NORTHWEST ARCTIC SUBSISTENCE RAC MEETING 10/28/2019 NORTHWEST ARCTIC RAC MEETING 1

NORTHWEST ARCTIC FEDERAL SUBSISTENCE REGIONAL ADVISORY COUNCIL

PUBLIC MEETING

VOLUME I

Northwest Arctic Borough Assembly Room Kotzebue, Alaska October 28, 2019 9:00 a.m

COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT:

Michael Kramer, Chairman Barbara Atoruk Louie Commack Raymond Lee Enoch Mitchell Beverly Moto Tristen Pattee Replogle Swan

Regional Council Coordinator, Zach Stevenson

Recorded and transcribed by:

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Page 2 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 3 (Kotzebue, Alaska - 10/28/2019) 4 5 (On record) 6 7 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Good morning, 8 everybody. Let's get this meeting started. Michael 9 Kramer, the Chairman. Do we have anybody that can do 10 the invocation. 11 12 (No comments) 13 14 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: If not, we'll do a 15 moment of silence. 16 17 (Moment of silence) 18 19 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. Good morning, 20 everybody. Let's call this meeting to order at 9:00 21 a.m. Madame Secretary, can we have roll call. 22 23 MS. ATORUK: Tristen Pattee. 24 25 MR. PATTEE: Here. 26 27 MS. ATORUK: Beverly Moto. 28 29 MS. MOTO: Here. 30 31 MS. ATORUK: Michael Kramer. 32 33 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Here. 34 35 MS. ATORUK: Raymond Lee, Jr. 36 37 MR. LEE: Here. 38 39 MS. ATORUK: Reppi Swan. 40 41 MR. SWAN: Here. 42 43 MS. ATORUK: Louie Commack, Jr. 44 45 MR. COMMACK: Here. 46 47 MS. ATORUK: Enoch Mitchell. 48 49 MR. MITCHELL: Here. 50

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1 MS. ATORUK: Barbara Atoruk. You have 2 a quorum, sir. 3 4 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Thank you. Good 5 morning, everybody and welcome to our fall subsistence 6 meeting. We're going to have a lot of issues to cover 7 today. If we can, we'll go to item 4, welcome and 8 introduction of guests. We'll start from the front row 9 over here. 10 11 MR. WUTTIG: Good morning. My name is 12 Klaus Wuttig. I'm with Fish and Game out of the 13 Fairbanks office. 14 15 MR. JOY: Phil Joy with Sport Fish 16 Division also out of the Fairbanks Office, here in 17 Brendan Scanlon's stead. 18 19 MS. MAAS: Lisa Maas, wildlife 20 biologist with the Office of Subsistence Management. 21 22 MS. HYER: Karen Hyer, fisheries 23 biologist. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Council 24 members. I'm with Office of Subsistence Management. 25 26 MR. GREGG: Good morning. Charlie 27 Gregg, Northwest Arctic Borough. 28 29 MS. GEORGETTE: Good morning. My name 30 is Susan Georgette. I'm the Refuge Manager for Selawik 31 Wildlife Refuge with the Fish and Wildlife Service here 32 in Kotzebue. 33 34 MS. JOHRENDT: Good morning. I'm Tessa 35 Johrendt. I'm detailing at Selawik Refuge. 36 37 MS. SWEENEY: Good morning. Brittany 38 Sweeney with Selawik Wildlife Refuge here in Kotzebue. 39 40 MS. LUKIN: Uvlaalluataq. Maija Katak 41 Lukin, Western Arctic National Parklands. 42 43 MR. WESTLAKE: Good morning. Fritz 44 Westlake with Teck. 45 46 MS. GREENE-GUDMUNDSON: Uvlaalluataq. 47 Kally Greene-Gudmundson and I'm also here with Teck. 48 49 MS. VOORHEES: Good morning. Hannah 50

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1 Voorhees. I'm an anthropologist with the Office of 2 Subsistence Management. 3 4 MR. DOOLITTLE: Good morning. My name 5 is Tom Doolittle. I'm the Acting Assistant Regional 6 Director for the Federal Office of Subsistence 7 Management. It's great to be here today. 8 9 MR. CHEN: Aloha, Council members. My 10 name is Glenn Chen and I work for the Bureau of Indian 11 Affairs. 12 13 MR. WEISNER: Good morning. Carl 14 Weisner, Northwest Arctic Borough. 15 16 MR. HANSEN: Good morning. Alex 17 Hansen, here at Alaska Department of Fish and Game in 18 Kotzebue. 19 20 MR. STEVENSON: Uvlaalluataq. Atqa 21 Zach Stevenson. Good morning, my name is Zach 22 Stevenson with the Office of Subsistence Management. 23 I'm the Subsistence Council Coordinator for the 24 Northwest Arctic and Eastern Interior Regions. 25 26 Thank you. 27 28 MR. BJORK: Scott Bjork, Alaska 29 Wildlife Troopers, Kotzebue. 30 31 MR. PAPPAS: George Pappas, Office of 32 Subsistence Management, State Subsistence Liaison. 33 34 MR. RODGERS: Good morning. Justin 35 Rodgers with the Alaska Wildlife Troopers. 36 37 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Is that everybody? 38 39 (No comments) 40 41 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Can we have an 42 introduction of guests that are on the phone. 43 44 MR. LIND: Uvlaalluataq. Good morning, 45 Chair and Council members. This is Orville Lind, 46 Native Liaison with the Office of Subsistence 47 Management. 48 49 MR. PATTEE: Good morning. This is 50

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Page 5 1 Tristen Pattee representing Ambler. 2 3 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Is there anybody 4 else? 5 6 MR. JOLY: Yes, this is Kyle Joly with 7 the National Park Service, Gates of the Arctic National 8 Park and Preserve. 9 10 MR. REAM: Good morning. This is 11 Joshua Ream, Regional Subsistence Program Manager for 12 the National Park Service in Anchorage. 13 14 MS. OKADA: Good morning. This is 15 Marcy Okada, Subsistence Coordinator for Gates of the 16 Arctic National Park and Preserve. 17 18 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Is there anybody 19 else? 20 21 (No comments) 22 23 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Hearing none. We'll 24 go ahead and review and adopt the agenda. 25 26 Go ahead, Zach. 27 28 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 29 This is Zach Stevenson with the Office of Subsistence 30 Management. For those in the audience we have an 31 updated draft agenda, which is available on that 32 rectangular table by the front entrance there. It 33 looks like this. For those listening on the 34 teleconference, I'll briefly just mention some of the 35 minor changes or additions that were made to the draft 36 agenda. 37 38 On the agenda, first page at the bottom 39 under Item 10, New Business, Item (a) is the 2020 40 Fisheries Resource Monitoring Program featured on Page 41 141 of the meeting book. That will be delivered by the 42 Office of Subsistence Management Fisheries Division and 43 Anthropology Division. 44 45 Additionally, on Page 2 of the draft 46 agenda, we have an addition at the bottom under Item 47 11, agency reports. The Bureau of Land Management will 48 deliver a brief presentation on the Anchorage Field 49 Office update for the fall 2019. That will be 50

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Page 6 1 delivered tomorrow under agency reports. 2 3 That concludes the additions and 4 updates to the draft agenda. 5 6 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 7 8 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Give us a few minutes 9 to review and adopt the agenda. 10 11 MS. ATORUK: So moved. 12 13 MR. COMMACK: Second. 14 15 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: All those in favor. 16 17 MR. PATTEE: Mr. Chair. 18 19 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Hang on. Go ahead. 20 21 MR. PATTEE: This is Tristen. If I 22 can, I would like to potentially add something to the 23 agenda for after lunchtime today. 24 25 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. We'll have to 26 stick you in at that time, Tristen. Is that good? 27 28 MR. PATTEE: Okay. 29 30 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: What was that 31 addition? 32 33 MR. PATTEE: The addition would be a 34 proven case of (indiscernible) affecting caribou at the 35 Red Dog Mine by one of our biologists at Red Dog. Her 36 name is Johanna Salatas. 37 38 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Zach. 39 40 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. 41 Tristen, for those on the teleconference who may not 42 have heard because we had a little bit of audio 43 disturbance what you just shared, you're requesting 44 that an addition be made to the draft agenda to allow 45 for a presentation from a Red Dog caribou biologist. 46 Am I understanding you correctly? 47 48 MR. PATTEE: Yes, you are. It's a 49 presentation that was sent to your email. 50

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Page 7 1 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you. 2 3 MR. PATTEE: A PowerPoint. 4 5 MR. STEVENSON: Noted. Thank you. 6 7 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. Where were we. 8 We had a motion, we had a second. All those in favor 9 of adopting the agenda say aye. 10 11 IN UNISON: Aye. 12 13 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Anyone opposed. 14 15 (No opposing votes) 16 17 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Motion carried. I'll 18 give you a few minutes to go ahead and review and 19 approve the previous meeting minutes. 20 21 MR. STEVENSON: Mr. Chair. 22 23 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Zach. 24 25 MR. STEVENSON: On the review and 26 approve of the previous meeting minutes I wanted to 27 point out that there is a correction that needs to be 28 made and this was brought to my attention by the Refuge 29 Staff at Selawik Refuge and the minutes incorrectly 30 state -- this is on Page 5 of your meeting books. 31 32 The minutes incorrectly state that the 33 Selawik Refuge had opposed the Ambler Road. In the 34 December 2019 meeting of the Western Arctic Caribou 35 Herd Working Group in Anchorage, Alaska, the working 36 group took a position opposing the Ambler Road. So 37 that correction will be reflected in the updated 38 minutes. 39 40 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 41 42 MS. ATORUK: Mr. Chair. 43 44 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Barbara. 45 46 MS. ATORUK: Also on the top of Page 5 47 you have Northwest Arctic Borough Assembly Rook. That 48 would be changed to Room. I would also further request 49 that the completed minutes show up in front of our 50

