Governor Mike Dunleavy wants to eliminate the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve Advisory Council.  It was one of several executive orders the Governor made at the start of the Legislative session. The eagle preserve’s council is made of 12 members, most of them Haines locals. As KHNS’s Jenn Shelton reports, the community is asking questions about the Governor’s actions. And the local government is considering taking steps to reverse it.

 

For a large bird, bald eagles have a small, almost polite, call.

[eaglecall]

Thousands of them congregate near Haines every year. To help protect them, the Alaska legislature created the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve in June of 1982. The birds were not only given 48,000 acres of land, they were also assigned an Advisory Council.  This council, by law, has 12 seats filled by a diverse array of representatives including those from conservation, industry, forestry, tribes and others. 

The seats on the Council are designated to specific local experts. They have expertise in eagles, as well as fish and wildlife, and traditional uses, which are protected in the area.  

State law empowers the council to assist and make recommendations to the Department of Natural Resource. The council reviews and comments on regulations governing use and protection of the preserve’s resources. It reviews commercial use permits and comments on regulations aimed at minimizing environmental impacts to preserve land. The advisory council is informed on proposed changes to the area’s boundaries. 

Now, Governor Dunleavy wants the eagle preserve to be managed by DNR without council input. But the executive order has baffled many locals including Haines’ Mayor Tom Morphet. He doesn’t agree with transferring management from locals to the state. 

Morphet: “I don’t see how it would benefit the eagles. On that council you have a designated seat for an eagle biologist. On that council you have a designated seat for a Fish and Game biologist. The fish and the eagles are for what all that preserve is about. You’re taking them out of the decision making. Leaving it to one bureaucrat at the Division of Parks? I just don’t see how the eagles would benefit from this.”

State Senator Jesse Kiehl, says the council has “served very ably” for over 40 years.

Kiehl: “My first reaction is surprise. There are a lot of special use areas and parks and things that the governor didn’t touch. And so I’m not sure why one park in western Alaska in the Chilkat Preserve got singled out. And why there wasn’t, apparently, that I’m aware of at least, any conversation with local folks. I would think that’s just an important first step before you start changing the way the state does business.”

The official statement from the Governor’s office is that the decision was made “in the best interest of efficient administration.”  The Governor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

When KHNS called different state departments with connections to the Advisory Council, they stated they had been advised not to comment on the issue.  

Senator Kiehl says the first step in addressing the executive order is to determine whether or not the order is constitutional.

Kiehl: “Just about every other park or preserve or special use or special management you see, very explicitly says whose manages it. And the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve has different laws.  And it’s not clear to me that the Constitution just allows the Governor to rewrite those laws.”

If legislative attorneys determine that the Governor overstepped his power, Kiehl thinks there is a decent chance the state Legislature could vote down the order. 

But that would be a rare move.It would first take a special concurrent resolution to be passed in both the house and the senate bodies.  Then a majority, at least 31 out of 60 votes are required in a joint session. And they are on a 60-day deadline to get it done. 

Kiehl says that dissolving the power of the council and transferring management duties outside of Haines will not mean better management of the eagle habitat.

Kiehl: “State parks, love ‘em to death, they don’t have the staff to manage anything they’ve got right now. And to alienate that council, to just say, ‘Well thanks for your decades of volunteer work but we’re not going to talk to you anymore..’ To do that without talking to people in Haines, it is not a good sign for management of the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve.

But the biggest stakeholders in the preserve are not council members, state employees or checks on constitutional powers.  The eagles are what the preserve is set up to protect.  When I asked Senator Kiehl if he thought this executive order would benefit the three thousand eagles who call the preserve home, his answer was one word.

Kiehl: No.

Mayor Morphet says the Haines Borough Assembly will discuss the executive order in Tuesday’s Assembly meeting.  If members agree that the transfer of management outside of the community will not benefit the eagle preserve, the Borough will start a campaign to fight it.