fire breaks cost money and no one is interested in it until they see a fire.  Our fire season lasted all winter in western Nevada this year.  There were 2 bad fires in the rural areas near town that took out 50 houses.  As people continue to move out into the rural fringe and timber and brush continues to grow, these problems will get worse until there is money for fuel reduction. 

[corbanzo]

So this problem isn't just about some bugs killing trees out in a "wilderness area." It could be viewed as crossing a line from mismanagement into criminal negligence.

 
This is one part that I disagree.  I do not believe that it is the governments job to manage forests, I believe it is their job to do so if they will not allow others too - but not to the point to ever be able to "guarantee" no wildfire.  But I also believe it isn't their job to say who can and can't use land.  Management will inhibit wildfires and make them less often - but it would take so much investement to stop them without full on logging it's really not feasible.  Living in a wooded area comes with the hazards... like living on a hillside could be a mudslide.  Living in tornado areas... living in flood plains... living on the coast... etc etc etc. 
 
It is the persons responsibility to have a safe place to live, set up fire breaks, etc if they are in an area prone to said problems.  - and get a backho to dig stumps so the forest nutjobs wont give you crap about your cut trees.....

[mcbammer]

I   see   this    as   a   way   to   generate   revenue   by   the    Government    .   Selling   permits  to   squezze    another   dollar   out    of    the    public.

[corbanzo]

The problem is there are no permits.  There is no revenue.  Just more and more administrative costs that all taxpayers are responsible for - and less and less land they are actually allowed to use.