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Page 8 1 meetings, please, not draft. It's easier to read and 2 it's easier to make changes or any corrections to the 3 minutes if they are not draft. 4 5 Thank you, sir. 6 7 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Thank you, Barbara. 8 9 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you for those 10 comments, Barbara. Those are noted. 11 12 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Are you guys ready? 13 Do I have a motion to approve the previous meeting 14 minutes. 15 16 MS. ATORUK: I would still say since 17 these are draft minutes, how can we approve draft 18 minutes into the record? If these were completed 19 minutes that we have in front of us, then I would make 20 a motion to approve, but they are not completed 21 minutes. The minutes should be completed for this 22 meeting and then the corrections show up in the minutes 23 for the next meeting. So I would open this up for 24 discussion or explanation by our coordinator, please. 25 26 Thank you. 27 28 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Zach. 29 30 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 31 Responding to the question. The approach that is used 32 is that we provide the Council with draft minutes which 33 are reviewed at the meeting. The minutes are sent out 34 with the meeting books a month in advance of the 35 meeting, which was done. 36 37 The Council has the opportunity to 38 request any changes, additions or corrections at the 39 meeting. The Council has the discretion and ability to 40 approve those minutes as requested with modifications. 41 The corrected or changed minutes are then provided back 42 to the Council and that's the approach that has been 43 used thus far. 44 45 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 46 47 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Anything else from 48 the Council members on the review and approval of the 49 previous meeting minutes. 50

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Page 9 1 (No comments) 2 3 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Do you guys need more 4 time? 5 6 MS. ATORUK: Sure. I just don't see it 7 just the way that it was explained to us. Because it 8 always has been a requirement that these minutes be 9 completed even before our meeting and I've been there. 10 The corrections appear at the next meeting if there are 11 any. We are at draft minutes and our minutes are 12 staying -- and even if we do get the completed minutes 13 after the fact -- I don't know where you're going to go 14 from here. 15 16 Go ahead. 17 18 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Zach. 19 20 MR. STEVENSON: I'd like to request 21 some input from our leadership team representative on 22 this matter. 23 24 MR. PAPPAS: Mr. Chair, Zach, Ms. 25 Atoruk. As I understand, each meeting is transcribed 26 and then Zach spends a substantial amount of time 27 collecting the information from notes, from LT, from 28 the transcripts to put this draft together. The draft 29 is sent out and it's not final until you guys say it's 30 final. 31 32 As I understand, that's what this 33 session right now is attempting to do. You found some 34 very embarrassing mistakes. Those will be corrected 35 and then what you vote on if you pass the minutes as 36 amended or modified, that's the final. You'll see the 37 final at the next meeting. The Board will be presented 38 the final at the next meeting and it will be cleaned 39 up. 40 41 That is my understanding of the 42 process. Is that correct, Zach? 43 44 MR. STEVENSON: My understanding is 45 that the following meeting will provide the minutes 46 from this session and that corrected final version of 47 the minutes are provided to the Council via email and 48 hard copy. 49 50

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Page 10 1 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 2 3 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. Do I have a 4 motion for review and approve the previous meeting 5 minutes. 6 7 MR. COMMACK: So moved, Mr. Chairman. 8 9 MR. SWAN: Second. 10 11 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: I have a second. All 12 those in favor of reviewing and approving the previous 13 meeting minutes say aye. 14 15 IN UNISON: Aye. 16 17 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Anyone opposed. 18 19 (No opposing votes) 20 21 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Thank you. It's 22 carried. We're on item number 7, Council Member 23 reports. I'll go ahead and start with Barb over there. 24 25 MS. ATORUK: Thank you, sir. It has 26 been a busy fall in Kiana. The caribou were just not 27 there when they're supposed to be there. This has been 28 going on for the last two years. This fall they didn't 29 show up until almost the second week of October. There 30 was none at all in the area of Kiana. Although fishing 31 was good and other hunting means were good. 32 33 Our hunters kept pounding and pounding 34 and being out there on the river and then they finally 35 came just before ice freeze-up. Some of them ran up to 36 Onion Portage to hunt. Then we ended up with a lot of 37 caribou behind us in the village there. Then that road 38 that was put up for the summer was made to good use. I 39 think everyone in the village was provided some meat by 40 our hunters there. 41 42 Berry picking was good although it 43 rained a lot during the time they were picking. 44 45 Everything else seems good. 46 47 Thank you. 48 49 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Reppi. 50

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Page 11 1 MR. SWAN: Replogle Swan, Kivalina. 2 Every year our caribou are coming around later. Our 3 cold season is coming around later. It's been going on 4 for the past five years that our caribou has been 5 coming later. When it first freezes up that's when 6 they come around, so we try to adapt to this new 7 climate change of waiting for our caribou even if it's 8 a month late. 9 10 Thank you. 11 12 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Raymond. 13 14 MR. LEE: Yeah, the caribou is real 15 late too. Just about a week and a half ago. There is 16 something going on with the moose too. First time I 17 ever get a moose that has a bum liver and a lot of 18 tapeworms inside as soon as you cut the stomach. 19 They're just full of tapeworms inside, so we didn't 20 salvage any of that. I shot one, but after my boy told 21 me that he shot one and it had a bum liver and lots of 22 those tapeworms inside, I didn't believe him because I 23 had to go shoot my own just to find out, just to see 24 it. There's a bunch of moose that were shot like that, 25 but other people salvaged them. So I don't know. I 26 never did see that kind in all of my years of hunting, 27 so we never take those. 28 29 It's melting right now back at home. 30 Rain, rain, rain. The water is not real safe anymore. 31 Thanks. 32 33 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Enoch Mitchell. 34 35 MR. MITCHELL: Enoch Mitchell, Noatak. 36 Our fishing and berry picking was favorable this year. 37 The moose were scarce. One hunter looked high and low 38 and couldn't find any. He said when hunting season is 39 here and they're hiding. One hunter harvested one near 40 the village and was able to distribute to many people 41 in the village. 42 43 Caribou hunting was favorable, but 44 predators kept the caribou from coming down to the 45 river. I talked with a lot of hunters and they 46 experienced quite a bit of that. A lot of people 47 harvested caribou. The Federal closure did play a big 48 factor in successful hunting this year. 49 50

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Page 12 1 The Teshekpuk Herd stayed a little 2 longer than previous years. The Western Arctic Caribou 3 Herd is migrating later and later each year. We 4 spotted caribou right up to the bull closure date and 5 usually they're gone by that time. 6 7 The others started coming down October 8 15. Again, later than in previous years. It's just 9 starting to freeze up and they're starting to ice fish. 10 This kind of weather is rain and snow. Maybe that ice 11 will melt again. 12 13 Climate change. I hear quite a bit of 14 climate change and documentation. I just wanted to add 15 that climate change should be addressed more and 16 documented every step of the way using all our agencies 17 and tools available. The ice is getting thinner and 18 melt before hunters from Noatak and Kobuk River come 19 down to hunt the oogruks. 20 21 Our caribous are later and their 22 diverted migration pattern. There's a lot of other 23 issues out there that need to be documented. You need 24 to go out there and document these facts as time moves 25 on because in time the documents may be vital and the 26 decision-making concerning our resources and we try to 27 have accurate documents. By saying accurate documents, 28 document what you see and what you hear. 29 30 I'm saying this because a few years 31 back I myself had to go testify and I had a hard time 32 because I didn't have the right documents and that's 33 very important to each one of us. I'm asking that we 34 use the agencies and the tools to document our animals, 35 our culture, our ways of life. 36 37 Even though documentation has been 38 happening in our daily cultural lives and we don't note 39 it down. And it works. But nothing being documented. 40 It should be documented. In our daily lives we adapted 41 this change that's happening and sometimes we didn't 42 even know we adapted it because it's a daily thing. We 43 want our foods to be processed just right. By doing 44 that we watch them and then we process them along with 45 the season, along with the weather, along with the sun. 46 And we adapted without even realizing we adapt to it. 47 Things like that is not being documented. 48 49 It's important to us when it comes to 50

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Page 13 1 testifying or justifying or rulemaking because you are 2 putting your words down on our paper or our documents. 3 You know, you can easily say two boats and this hunter 4 went up the Noatak River and got skunked because you 5 hear about it. You can easily document it, write it 6 down because you heard about it. 7 8 But if you were there and saw the whole 9 thing, it's important when you go out and document for 10 us. That you try to be out there and document because 11 if you were there and saw the whole thing, you can say 12 they got skunked because sport hunters took the caribou 13 away and there was a lot of frustration in their eyes. 14 That makes a lot of difference. 15 16 When I'm testifying before the Federal 17 Subsistence Board and Board of Game and I use these 18 documents and they just say, oh, there was 10 boats, 19 they got skunked, they don't know. They didn't see our 20 frustration. They didn't see how much cash we used 21 because it's important when you document like that. 22 When you're there you see the frustration in their eyes 23 and when it's documented it makes a lot of difference 24 when we speak, when they see it, when we testify. 25 That's important to me. 26 27 So good documentation is important to 28 us because we can get people from Lower 48 come up and 29 say, okay, this worked in the Lower 48 and we 30 documented by our scientists, so we're going to try it 31 here. I've seen that before. Stuff like that. They 32 come up and say this worked down there and we're going 33 to try it here. 34 35 It's a totally different style of 36 hunting and they want to try without the proper -- 37 because it's important that we have our documents, 38 especially today. 39 40 Climate change is here. A lot of 41 changes are occurring. As advocates concerning our 42 subsistence resources, all of us here are advocates 43 concerning our subsistence resources. Good documents 44 can direct us more accurately in our subsistence 45 family. So I'm asking that we have good documents, that 46 you guys start documenting. 47 48 We've got the late migration coming. 49 You know, we've got the late migration coming and we've 50

