Remember the bear baiting initiative a few months ago? Opponents of the initiative told us that we should trust the Board of Game process to represent all users of wildlife. The board just met in Anchorage and on a variety of issues failed to represent any users but "hard-core" hunters.

Let's use the proposals dealing with McNeil River, for example. There were four proposals either to continue to protect or to provide more protection for bears using McNeil River. While the board delayed opening brown bear hunting on two proposals to avoid controversy, it made it clear that it favored more hunting of viewable bears and voted down two proposals to increase protection of these bears.

All but two of the board members dismissed and even derided overwhelming public testimony. Over 7,500 letters favored the continuation of protection for McNeil River bears. Less than 15 letters favored more trophy hunting, and over 85 percent of the oral testimony favored protection of these famous bears. Organized groups, businesses, Fish and Game advisory committees and community leaders joined the professional biologists at the Department of Fish and Game in favoring status quo protection of bears in this unique area. Their reasons for supporting protection were both ethical and practical: between $5 million and $7 million is made by Kenai and Kodiak businesses who guide people for the express purpose of viewing bears. In addition, a recent Dittman poll revealed that 88 percent of respondents in Alaska favored the status quo or more protection for bears in the McNeil/Katmai ecosystem.

Despite what is clearly the public will, the majority of the board made it clear that it would open trophy bear hunting on state land between McNeil River State Game Sanctuary and Katmai Park and will likely open bear hunting in McNeil River State Game Refuge in 2007. The public testimony and letters didn't even get a polite mention in board deliberations. Wildlife belongs to all Alaskans. The recent board actions represented only trophy hunters without consideration for any other type of use. Their inability to represent the public is precisely what is broken and needs to be fixed.

McNeil River State Game Sanctuary is home to the world's largest concentration of brown bears. But the number of bears using the sanctuary has dropped in recent years. There is evidence that low returns of chum salmon and increasing harvest of bears in surrounding areas already open to bear hunting are contributing to the decline. Trophy hunters stand to gain only two to four bears per year in these soon-to-be-opened areas (out of a current statewide average of well over 1,000 bears). Let's be clear about one issue: Bear viewing and hunting can and do coexist, but when they overlap, both are compromised. No ethical hunter wants to shoot a bear with no natural wariness, and viewers can't view a bear after a successful hunter has visited because the bear is ... well, dead. Worse yet, the very bears most valuable for viewing are the least wary ones, those most likely to be taken by hunters. There is one, only one ecosystem the state is involved in managing where bear viewing has priority. That is the McNeil/Katmai ecosystem.

If Alaskans are able to elect politicians who represent their needs and their businesses, perhaps we can get the Board of Wildlife we deserve by 2007. Ask your legislators and the governor to revamp the board to include the interests of all wildlife users. For a more permanent fix for McNeil River bears, ask your politicians to legislatively close bear hunting in the lands adjacent to the sanctuary or enlarge the McNeil River State Game Sanctuary to include the refuge and the state lands between the sanctuary and Katmai National Park. The last resort for a permanent fix is to trade the best bear viewing site in the world to Katmai National Park, where the bears can make the living they deserve and Alaskans can provide opportunities for the world to view them.

Larry Aumiller has been an employee of the Department of Fish and Game for 33 years, the last 29 at McNeil River. He wrote this piece as an individual, not as a spokesman for the department.

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