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Somewhat Disagree, Renew-
Posted by Michael Strahan on Jan 05 2006
Bob,
I can see that this debate is unlikely to be resolved in this venue, but I think it's good to get some air to some of these festering problems.
I have to believe that if you have clients in your airplane, and you are planning to drop them off on "No Name Strip", that if you fly out there and find someone already there, you'd go somewhere else? Who is going to foot the bill for the additional air time? To the clients, a group on the other end of the strip is "just another day in deer camp", because most nonresident hunters come from states where you'd expect three or four camps within walking distance of each other. In Alaska, as you know, our game densities are so low that two camps within a day's walk of each other is usually WAY too crowded. But most folks don't know that, and they frequently wind up in such situations up here. In fairness to you, if the clients INSIST on dropping off there, I realize your obligation. But I suspect that all too often, pilots are more interested in dumping this load off in an easily-accessed spot so they can hurry back for the next plane-load.
THE GUIDE CONFLICT
It's an uneven playing field when guides are restricted to no more than three guide use areas in a year, yet the commercial transporters have legal access to indiscriminate drop-offs anywhere in the state. This has been a festering problem for years, as you know. I know guides who have had camps burned down when they flew into town to pick up clients, Anchorage tap water dumped in their wing tanks, you name it. As long as you've been around, I'm sure you are aware of these sort of shennanigans as well. So where do we go from here? Clearly, relying on the transporters to show some restraint isn't going to work, because as you said, what gives one operator the right to fly an area that another (or sixteen others) can't? This is why there is no solution to this issue short of limited entry or some kind of quota system. The industry refuses to regulate itself and will end up with regulations imposed upon it instead. I take strong exception to your comparison to other types of businesses that have the "right" to practice regardless of how many there are. Nobody cares if there are 25 lawyers in the lobby of the courthouse, but they darn sure care if there are 25 camps around the same lake! It's a completely different situation. I don't know what the solution is, but while we lollygag around trying to figure it out, unscrupulous operators will continue these practices until they are legally forced to stop. The guiding industry since the Owischek decision is in a similar situation, but that's another subject.
WISHING AND HOPING
I disagree that the "bad ones" will die on the vine as you say. I know one who took 25 years to go away, and in the process they exacerbated the problem by multiple drop-offs of one group on top of another. They were confronted about this a while back and the owners' response was that he didn't care if any of his clients EVER came back, because there were ten more in line behind each one of them! Combine an attitude like that with a virtually unlimited supply of clients, and friend, we're just lookin' for trouble. And trouble is what we've got. While we've been sitting around waiting for the charter business to clean itself up and the bad ones to "just go away", the problems keep growing. Is this legal? You betcha. Is it right? Well....
The feds are doing a better job of this than our dear state is. At least they limit the number of guides in a given area, and even the number of camps in certain areas. I think that's where this is all headed.
EXTERMINATION FOR PROFIT
I've mentioned here before that one well-known charter (still operating today) told me that they planned on completely killing out the upper Nowitna and then moving on. Is that legal? Sure it is, as long as ADFG is too broke to do survey work, it could take several seasons before they realize that we've passed the curve in terms of a healthy population of breeding-age bulls. On some of the upper reaches of these areas, all it takes is two or three years and a steady stream of hunters to remove almost all of the mature bulls. It's been happening for years in the Arctic. Find a bull in a patch of willows and he'll still be there next week. Land a hunter nearby, he shoots the moose and now that drainage has none. Scout the next drainage over and do the same thing there. Habitat is limited up there and this is exactly how in some areas mature bulls are being systematically wiped out. They just can't hide from those airplanes very well when the cover is limited to a swath of willow in the creek bottom, fifty yards wide and a quarter-mile long.
Sorry for the long rant. I'm sure I left myself wide open to attack through multiple shooting lanes, so fire away! My book is coming out pretty soon and I need another layer of thick skin!
No harm intended to anyone, no shots fired at anyone in particular. All ideas, good, bad or half-baked, are my own. The opinions expressed herein are not those of our sponsor.
:-))
-Mike
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