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Page 14 1 got the rut date happening about the second week of 2 October. So we see it coming today, the climate change 3 in the migration season getting later and later. 4 Getting closer and closer to the rutting date. 5 Squeezing in our hunting time. Squeezing it in like 6 that. Yet we kind of don't realize it sometimes. 7 We're having a hard time getting caribou. 8 9 These documents will definitely come in 10 handy in the future for us as advocates for our 11 subsistence resources. 12 13 Thank you. 14 15 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Thank you, Enoch. 16 17 Beverly. 18 19 MS. MOTO: Beverly Moto from Deering. 20 Our spring caribou hunt it's like the wind hit 21 something and the caribou didn't go through at all. It 22 was not a very good spring hunt for caribou. I see 23 during the summer everybody was berry picking, fishing 24 and I think that was successful. I seen people sharing 25 their moose this fall, so I think the moose was 26 favorable for our people. 27 28 The caribou, we have to go 40 at least 29 miles back in the hills now in order to find some. The 30 migration might have changed or the feeding, something. 31 Some people got a few caribou, but like I said you need 32 lots of gas and a good ride to be successful. 33 34 Thank you. 35 36 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Louie. 37 38 MR. COMMACK: Thank you. Louie 39 Commack, Ambler. We had a good fishing season starting 40 July. Consisted of salmon and sheefish, whitefish. 41 Also we were able to catch caribou this fall. Many 42 people got caribou, moose, bear. There was also berry 43 picking and gathering activities through the fall. 44 45 Once again there have been a lot of 46 reports of bears within the village or inside the 47 village and outside of the village also, which are 48 mainly grizzly and reports of wolves around the area 49 also. So once again I'd like to report that. We do 50

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Page 15 1 have a high number of grizzly bears in our area. 2 3 Thank you very much. 4 5 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Thank you, Louie. 6 Just to remind everybody out there in radioland we also 7 have a phone number you can call in at 1-877-638-8165 8 and the passcode is 9060609. Thank you to KOTZ and 9 Johnson Greene and his staff for airing this on KOTZ. 10 11 Now we're at the Chair's Report. I 12 didn't get to do very much hunting this year. I did 13 some. I've been somewhat plagued with some lung 14 issues. Next week I have another surgery on my left 15 lung, but other than that I see a lot of people having 16 very good success out there. I've noticed a lot of 17 caribou starting to come closer to Kotzebue, Aggie, 18 Knapp Creek, Hugo area, Lower Canyons. A lot of people 19 are starting to see a lot of caribou there. 20 21 This is the one year I did not get a 22 moose ticket and I saw six bulls this year. Kind of 23 crazy, huh. Other than that I see everybody's bearded 24 seal hunts this spring. It went very well. There was 25 a few sick animals. There was a big report of a lot of 26 seals washing up on the shore dying from unknown 27 reasons. Also birds. 28 29 The salmon fishery went very well this 30 year. A lot of people put a lot of salmon away. 31 People put a lot of berries away. We got some very 32 good weather here until now. It's starting to get 33 strange again. 34 35 I did hear a lot of people concerned 36 about our caribou numbers. I just recently a few days 37 ago got back on the Fish and Game Advisory Council, 38 elected back onto that again. Other than that I heard 39 of a lot of good success rates. 40 41 I know that in Ambler it was pretty 42 slow there for a while, then they finally came late. 43 Kiana same way. I haven't gone up there to my home 44 river in a while up there between Kiana and Ambler due 45 to the fact that there's not too much caribou moving 46 through. 47 48 We had a pretty good spring. Everybody 49 did a lot of harvesting, a lot of sheefish this spring, 50

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Page 16 1 birds. I heard a lot of good kings. Other than the 2 caribou being very late. Some people had good success, 3 some people didn't. That's just kind of the way it is. 4 Other than that I don't have really anything else to 5 say. 6 7 Anybody out there on the telephone 8 conference or radio if you'd like to call in. We do 9 have a public and tribal comment on non-agenda items 10 here shortly. 11 12 MR. PATTEE: Mr. Chair. This is 13 Tristen Pattee. 14 15 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Tristen. 16 17 MR. PATTEE: Okay. Good morning. It's 18 Tristen Pattee representing Ambler. First of all I'm 19 happy to report the fall caribou hunt was very 20 successful for residents in Ambler. The herd arrived 21 later than usual, but when it did people were able to 22 harvest enough meat for the winter, my family included. 23 24 I have some observations and comments 25 from residents that I'd like to share with this 26 Council. To start off with a positive note, multiple 27 hunters reported to me that during their hunt they saw 28 thousands of caribou migrating through Onion Portage 29 and also to the hunting grounds behind Ambler toward 30 the Jade Mountains. That took place in late September 31 and early October. 32 33 Once they showed up I could tell that 34 the morale went up immensely. This is good news after 35 residents spent a lot of time and money through early 36 and mid September on food, gas and oil with little to 37 no success. Some residents were successful in 38 harvesting moose. The hunters equally distributed 39 hundreds of pounds of meat with their family and 40 friends in Ambler and beyond. 41 42 Sport hunters also provided meat to 43 residents in the community, which was also equally 44 distributed and greatly appreciated. Throughout the 45 time I was in Ambler I witnessed residents set nets for 46 fish. They got hundreds and they would announce over 47 the VHF radio inviting people to take some home with 48 them for their families. 49 50

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Page 17 1 I'd like to acknowledge the generosity 2 of the following people because of their unselfishness 3 and kindness to others by giving people subsistence 4 food. They are Gig Williams, Johnny Emal (ph), Eva 5 Downey, Lorne and Jade Genteman, Charlie Douglas and 6 Morgan and Lolo. I'm sure there are much more people 7 out there sharing their harvest, but these are a few 8 that I witnessed. I thank them for their efforts in 9 sustaining people's subsistence livelihood. 10 11 I would also like to mention the 12 concern that people had before the migration. 13 Residents were concerned with the amount of wolves they 14 heard before the caribou showed up. They heard them 15 howling from multiple different locations and even 16 witnessing a pack near the beach and were afraid they 17 had caused a delay in migration of the caribou. 18 19 Other residents were concerned with the 20 safety of hunting at Onion Portage. There are nearly 21 50 boats at times and felt like a competition to 22 harvest caribou and would at times scare the herd back 23 north of the river. 24 25 Another concern was hunters used large 26 caliber rifles to shoot the caribou in the river when 27 it only takes a small caliber to put down a swimming 28 caribou from a boat. There were hunters concerned 29 about air traffic flying too low and potentially 30 diverting or delaying the migration. Besides that I 31 think everyone was satisfied and glad the caribou herd 32 showed up before the water was froze this year. 33 34 One last thing. I witness a lot of 35 experienced hunters taking their children out hunting 36 to show them the traditions and importance of 37 respecting other hunters and their harvest. While I 38 was out there Jane Cleveland and her young 39 granddaughter Diana were hunting behind Ambler. Jane 40 was very proud to tell me the story of her 41 granddaughter harvesting her first caribou the day 42 prior. She said that from now on she will let her do 43 the shooting. 44 45 I thought that was very exciting and I 46 wanted to congratulate her on her first visit from 47 Bethel. 48 49 Thanks. 50

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Page 18 1 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Thank you, Tristen. 2 We're currently on item number 8, public and tribal 3 comments on non-agenda items. Do we have anybody? Do 4 we have anybody out there on the radio? 5 6 (No comments) 7 8 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Hearing none. We'll 9 be having this opportunity each morning. It will be 10 available each morning for public and tribal testimony 11 or comments. 12 13 (No comments) 14 15 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Hearing none. We'll 16 go to agenda number 9, old business. That is Wildlife 17 Closure Review WCR20-19, Unit 23 moose, information 18 update. OSM Wildlife. 19 20 MS. MAAS: Thanks, Mr. Chair. For the 21 record, my name is Lisa Maas, a wildlife biologist in 22 the Office of Subsistence Management. I just noticed 23 that that actually should be Unit 23 muskox. 24 25 As you may recall, the Council 26 considered and made a recommendation for Wildlife 27 Closure Review WCR20-19 concerning muskox in the 28 southwestern portion of Unit 23 at its last meeting in 29 March. The analysis for this closure review begins on 30 Page 19 of your meeting books for reference. The 31 Council's recommendation is listed on Page 29 and was 32 to maintain status quo for reasons stated in the OSM 33 justification. 34 35 The board will make a final decision on 36 this closure at its meeting in April. This is just a 37 brief update and reminder about this closure review. 38 However, I'm happy to answer any questions or provide 39 more details about the analysis or the closure review 40 process at the Council's discretion. 41 42 You guys already acted on this closure 43 review at your meeting in March, so this is just a 44 reminder and a little update that this closure review 45 will be considered by the Board at its meeting in 46 April. 47 48 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any questions for 49 Lisa. 50

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Page 19 1 (No comments) 2 3 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: None. Thank you, 4 Lisa. 5 6 MS. ATORUK: Excuse me. Do you mean in 7 April of 2020? 8 9 MS. MAAS: Correct. At the Federal 10 Subsistence Board meeting next April 2020. 11 12 MS. ATORUK: Okay. Thank you. 13 14 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any other questions. 15 16 (No comments) 17 18 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead and go to 19 item number 9(b) under old business, 805(c) report, 20 information update, Council Coordinator. 21 22 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 23 Through the Chair. On Page 30 of your meeting books is 24 the 805(c) report. The purpose of the 805(c) report is 25 to provide the Council with an update on the outcomes 26 from the Federal Subsistence Board meeting, which was 27 held on April 15th-18, 2019. It addressed proposed 28 changes to subsistence fish and shellfish regulations. 29 30 The 805(c) report identifies action 31 taken on proposals affecting residents of the Northwest 32 Arctic Region. The authority for providing the 805(c) 33 report comes through the Alaska National Interest Lands 34 Conservation Act and provides that 35 the Board will accept the recommendations of a Regional 36 Advisory Council regarding take unless (1) the 37 recommendation is not supported by substantial 38 evidence, (2) the recommendation violates recognized 39 principles of fish and wildlife management, or (3) 40 adopting the recommendation would be detrimental to the 41 satisfaction of subsistence needs. 42 43 Out of twenty proposals submitted, one 44 was withdrawn by a proponent and the Board accepted the 45 majority recommendations of the Regional Advisory 46 Councils, in whole or with modifications, on 18 of the 47 19 proposals. Details of these actions and the Boards' 48 deliberations are contained in the meeting transcripts. 49 Copies of the transcripts may be obtained by calling 50

