At an annual convention designed to build unity among the many, the Alaska Federation of Natives set the stage for a clash with one of the state's most powerful sportsman's organizations.
It's a potential tiff over a valuable bison-hunting auction permit, but it's rooted in a longstanding feud over rural subsistence with the Alaska Outdoor Council. The council's Alaska Fish and Wildlife Fund, which is involved in legal action against efforts supported by AFN, hopes to auction off the permit and raise $20,000.
A resolution passed by the influential Native organization says the state never should have awarded the rare auction permit for Delta Junction bison to the outdoor council. AFN calls the state's decision "offensive" -- in part because of the outdoor council's legal attacks against the federal subsistence program that helps rural residents access wild game meat.
Thousands of AFN delegates unanimously passed the resolution, which calls on Gov. Sean Parnell and Fish and Game Commissioner Cora Campbell to revoke the permit.
No word yet on what the state will do. A spokeswoman with Parnell's office said the governor has not seen the resolution, which was passed Oct. 22. Campbell did not return calls seeking comment.
Corey Rossi, Fish and Game's director of wildlife conservation, said he read the resolution but has received no official request from AFN.
"We're trying to get a handle on what's happened and see if there's a way to reconcile it," he said.
The resolution was one of dozens passed at the three-day AFN convention in Anchorage, where the organization held forums asking how the Native community could work better with state and federal agencies.
Bison hunt permit an Alaska prize
The Delta Junction bison hunt is one of the state's most sought-after hunts. Last year, some 20,000 Alaskans paid a $10 application fee for the chance to win about 100 permits, Rossi said. Only one auction permit is awarded to a nonprofit each year.
The outdoor council hopes to sell 1,000 tickets at $20 each in its fundraiser, with a raffle set for next summer unless tickets sell out before then. The benefit of the raffle for hunters is they have multiple chances to win a permit (they can buy multiple tickets). To win a permit through normal procedure, hunters can apply just once a year with the state.
AFN's rub with the Alaska Outdoor Council goes back decades. The council's legal actions have eroded subsistence-hunting opportunities designed to benefit Natives, the resolution says, including supporting the lawsuit that led to the state leaving the federal subsistence program.
That program puts rural hunters, who are mostly Native, first in line for hunting and fishing on federal lands and waters. In the late 1980s, the state Supreme Court ruled that notion violated the Alaska Constitution's clause guaranteeing equal-access to wildlife, ending rural privilege on state lands.
Ahtna, Inc., an Alaska Native regional corporation, introduced the resolution at AFN. Ahtna, representing Native shareholders from the Copper River region northeast of Anchorage, has long locked horns with the outdoor council. Often at issue is villagers' access to another competitive hunt, this time for highly prized Nelchina caribou.
The Alaska Fish and Wildlife Conservation Fund is fighting in the Alaska Supreme Court to end the state's community subsistence hunts for the caribou in the region, hunts that were created for hunters in eight Native villages in the Nelchina basin.
The state's decision to award the Delta bison auction permit to the council sends an "offensive message to thousands of Alaskans" and helps "finance the AOC's litigation and other anti-subsistence activities," reads the AFN resolution.
Natives 'not into sharing'
Rod Arno, the outdoor council's executive director, said the group is not attacking Ahtna or subsistence. They're battling a state law that violated the constitution because it favors limited groups of people instead of equal hunting opportunities for all Alaskans.
Of the resolution, Arno said AFN is "clearly not into sharing. They want a Native priority to public resources in Alaska."
Arno said the outdoor council's board has decided that the money from the raffle won't go toward litigation. Instead, it will be used for efforts that support Fish and Game law enforcement and conservation, in spirit with the intent of the state law allowing auction permits, he said.
They should prove it, said Linda Tyone-Pete, Ahtna's vice president of corporate affairs. She thinks the money will be used to sue the state.
Ahtna-region villagers are angry that the outdoor council's lawsuit seeks to remove meat from the hands of local residents, said Tyone-Pete, an alternate member of the AFN's 37-member board. She'll be sure to bring up the resolution during upcoming AFN-board meetings with the governor.
While the community subsistence hunt's original mission was diluted after the program lost in state Superior Court -- now any group of 25 or more Alaskans can apply -- it's still a help to Ahtna villagers, Tyone-Pete said.
Those families have relied on caribou meat for eons, she said. Hunting the animals, preparing the meat and sharing the food with the community is a longstanding cultural practice that unites Native families and provides affordable protein.
"It is very important," she said. "People need them to feed their families, and they depend on the moose and caribou to do that. With high prices in food right now, and no jobs, it's very difficult."
The permit is supposed to go to a nonprofit group dedicated to the enforcement of fish and game laws, another point noted by the AFN resolution.
Arno said the group has long voiced support for the state's law enforcement efforts to protect wildlife, including trying to protect the Alaska Wildlife Troopers, the so-called brown-shirts, when former Gov. Frank Murkowski tried doing away with them.
"I don't think anyone in the state administration or the Legislature would say (the Alaska Outdoor Council) has not promoted Fish and Game law enforcement since before statehood," Arno said in an email.
Rossi pointed out that the council's conservation fund, in its agreement with the state, took the unusual step of agreeing to give 25 percent of proceeds from the raffle back to the state. The group could have kept all the money it raised.
Following up with the group to determine exactly how they spend their money, and making sure it is dedicated to conservation and law enforcement and not litigation, may be one way to resolve the dispute, Rossi said.
Contact Alex DeMarban at alex(at)alaskadispatch.com