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Page 20 1 toll free number, 1-800-478-1456, and are available 2 online at the Federal Subsistence Management Program 3 website at www.doi.gov/subsistence. 4 5 The Board uses a consensus agenda on 6 those proposals where there is agreement among the 7 affected Subsistence Regional Advisory Council(s), a 8 majority of the Interagency Staff Committee, and the 9 Alaska Department of Fish and Game concerning a 10 proposed regulatory action. These proposals were 11 deemed non-controversial and did not require a separate 12 discussion. The Board did not address any fish or 13 shellfish proposals, either on the consensus or 14 non-consensus addenda, affecting the Northwest Arctic 15 Region. 16 17 The Federal Subsistence Board 18 appreciates the Northwest Arctic Subsistence Regional 19 Advisory Council's active involvement in and diligence 20 with the regulatory process. The ten Regional 21 Advisory Councils continue to be the foundation of the 22 Federal Subsistence Management Program, and the 23 stewardship shown by the Regional Advisory Council 24 chairs and their representatives at the Board meeting 25 is much appreciated. 26 27 If you have any questions, please feel 28 free to contact me, Zach Stevenson at 907-786-3674 or 29 by email at [email protected]. 30 31 Thank you. 32 33 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Thank you, Zach. 34 We'll be going onto item number 10, new business. 2020 35 Fisheries Resource Monitoring Program, OSM fisheries 36 anthropology. 37 38 MS. MAAS: Do you want to take a break 39 while we set up? 40 41 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Yeah, we can go ahead 42 and take a break, five minute break. 43 44 (Off record) 45 46 (On record) 47 48 49 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: We'll go ahead and 50

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Page 21 1 call this meeting back to order. We're on new 2 business, 10(a), 2020 Fisheries Resource Monitoring 3 Program, OSM fisheries anthropologist. 4 5 Go ahead. 6 7 MS. HYER: Good morning, Mr. Chairman. 8 Council members. For the record this is Karen Hyer and 9 I'm going to be presenting to you the Fisheries 10 Resource Monitoring Program. Before that we're going 11 to have Phil Joy present a couple projects that we 12 actually funded through the Fisheries Resource 13 Monitoring Program. So I'm going to turn the floor 14 over to him and then I will be back to talk about the 15 2020 FRMP. 16 17 Thank you. 18 19 MR. JOY: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 20 Council members. My name is Phil Joy and I'm here in 21 Brendan Scanlon's stead. He would normally be here, 22 but couldn't make it, so he sent me in his place. 23 Before I go over the couple projects we wanted to 24 review with you, Brendan wanted me to give you an 25 update on this last season as far as fish are 26 concerned. 27 28 The 2019 commercial season saw almost 29 half a million chum salmon harvested, which was the 7th 30 highest on record. This was $1.5 million in ex-vessel 31 value. Down from last year, but still the fifth time 32 since 1988 that it has been over one million. 33 34 There was some bycatch of about 150 35 king salmon, 475 sockeye salmon, almost 3,000 pink 36 salmon, 100 coho salmon, close to 1,000 Dolly Varden 37 and close to 200 sheefish. 38 39 The preliminary 2020 fisheries forecast 40 is for another large harvest of 500-700,000 fish. 41 42 Counts of overwintering Dolly Varden 43 are part of our Aquatic Bio-monitoring Program with Red 44 Dog and they were not possible this year due to turbid 45 water. However, last year's count was 97,000-plus 46 fish, which is above the recent average of 60,000. 47 48 Brendan also wanted me to report that 49 we did see a lot of warm water in the Kobuk River this 50

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Page 22 1 summer. The surface water temperatures were between 66 2 degrees in the Kobuk, just below Ambler, to 72 degrees 3 at the mouth of Riley Channel. This is obviously 4 concerning as fisheries biologists. Chum salmon will 5 actively avoid water temperatures that are greater than 6 59 degrees and actually their upper lethal limits vary 7 between 68 and 77 degrees. So that's something that 8 we're keeping an eye on and it's obviously as 9 concerning to us as it is to all of you. 10 11 With that we're going to go over a 12 couple of these projects that we've been running the 13 last couple years with Karen. One project we've been 14 doing is counting the number of spawning sheefish on 15 the Kobuk River using sonar technology. 16 17 Then we also have another project 18 looking at the genetic diversity of Dolly Varden inside 19 the Kobuk River and we've been collecting genetic 20 samples from around the Kobuk sub-drainages and using 21 this to estimate the stock composition of the 22 subsistence harvest to see which stocks they're coming 23 from. And then we have a future project which we won't 24 be talking about yet. 25 26 This is the sonar image on the Kobuk 27 River. Those are sheefish swimming by the sonar, so 28 it's neat technology but pretty basic. We count them 29 as they go by. 30 31 MS. ATORUK: Where is that by? 32 33 MR. JOY: That's upriver of Kobuk, 34 yeah. So Kobuk River stocks. The estimates we've had 35 in the past are between 29-45,000. These are 36 genetically distinct fish from the Selawik population. 37 They're separate spawning areas. There's been 38 questions about the spawning frequency, so it turns out 39 that 75 percent of the male fish spawn every year. 40 However, just one third of the female fish spawn every 41 year. So they skip spawning. They'll skip years when 42 they don't come in to spawn. 43 44 With the winter movements, these two 45 stocks, the Kobuk stock and the Selawik stock, they do 46 use the same areas in Hotham Inlet, so you can actually 47 catch them together in the same holes when you're 48 fishing for them through the ice in the winter. 49 50

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Page 23 1 Their upstream migration patterns. You 2 guys are probably pretty familiar with this fishing 3 form. They start kind of mid August and really that 4 late August you see that burst of swimming speed that 5 these fish are going up to get to the big party on the 6 spawning grounds in mid September there. 7 8 These are actually the spawning 9 locations from our radio-telemetry projects that you 10 could see Kobuk down there at the lower end on the left 11 side of your map and Beaver Creek all the way up to the 12 right. Those are your spawning female and male fish. 13 So you can see a lot around the Selby River, up around 14 Akillik Creek and, I'm going to butcher that name, 15 Imelyak River, I believe. As you guys also know, 16 females are bigger than male fish and they're the 17 spawning population obviously. 18 19 So the goals of this project were to 20 use the sonar counts to actually see if we could 21 estimate the abundance of these fish as they're 22 migrating out after spawning before it ices up. This 23 obviously provides managers with a good index of the 24 entire Kobuk River stock. They have these sonars. 25 They just count ever 20 minutes per hour. I don't know 26 if you guys are familiar with counting tower projects. 27 You multiply it by three to get a total count there. 28 29 So what turns out is that the sonar 30 technology is not ideal for counting sheefish. In 2016 31 they only counted just over 4,000 fish, but this was 32 partially the result of high water events that resulted 33 in the inability for us to actually see across the 34 whole river with the sonar. Then obviously river ice 35 forced us out on October 10th. 36 37 2018 we actually had perfect conditions 38 and we counted 35,000 fish migrating out off the 39 spawning grounds between September 20th and October 40 8th. We had good conditions this year. The water was 41 low, so the sonar could see all the way across the 42 river and we were able to count until October 8th. 43 44 As he says here, in 2017 and 2019 high 45 water events kind of forced us out and part of the 46 trick with these guys is their migration timing is 47 really -- they're leaving right at the same time as 48 things are icing up. So, as you know, that makes 49 working in the river kind of difficult. 50

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Page 24 1 This is the number of sheefish counted 2 per day during the 2018 when we got the good count. 3 You could see that high bar there is on October 2nd, so 4 that was the peak of the run and it just worked out we 5 had low water that year and the ice held off long 6 enough that we could stay in there and catch the fish 7 coming out. Unfortunately, this doesn't work every 8 year. 9 10 So the other project we've been working 11 on is this genetic diversity of Dolly Varden in the 12 Kobuk River. This is getting samples of genetics from 13 around the drainage so we could look at where the 14 harvests come from and which stocks are most important 15 to this subsistence harvest. 16 17 So what Brendan thinks we know about 18 Dolly Varden. Obviously they're a really important 19 subsistence resource up here. Twenty thousand to 20 thirty thousand pounds are harvested each year. 21 Spawning Dolly Varden migrate up to natal rivers where 22 they spawn in the same spots. However, overwintering 23 fish are from multiple river systems, so you might have 24 fish overwintering in the Noatak River that are 25 actually Russian stocks and vice versa. These guys 26 have a very very life history strategy. 27 28 This is one of the big questions, is 29 what's the actual stock makeup of these overwintering 30 populations. What percentage of those Noatak fish come 31 from the Noatak or come from Russia or come from the 32 Kobuk and vice versa. So that's what we're trying to 33 get to with this genetics study. 34 35 So what we did is we went around some 36 of these sub-drainages in the Kobuk River and took fin 37 clips from juvenile Dolly Varden that we caught in 38 minnow traps. This is added to the genetic baseline to 39 look at the harvests. 40 41 Brendan's got some pictures here. This 42 is pictures of the Hunt River about 30 miles downriver 43 of Ambler. We also looked at the salmon in Tutuksuk 44 Rivers. You can see minnow traps in that bottom 45 left-hand corner and you bait these minnow traps with 46 salmon roe and tuck them into the log jams and that's 47 where these juvenile Dolly Varden are rearing and we're 48 able to catch them. 49 50

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1 Then this is the fancy lab stuff which 2 I couldn't even explain to you. I'm just the guy 3 collecting the samples. They take the DNA out of the 4 tissue, they do these PCR sequences and Penny Crane 5 says think of CSI for fish, the show. They use what 6 they call a mixed stock analysis as we get genetic 7 samples from the Hunt River, the Tutuksuk, the Salmon 8 River and then we go look at the harvest and determine 9 the proportions. 10 11 So we're still waiting on results. 12 Penny Crane is in the process of finishing that up, so 13 the next time we talk to you we'll actually have some 14 numbers of what percentages are at each one. Then we 15 also do the outreach in coming to these meetings to 16 present these results. Yeah, we try to use local folks 17 as much as possible in these projects and developing 18 good relationships. We've always involved an ANSEP 19 student on these projects, which we think is really 20 important. 21 22 Please contact any time with any 23 concerns. 24 25 Thank you very much. 26 27 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Reppi. 28 29 MR. SWAN: For the CSI stuff, can you 30 have the guy make sure he's here next time? 31 32 MR. JOY: Yeah, we'll have -- when we 33 have the actual results in, I'll have -- Penny either 34 will walk Brendan through it thoroughly enough or maybe 35 Penny will come next time. 36 37 MR. SWAN: Okay. Thank you. 38 39 MR. JOY: You're welcome. Thank you. 40 41 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Barbara. 42 43 MS. ATORUK: I know the Fish and Game 44 do that too in Kiana. They set nets and then they 45 study the sheefish. Are the Feds in with that or is 46 that a separate study on the sheefish? They split the 47 head. 48 49 MR. JOY: Yeah, I think they're taking 50

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Page 26 1 otoliths for that. I think that's the Commercial 2 Fisheries Division does that. They've got that test 3 net there in Kiana that they run. 4 5 MS. ATORUK: Okay. I think there will 6 be a report back here. 7 8 MR. CARTER: Bill Carter, Selawik 9 National Wildlife Refuge. What you're talking about 10 there is a sheefish project that ended in 2018 on the 11 Selawik River to compare the age distribution between 12 the Kobuk fish and the Selawik fish to see if there was 13 an influence from the big mudslide that was on the 14 Selawik and we're currently in the process of writing 15 up the final report. I believe it will be done in 16 December, so maybe by the next meeting I'll have a 17 report for you or Ray Hander will be here. 18 19 Thank you. 20 21 MS. ATORUK: Okay. Thank you, sir. 22 23 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Louie. 24 25 MR. COMMACK: Yeah, I'm just curious. 26 I'm from Ambler and we do have a major problem with 27 beaver damming up the creeks. I'd just like to know if 28 you have any data concerning the overpopulation of 29 beaver affecting the fisheries on the river. 30 31 MR. JOY: Yeah, I'm afraid I don't have 32 any data on that and I don't know if wildlife is doing 33 any work, but we don't have any information on that, at 34 least the technical data. 35 36 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Anybody else. 37 38 (No comments) 39 40 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: I have a question. I 41 know that at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game 42 Council meeting we had last week they were talking a 43 lot about temperatures. Is there going to be a study 44 on the Noatak, Kobuk, Selawik Rivers for temperature 45 monitoring at certain places going upriver all the way 46 to the mouth year round. 47 48 I'd like to see that kind of a study 49 because from what I heard was that salmon went up, 50

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1 spawned, came back down and then some more salmon ended 2 up just lingering at the mouth out here of the mouth of 3 the Kobuk and Noatak River because the water was too 4 warm and that the other fish that went up there and 5 spawned depleted the oxygen within that area because 6 the water was so warm. 7 8 I'd like to see a study like that from 9 the mouth of the river to the headwaters. At least 10 that way we have scientific data that states every year 11 what the temperatures are, whether they're rising or 12 staying the same. I think it would be very beneficial 13 because just the other day a guy had a sheefish net 14 under the ice and he got a salmon. The other day and 15 it's almost November. 16 17 I'd like to see that kind of a study 18 happen on either the Kivalina, Noatak, Kobuk and 19 Selawik Rivers, our main tributaries here. 20 21 MR. CARTER: Bill Carter again, Selawik 22 Refuge. So we have some temperature monitoring on the 23 Selawik. We've been doing it for about three years 24 now. One of the hardest things is keeping it in all 25 year because it gets taken out by ice and high water. 26 Finding those is sometimes difficult. 27 28 Brendan Scanlon and I have discussed 29 doing this, exactly what you're talking about. We may 30 do it only for the summer months, so from breakup to 31 where it's starting to ice up. We're going to look 32 into trying to do it where we can get daily data 33 because the temperature loggers that I have right now 34 you actually have to go out and retrieve them. So we'd 35 probably look at including some of the villages to get 36 those readings for us, but we have a lot of technical 37 issues to try to get data loggers that are easier to 38 download on a daily basis and stuff. 39 40 We're in the very preliminary parts. 41 We'll need Park Service to help us and probably 42 somebody in the villages to go and do those and it's 43 going to be pretty expensive. So that's where we're at 44 with that. But, yes, we've been thinking about that 45 for a while. 46 47 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. There was a 48 lot of concerns regarding that, whether it's going to 49 affect our future salmon and sheefish runs and Dolly 50

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Page 28 1 Vardens and char. 2 3 MR. CARTER: What we know right now 4 about the winter temperatures they're pretty stable, 5 but it is warming up earlier and freezing up later as 6 everybody knows. 7 8 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Thank you. 9 10 Go ahead, Enoch. 11 12 MR. MITCHELL: I'd like to support what 13 Mike had to say. I'd like to see data on these 14 temperatures over here. A question. Did climate 15 change have any effect on the fish? 16 17 MR. CARTER: Well, the water 18 temperatures are going to have an effect on movement, 19 when they're going to move into their spawning areas, 20 especially with salmon. We heard that there's certain 21 temperature thresholds that they have. I'm sure that 22 things are going to change, but it's really hard to say 23 exactly how those are going to change right now. 24 25 There has been a long-term monitoring 26 project from the '90s on the Aggie that has air 27 temperatures and water temperature stuff, so we do have 28 some long-term data on that. That report should be 29 coming out pretty soon also. It's kind of every few 30 years they summarize the data and put it out. 31 32 MR. MITCHELL: What about the die-off 33 on some fishes that occurred? Is there any information 34 to this? 35 36 MR. JOY: I know there was some pink 37 salmon die-offs in Norton Sound and I know there were 38 some reports of die-offs in the Yukon this year and 39 what Mike talked about on the Kobuk. This is the first 40 I've heard. I'm a research biologist back in 41 Fairbanks. It's 20 degrees Celsius, so Brendan's got 42 this 68 and when the water starts to get over that, 43 salmon -- you know, that's kind of their upper edge. 44 45 In the Yukon they were seeing -- I'll 46 talk in Celsius because that's that 20 degrees Celsius, 47 so the mouth of the Yukon was over 20 degrees for weeks 48 in the middle of the summer there and we saw some weird 49 things in the Yukon runs and there was this die-off in 50

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1 Norton Sound and the eastern end of the Norton Sound is 2 generally warmer because it's shallow water, but it was 3 really warm this year. 4 5 So when you start seeing those upper 6 limits, it's hard to predict what's going to happen, 7 but it's certainly a cause for a concern and something 8 we don't like to see. 9 10 MR. MITCHELL: Thank you. 11 12 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any other questions. 13 14 (No comments) 15 16 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Hearing none. Do you 17 have any more on your presentation? 18 19 MR. JOY: Karen is up next. Thank you 20 very much. 21 22 MS. HYER: Good morning, Mr. Chairman. 23 Council members. Again, my name is Karen Hyer and I'm 24 a fisheries biologist in the Office of Subsistence 25 Management. Today I'm going to talk to you a little 26 bit about the 2020 Fisheries Resource Monitoring Plan. 27 The very first thing I'm going to do is go over the 28 process. It's a two-year process and just so you're 29 familiar we'll review and I'll answer any questions. 30 Then we have some projects before us and I'm going to 31 be asking for Council input about that. 32 33 Before I do that I'm going to let 34 Hannah introduce herself because she's new to OSM and 35 she is going to be the anthropologist working with me 36 and so I'll let her introduce herself and tell you a 37 little bit about who she is. 38 39 MS. VOORHEES: Good morning, Mr. Chair. 40 Members of the Council. I'm happy to be here before 41 you today. As Karen mentioned, my name is Hannah 42 Voorhees and I'm an anthropologist, originally from 43 Alaska. I've done most of my fieldwork in the Seward 44 Peninsula Region, so I'm happy to be expanding into 45 your area. 46 47 Thank you for having us today. 48 49 MS. HYER: So Hannah and I both work in 50

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Page 30 1 this region together and we work on the FRMP and other 2 things that happen. She brings her expertise from her 3 side of the shop and I bring fisheries expertise. 4 5 So the very first thing we're going to 6 talk about is the 2020 Fisheries Resource Monitoring 7 Plan. We've been working on that for quite a while. 8 In 2018 the three northern Councils developed the 2020 9 FRMP during their fall meeting. When you meet and you 10 talk about regulatory issues, you're talking about 11 regulatory issues within the areas that surround the 12 RAC, but northern for the FRMP stretches all the way 13 from the Seward Peninsula through Northwest Arctic to 14 the North Slope. So three RACs actually give us input 15 and direction for the Fisheries Resource Monitoring 16 Program. 17 18 At your fall meeting we met and we 19 developed the Priority Information Needs and that's 20 what drives this program. We go to you to tell us what 21 the priority is for research here and this is where the 22 RAC has the biggest influence on how this program is 23 directed because we take those numbers and we put them 24 in our call when we ask for proposals. 25 26 When we ask for proposals, we call it 27 the notice of funding opportunity and that's why I have 28 that up there under bullet 2. We basically take the 29 information you give us, we put it into a list of 30 priorities and we publish that and we say we have money 31 for research projects and we would like you to do 32 research on these particular PINs. 33 34 I've heard some discussion here about 35 things that you think are important and some questions 36 to the biologist, so I encourage you to keep that in 37 mind because we're ending -- this is a two-year cycle 38 and we're coming to the end of it and then we're going 39 to be starting the next cycle for the 2022 Fisheries 40 Resource Monitoring Plan. 41 42 We'll be coming back to you very soon 43 to ask for ideas about where you want the research to 44 go in 2022. Often the projects that are submitted are 45 four-year projects. So the projects that start in 2020 46 may run through 2024, but every two years we add new 47 projects to the plan. 48 49 So we put out a call and we asked for 50

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Page 31 1 proposals and then in March 2019 the investigators 2 developed proposals and then they submitted them to us. 3 Once we receive the proposals in our office we 4 consolidate them and then we take them to the Technical 5 Review Committee and that is the first review of the 6 proposals and the Technical Review Committee is a 7 committee made up of technical experts from the Federal 8 agencies that are part of the Federal Board and the 9 Alaska Department of Fish and Game. 10 11 They basically look at the proposals 12 and they evaluate them for strategic priority. So 13 these proposals are to help fisheries managers manage 14 Federal subsistence fisheries, so they look for that. 15 They make sure that the proposal addresses Federal 16 subsistence fisheries. 17 18 Then they look at the technical and 19 scientific merit and they make sure the proposals are 20 scientifically sound. Then they look at the 21 investigator's ability and they make sure the 22 investigator can actually carry out the work they're 23 proposing. Then they look at what the investigators 24 have proposed as far as partnership and 25 capacity-building. 26 27 As Phil was talking to you, he told you 28 about their local hire and they've also engaged with 29 ANSEP students in trying to build the next generation 30 of fisheries biologists. So on that particular project 31 was how they're trying to build partnerships and 32 capacity and different projects address that issue in 33 different ways. 34 35 Then finally they look at the cost 36 benefit to make sure it's a wise use of their funds. 37 There are not a lot of funds for this research. This 38 year we think there's about 1.5 million, so it's a 39 small pot of money, so they want to be wise in how they 40 spend that money. 41 42 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Quick question, 43 Karen. 44 45 MS. HYER: Absolutely. 46 47 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Can you define PINs 48 for the Council. 49 50

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Page 32 1 MS. HYER: I'm sorry. It's the 2 Priority Information Needs. Yeah, our acronyms are a 3 little bit out of control. In the fall of 2018 we 4 asked you what the priorities were for this region and 5 then we put that into a list and we call it the 6 priority information needs. So it directs the 7 investigators about where we want projects. 8 9 So now we're here today at the Regional 10 Advisory Council. I'm going to finish this proposal 11 about the process and then we'll circle back. We have 12 four projects that have been submitted for this region 13 and now I need the Council's input. I'm going to ask 14 the Council two questions as they relate to the four 15 projects. 16 17 Does the Council have any 18 recommendations to ensure the selected projects are 19 implemented successfully? Oftentimes when we come and 20 meet with you you have ideas about who to talk to or 21 how to best implement a project or what time of year to 22 implement it. So we want that kind of input because 23 the input from you makes our project successful. And 24 if there are obviously any concerns about the 25 individual projects that might possibly be funded in 26 this area. So we'll circle back around to those two 27 questions in a little bit, but that's where we are now 28 in the process. 29 30 After we meet and we gather input from 31 you, then we're going to take your input and then what 32 the Technical Review Committee said about the proposals 33 and we're going to take it back to the Staff Committee 34 and they'll review what you said and what the Technical 35 Review Committee said and they'll provide their own 36 comments to the Federal Subsistence Board. 37 38 I just want to remind everybody that 39 the Interagency Staff Committee is actually the Staff 40 for the Federal Board, so they're the people that 41 represent the Federal Board and help the Board members 42 consolidate information and keep up on what's happening 43 within the Office of Subsistence Management. 44 45 That will all be consolidated for the 46 Federal Board and then in their meeting in January the 47 Federal Board will review the Draft Fisheries Resource 48 Monitoring Plan. The Plan is just the grouping of all 49 the projects. So they'll be reviewing the projects 50

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Page 33 1 that we are recommending for funding in 2020 and 2 they'll endorse the funding plan. 3 4 Then what will happen is we'll have a 5 list of projects and we'll have comments from the RAC, 6 we'll have comments from the Interagency Staff 7 Committee and we'll have comments from the Technical 8 Review Committee. So we have a good idea of what 9 project we'd like to fund first. Which one is most 10 important. Then as funding is available the Office of 11 Subsistence Management will fund those. We always have 12 more projects than we can fund. That's why your input 13 is really important to us. 14 15 Okay. So now I'm going to talk just a 16 little bit about the Northern Region. Since its 17 inception has funded 49 projects in this area and we've 18 spent $11.8 million on these projects. The projects 19 have been implemented by the State of Alaska, 20 Department of Interior agencies and also rural 21 organizations. On this slide you can see a makeup of 22 who has ben doing what work in this area. 23 24 So if you turn in your books to Page 25 152, you'll see the four projects that we have for this 26 region. If you hold that page and you flip over to 27 Page 156, which is Appendix 2, those are the executive 28 summaries that tell you a little bit about the projects 29 that are going to be proposed for this region. 30 31 Those are the two areas we're going to 32 be working in and in a minute we're going to go through 33 these projects and we're going to just ask for you 34 input. As you can see, the total annual request for 35 these projects is $409,000. If we only have 36 $1.5 million for the whole state of Alaska. We 37 probably won't be able to fund every project proposed 38 for this region. 39 40 So now we're back at my questions for 41 you, so I'm looking for input from the RAC concerning 42 these particular proposals, if the RAC has any ideas 43 how we can successfully implement them or any obvious 44 concerns about each project. Again, the four projects 45 are listed on Page 152. 46 47 At this point I will ask if there are 48 any questions or comments. 49 50

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Page 34 1 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Do you have any 2 questions? I do. The Northwest Arctic Borough has a 3 call addressing the principles and protocols addressing 4 resources in the region. Zach wanted me to just run 5 that by you. 6 7 Go ahead, Zach. 8 9 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 10 For those participating today by teleconference and 11 those in the audience today, the Native Village of 12 Kotzebue had developed several years ago some 13 guidelines for those from outside wanting to conduct 14 research in the NANA Region. For those who may not 15 have seen those recommendations, a big part of that was 16 the importance of involving communities in the design 17 of a project. 18 19 Number two was the importance of 20 sharing of information so that while the project was 21 being done and once it was completed or finished that 22 the results be shared back with the communities that 23 were involved. Those were the two key ideas. With 24 those two key ideas there were a series of steps that 25 researchers could consider in helping to develop their 26 projects to meet those goals. 27 28 The Northwest Arctic Borough took those 29 ideas that were shared by the Native Village of 30 Kotzebue and developed code, some guidelines that those 31 coming into the region could follow to help meet those 32 objectives. Those could be obtained through partners 33 here in the region. I just wanted to make sure that 34 folks were aware of that already having been developed. 35 36 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 37 38 MS. HYER: Mr. Chairman, Council 39 members and Zach. That's excellent information and 40 I'll work with Zach to get those because it would be 41 great to get those specifically to them, the 42 investigators that are going to be working here. 43 44 I do want to emphasize that it sounds 45 like -- when we do the requests for proposals, we do 46 publish some protocols, but it does sound like a lot of 47 those are very similar to what we request, where we ask 48 for local involvement and that's part of the 49 partnership and capacity building. 50

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Page 35 1 Again, we ask for our investigators to 2 come back both to the RAC and the communities to do the 3 presentation, hence why we have Fish and Game 4 presenting their work and Bill Carter talking about how 5 he's going to present his work to you when we're done. 6 So that's an excellent point. 7 8 Thank you. 9 10 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead. 11 12 MR. SWAN: I have one. I'd like to 13 know how much salmon we get in our rivers if you guys 14 can do our research on that or do a count maybe 15 sometime in the future. We do have a lot of salmon in 16 our rivers, trout, herring. 17 18 MS. HYER: Mr. Chairman. Council 19 members. Once we finish the 2020 projects, we are 20 going to begin working on where we want to do research 21 next. So that's an excellent thought and we'll be 22 coming back to you. Just a reminder that we have 23 established an ongoing working group where we work with 24 you and we'll probably start that very soon, either 25 this fall or early next year. 26 27 We start a dialogue so we can start to 28 gather information so by the time we come formally to 29 the RAC to ask for Priority Information Needs, we've 30 done a lot of legwork so that we have some good ideas 31 about what's important to you. So we're going to be 32 starting that here very soon. 33 34 Today I'd like to know -- I'll go ahead 35 and read the titles of these projects and I just want 36 to know if you have any comments specific to these four 37 proposals. So we have the fish assemblage and genetic 38 stock determination of salmon in Bering Land Bridge 39 National Preserve. Again, that's a project that is on 40 the Seward Peninsula, so it's not local to you. 41 42 We also have the live history and 43 variability and mixed stock analysis of Dolly Varden in 44 the Noatak River and that is very much close to your 45 hearts. 46 47 Then we have traditional ecological 48 knowledge of Dolly Varden and whitefish species in 49 Northwest Alaska. Again, that's very specific to you. 50

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Page 36 1 Then the increasing beaver activity in Northwest 2 Alaska, traditional ecological knowledge, geospacial 3 analysis of impacts of subsistence fish resources. I 4 already heard some comments about beavers in this 5 meeting earlier. 6 7 Again, do you have any specific 8 comments or recommendations to ensure a selected 9 project would be successful or any obvious concerns 10 about these projects? 11 12 MS. ATORUK: Through the Chair. On the 13 20-101 on the analysis of Dolly Varden in the Noatak 14 River, has that ever been done on the Kobuk too or is 15 that being done at the moment? Am I missing it here? 16 17 MS. HYER: Mr. Chairman. Council 18 members. Yes, there has been work done on the Kobuk 19 also and I will specifically get that to you because 20 that would be good for you to have. 21 22 MS. ATORUK: Thank you. 23 24 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any further questions 25 from the Council. Any further questions from Tristen. 26 27 MR. PATTEE: No. I'm okay. 28 29 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. Continue. 30 31 MS. HYER: Again, I'm looking for 32 guidance from the Council to any of these projects. Do 33 they have any comments about these specific projects? 34 35 MR. SWAN: The increasing beaver, you 36 know, would it be able to be done in Kivalina area? 37 Because we do have that problem with beavers in our 38 river also. 39 40 MS. VOORHEES: Through the Chair. As 41 proposed, Mr. Swan, the current communities to be 42 covered in the traditional ecological knowledge 43 interviews would be Noatak, Kotzebue, Shungnak and 44 Kobuk. It's possible that through communication with 45 the PI they might be open to community suggestions 46 about expanding the purview of their study. 47 48 Any more specific comments on what 49 you're hoping to see and why would be much appreciated, 50

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Page 37 1 I think. 2 3 Thank you. 4 5 MS. ATORUK: Through the Chair. 6 7 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Barbara. 8 9 MS. ATORUK: I think, since you're 10 seeing increasing beaver activity in Northwest Alaska, 11 that would include all the region in the Northwest and 12 I think Kivalina would be involved here. 13 14 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Zach. 15 16 Louie, you're next. 17 18 MR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 19 Through the Chair. I mentioned to Reppi that one of 20 the challenges a researcher from outside sometimes has 21 is knowing who to talk to. If someone knows people in 22 their community that might be helpful to participate, 23 that can sometimes make work in a location or community 24 possible. 25 26 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 27 28 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Louie. 29 30 MR. COMMACK: Yeah, my question is the 31 project costs for 20-21 $183,000 and it says Northwest 32 Alaska, so you're talking about the whole region on 33 beaver activity. 34 35 MS. VOORHEES: Through the Chair. This 36 is an ADF&G proposed project, ADF&G Division of 37 Subsistence. I'm not sure exactly.... 38 39 MR. COMMACK: Could you get closer. 40 Excuse me. 41 42 MS. VOORHEES: Yes, they did title 43 their study increasing beaver activity in Northwest 44 Alaska, which does suggest a wider domain of study. I 45 don't know why they decided to limit it to those 46 communities except I would be interested in referring 47 back to the original PIN and seeing if those 48 communities were specified. 49 50

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Page 38 1 I will just read the original PIN for 2 you if you'd like. The effects of expanding beaver 3 populations and range on subsistence fisheries in the 4 Northwest Arctic, including the effects of dams on fish 5 migration and the effects of changes to water quality 6 on fish health. So this is very good feedback. 7 8 Thank you. 9 10 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Yeah, I think this 11 has been a region-wide concern regarding beavers and I 12 think it should be expanded to Kivalina because 13 Kivalina trout, Wulik trout are very important 14 subsistence resource to the community of Kivalina and 15 other communities. Whenever a subsistence resource 16 that is very critical to a community they should also 17 be included. The Kivalina, Kobuk, Noatak, it would be 18 wise for us to try and come up with other types of 19 studies that needs to be done. 20 21 The public is more than welcome to get 22 a hold of us out in the public if they have a concern 23 regarding a subsistence resource fish. They can get a 24 hold of us and come up with an idea and present these 25 to us from the public if they have a concern regarding 26 a subsistence resource in their community. 27 28 Go ahead, Louie. 29 30 MR. COMMACK: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 31 What I'm trying to say is Northwest Alaska includes all 32 the way Upper Selawik Valley, the rivers, the creeks, 33 from Selawik on the way up and all the way to Kivalina. 34 That's what I was trying to say. 35 36 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: One other question I 37 had. Do you guys involve the youth in those 38 communities in a lot of your guys' projects? That 39 would be a great thing to share knowledge with our 40 youth. That's why we're on KOTZ. We're sharing 41 knowledge with our people in the region. 42 43 MS. HYER: Mr. Chairman. Council 44 members. We do try to involve our youth. I know that 45 some of the projects actually when they return to the 46 communities to present to go into the schools we really 47 encourage that. We have worked with the Alaska Native 48 Science and Engineering Program to recruit youth to 49 actually work on these projects. 50

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Page 39 1 We had a student working in our 2 genetics lab the whole SCI part of this was actually 3 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's genetics lab and she's 4 worked with us several summers and then we actually 5 paid for a scholarship for her to go to school. So 6 we've involved our youth in that. 7 8 We are always looking for youth to work 9 with us because we have a lot of projects and a lot of 10 opportunities for youth to get involved, especially 11 youth that are interested in the sciences because we're 12 always looking for our next local biologist. 13 14 So please encourage your youth. If you 15 have youth that you think are especially interested in 16 the sciences, I'd like to hear about them. We do work 17 directly with ANSEP and we're in constant communication 18 with any of the students that have been in that program 19 and we teach in that program. We're also interested in 20 outside youth because there are a lot of opportunities 21 for students and not every student goes through that 22 program. 23 24 If you know of students, especially 25 students that might be graduating from high school and 26 going on to university, we do have some challenges 27 hiring youth that are younger than 18, but once they're 28 18 we're definitely able to hire them in paid 29 positions. If they're younger than 18, we like to 30 engage with them through the schools. 31 32 I just was up in Point Hope and we went 33 into the schools and visited there so that they knew 34 what we were doing in the area, but we're always 35 interested when we go to rural communities to go into 36 the schools and we're always interested in anybody that 37 you might have. You can either talk to Zach who can 38 get in contact with me or do contact me directly too. 39 40 Thank you. 41 42 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any further questions 43 from the Council. 44 45 (No comments) 46 47 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Is that a wrap or do 48 you have more? 49 50

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Page 40 1 MS. HYER: No. I think that we've 2 gotten some good input. I just want to put a plug in 3 again. I know I've said this a couple times, but we 4 will be coming back to you very soon to talk about 5 2022. So I will go back over the transcripts and start 6 putting notes together, but please continually be 7 thinking about where we should be going next with our 8 research. 9 10 Thank you. 11 12 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. Thank you guys 13 for your presentation. We'll go on a five-minute 14 break. 15 16 (Off record) 17 18 (On record) 19 20 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: We'll be starting on 21 Item 10, new business. Wildlife proposals. OSM 22 Wildlife/Anthropology. 23 24 Go ahead, Hannah, whenever you're 25 ready. 26 27 MS. VOORHEES: Mr. Chair. Members of 28 the Council. Thank you. We just had an update in 29 conversation about the Fisheries Resource Monitoring 30 Program and now I'll give a brief update for the other 31 two fisheries programmatic areas. The fisheries 32 regulatory cycle and Partners for Fisheries Monitoring 33 Program. 34 35 This is not an action item, it's just 36 an update. 37 38 First, an update on the fisheries 39 regulatory cycle. The Federal Subsistence Board took 40 action on the last regulatory cycle proposals during 41 their April 2019 public regulatory meeting. The revised 42 regulations have been published in the Federal Register 43 and new fisheries regulatory guides for years 2019 to 44 2021 are now available. I believe those guides are 45 actually available here or were this morning if they 46 haven't all been grabbed up. 47 48 The next call for proposals will be in 49 early 2020 and the Council will have an opportunity at 50

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Page 41

1 the next meeting to discuss and submit any proposals 2 that they see fit. 3 4 Next I'll give the Partners for 5 Fisheries Monitoring update. The Partners for 6 Fisheries Monitoring Program seeks to strengthen Alaska 7 Native and rural involvement in Federal subsistence 8 management by providing funding for biologists, social 9 scientists and educators positions and Alaska Native 10 and rural nonprofit organizations. The intent there is 11 to increase the organization's ability to participate 12 in Federal subsistence management. 13 14 The Office of Subsistence Management 15 has begun developing cooperative agreements for the 16 2020-2023 Partners for Fisheries Program. Seven 17 Partners organizations were chosen through a 18 competitive process and these organizations are Bristol 19 Bay Native Association, Native Village of Eyak, Native 20 Village of Napaimute, Orutsararmiut Traditional Native 21 Council, Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska and Yakutat 22 Tlingit Tribe. 23 24 This concludes the Partners for 25 Fisheries Monitoring update. Are there any questions. 26 27 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Are there any 28 questions from the Council. 29 30 MS. ATORUK: Excuse me. Was that what 31 you just read in our book or is it just your own 32 information there? 33 34 MS. VOORHEES: I believe it's 35 additional information that is not in your book. 36 37 MS. ATORUK: Okay. Thank you. 38 39 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Since you guys said 40 you guys do fisheries, do you do shellfish also? 41 42 MS. VOORHEES: I will defer to the 43 fisheries biologist on that, but, no, I believe we 44 don't. 45 46 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead. 47 48 MR. PAPPAS: Mr. Chair. George Pappas, 49 OSM. For shellfish are you talking about freshwater 50

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Page 42 1 clams or mussels? For marine waters it has to be 2 Federal subsistence fisheries jurisdiction. There is 3 marine jurisdiction somewhat in this part of the world 4 within three miles of Nunivak Island, but otherwise the 5 most marine jurisdictions is a little around Kodiak, a 6 little bit around Sitka, but up here I believe that 7 your closest is Nunivak, but that's what we have for 8 shellfish, Mr. Chair. For marine species that is. 9 10 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay, yeah. I just 11 had a question because I know that there's been a 12 slight decline in the king crab subsistence harvest 13 here. I don't know if that's due to warmer weather, 14 warmer waters, but there's a lot less king crab being 15 caught here by Krusenstern. A lot of people are saying 16 warmer weather. I just wanted to find out who would be 17 able to either do a study on that or ask a community to 18 help with the study on that. 19 20 Thank you. 21 22 MS. VOORHEES: I'm not sure if anyone 23 from the State is on the phone or in the room who would 24 want to comment. I'll just put that option out there. 25 26 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any other questions. 27 28 Go ahead, Zach. 29 30 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. 31 There are several funders who are not represented here 32 that have addressed subsistence fisheries research and 33 if the Council would like information on that topic, we 34 could discuss that for addition to our winter meeting 35 agenda, but we're not prepared to address that today. 36 37 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 38 39 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Thank you for your 40 presentation. We're going to continue on to Item 41 10(b), wildlife proposals. OSM Wildlife/Anthropology. 42 43 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. We 44 had a Council member, Tristen Pattee, who works for Red 45 Dog offer to invite a caribou biology presentation for 46 this meeting and the individual here to present on that 47 topic has a limited timeframe and had requested to 48 address that next on the agenda. 49 50

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Page 43 1 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. He can go 2 ahead and come up and do it. 3 4 MR. WESTLAKE: Unfortunately the folks 5 from Red Dog didn't make it in yesterday, so Kally and 6 I were just going to be here for the meeting, but we 7 got thrust into action to give the presentation. I 8 will try to keep my part short and give the biologist 9 more time. So Jojo hopefully is on the phone. I'll go 10 over the overview and kind of give an introduction to 11 what's done at Red Dog as far as not affecting the 12 migration of the caribou. 13 14 So Jojo put this presentation together, 15 but what she wanted to say about this slide was that 16 Red Dog has multiple policies in place to make sure 17 that the caribou herd migration is not affected. As 18 you guys know, there's a road from the mine site to the 19 port side, 52-mile road. If it is not managed 20 properly, the activity on the road could potentially 21 affect the caribou migration. So there's several 22 policies in place to make sure that doesn't happen. 23 24 One of the things that we rely on 25 heavily and you guys are a subsistence committee here, 26 but Red Dog also has its own subsistence committee. 27 This subsistence committee is made up of four folks 28 from Noatak and four from Kivalina. They're tasked 29 with several items, including making sure that those 30 policies are in place that the mine site follows and 31 that the caribou migration is not hindered in any way. 32 33 This subsistence committee has been in 34 place since the mine has been in operation, which is 35 about 30 years now. So they're well in tune with how 36 the operation is run up there and over the years 37 they've provided a lot of guidance in making sure the 38 operation there doesn't affect the animals in the area. 39 40 One thing I want to say before I move 41 on from this slide is that at Red Dog we're miners, 42 right, and we don't pretend to be experts in this area, 43 so that's why we rely on these folks from the villages 44 who are experts, like you folks, to guide us and tell 45 us what kind of policies we should have in place to 46 make sure that the animals are not affected by the 47 operation there. 48 49 So some of the policies here are 50

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Page 44 1 discussed here in this slide. One thing I want to 2 emphasize the most is that the caribou have the right 3 of way when it comes to the road. 4 5 Yes, Reppi. 6 7 MR. SWAN: I just want to make it known 8 the young lady up front is my wife that's on the 9 subsistence. 10 11 (Laughter) 12 13 MR. WESTLAKE: Yes. Thank you, Reppi, 14 for pointing that out. I didn't name them 15 individually, but they're listed there. I think it's a 16 real good mix of elders and younger folks that could 17 advise the Red Dog operations on what to do to not 18 affect animals in the area. We are very proud of this 19 group. Myself and Kally work closely with them. We 20 meet on a quarterly basis. They're just a positive 21 great group to be around. They really advocate for how 22 folks in the villages think about their subsistence 23 lifestyle. So it's a great group. 24 25 Thank you, Reppi. 26 27 So what I wanted to say on this slide 28 is the main thing is that the caribou have the right of 29 way. Of course, if the caribou are migrating close to 30 the road, we see that they're coming, then the traffic 31 will stop and let the caribou pass. In general, it's 32 not the road that could affect the migration, it would 33 be the activity, right. The road is just gravel there. 34 Caribou would go across if no activity was on there. 35 But if there's trucks up and down making noise, then 36 that would affect the caribou, so that's why we stop 37 operations when the caribou come near the area. 38 39 Yes, Enoch. 40 41 MR. MITCHELL: What would happen if one 42 of the trucks hit a caribou? 43 44 MR. WESTLAKE: Good question. 45 Unfortunately it does happen on occasion. Sometimes 46 it's dark and you can't see off the side of the road, 47 so you can't see if caribou are there. We have had in 48 the past where caribou would jump onto the road and 49 then the truck would hit it. In most cases the 50

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Page 45 1 caribous do perish. 2 3 What we do is we have somebody from our 4 environmental department, which is a pretty big 5 department there at Red Dog, which Jojo, Joanne, is a 6 part of. They will come down and they will assess the 7 animal and if the meat is still salvageable, they will 8 salvage the meat and give it to locals in the area, but 9 sometimes it is not. If it is not, then it is moved 10 away from the road out further in the tundra so when 11 the predators come and get it, it won't be close to the 12 road. 13 14 I've seen both examples and I've seen 15 when the meat is salvageable and they ship it here to 16 Kotzebue and give it to people that could use it. I've 17 also seen when it's not salvageable also. 18 19 So another thing couple things on this 20 slide. Our distance is 300 feet, but that's just a 21 number. I'd like to say that we try to use common 22 sense. If the animals are close to the road, then we 23 either really slow down or come to a stop. If the 24 trucks are stopped for longer than 15 minutes, as it 25 says in that last bullet there, then they will get out 26 caribou cards that are provided to the truck drivers. 27 28 On the left there there's an example of 29 the caribou card and they will fill out that 30 information there. You record the date, you record the 31 number, you estimate the number, record what direction 32 they're going. That chart on the right gives the 33 information from the final report, which is submitted 34 at the end of each year and you could see some 35 summaries there of total hours the road is closed and 36 also the longest period of time. 37 38 So there have been examples over the 39 years where a real big part of the herd will be coming 40 through and that truck will be stopped for a long time 41 and they might wait there for hours and then they 42 realize it's still going to be going on by the time 43 their shift is over. So somebody will come pick them 44 up, leave the truck there and drive them back to site 45 with a pickup. Once the caribou pass, they'll send 46 somebody back down to that truck and then they'll 47 continue. It's one of those things, you know, when the 48 animals are crossing it stops everything, which is a 49 good thing. 50

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Page 46 1 Along with Red Dog's current caribou 2 policies, which were developed by the subsistence 3 committee, I said we also have an expiration caribou 4 and wildlife policy. A lot of you know that Red Dog 5 does exploration in the area and it's places that can't 6 be driven to, so they fly there with helicopters. That 7 would cause concern if there were caribou in the area 8 that the helicopter noise would affect their migration. 9 When that's the case, the helicopter will avoid that 10 area. So fly around a different way, fly higher so 11 they do not affect the caribou migration there wherever 12 they have those drill rigs. 13 14 Trespass officers. A couple guys from 15 NMS will go after me, so I won't say much about this 16 other than we at Red Dog use the trespass officers for 17 what is on the slide next, our Caribou Monitoring 18 Program. This is something that we're pretty excited 19 about. This was the first year that we had the Caribou 20 Monitoring Program in place. 21 22 It was something requested by a lot of 23 folks years ago and it's finally happened this year, so 24 we were very happy to have locals from Kivalina and 25 Noatak up and down that road on a pickup to be that 26 extra set of eyes or a dedicated set of eyes to watch 27 for the caribou. You think about it, the truck drivers 28 are driving those big haul trucks and their main 29 concern is staying on the road. They don't want to get 30 in an accident and cause a spill, so looking for 31 caribou is not their main focus. 32 33 So this year we had the Caribou 34 Monitoring Program where those folks their main focus 35 is to watch for caribou. Kind of the idea is if they 36 see caribou coming, they'll radio to all the haul road 37 traffic to let them know that, hey, they're in this 38 area so let's slow down and let's be careful and let's 39 be prepared to go a little slower. 40 41 To get back to Enoch's question, this 42 could probably help with that going forward. Giving 43 the truck drivers advance notice that caribou are in 44 the area, so hopefully that will cut down on the number 45 of times those animals get hit. 46 47 So we get this question all the time, 48 are people allowed to use the haul road to hunt. The 49 answer is yes and happy to have Reppi here because we 50

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Page 47 1 work pretty closely with Reppi there in Kivalina to 2 make sure everybody is on the same page before the fall 3 hunting season. So Red Dog goes to Kivalina and has a 4 meeting with the hunters there. Reppi is good enough 5 to be there every year. He gives us great advice on 6 what to watch for and what would help in this process. 7 8 Red Dog's main concern is that everyone 9 is safe. So there's four wheelers going up the road, 10 there's trucks coming down. We want to be able to make 11 sure that everybody is communicating well, that these 12 hunters have on reflective gear so the truck drivers 13 could see them. Just make sure that everybody has 14 success during that time. We know that caribou are 15 important to the community of Kivalina, so we want to 16 support the use of the haul road to harvest their 17 animals if necessary and they do take advantage of 18 that. I know Reppi got some this year, so happy to 19 hear. 20 21 The main point is there has to be 22 communication in order for that to be successful. If 23 the truck drivers don't know people are coming up the 24 road, they might be surprised and all that kind of 25 stuff. So it's important to communicate each year 26 before the start of the hunting season. 27 28 Yes. 29 30 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Yeah, I had a 31 question. I know there's been a lot of concern over 32 the years of people hunting on the road and hunting on 33 the northern portion side of the road instead of the 34 southern side. When they're hunted on the northern 35 side, that pushes them farther back. When they're 36 hunted on the southern side, then they could continue 37 to move on towards Noatak and other people can continue 38 to harvest these animals as they come through. 39 40 With the monitoring program, my 41 question is how far out do you guys go north of the 42 road when they're starting to come out? Do you guys 43 have people by the Wulik who monitor caribou coming 44 through or stationed somewhere out there where people 45 can monitor them ahead of time and say, hey, Red Dog 46 road, you guys got about 50,000 head coming your way 47 and this is their direction. That way you get 48 pre-warning that they're coming through and you could 49 stop ahead of time. These caribou can go ahead and 50

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Page 48 1 move through this area with no problem, with just 2 nothing but ease. 3 4 That was always a concern that we've 5 heard. 6 7 MR. WESTLAKE: Yeah, thank you for 8 those comments. So I'll try to answer them in the 9 order. So the question of hunting on the south side of 10 the road versus the north side of the road. That is 11 something stressed a lot by the Subsistence Committee, 12 so we hear that from them. Over the years it was 13 mentioned going over to Kivalina to meet with the 14 hunters. 15 16 With some of the younger hunters who 17 don't have as much experience as guys like Reppi, they 18 might not know that, but we go over there with the 19 Subsistence Committee and some of those elders and some 20 of those experienced guys, let the younger hunters 21 know, hey, we should be hunting them on the south side 22 so they continue their migration. 23 24 Reppi has been very helpful with 25 communicating that at those meetings and stressing that 26 to the younger hunters there. So we made quite a bit 27 of improvement on that. 28 29 Go ahead, Reppi. 30 31 MR. SWAN: On that northern side I 32 always try to remind our younger ones to always let the 33 first ones pass because it's real important for us 34 also. So whenever we see the first caribous come I 35 stress it to our younger ones let the first ones pass 36 so they have a trail to go. Whether it's on the north 37 side or the south side I put a lot of stress on our 38 younger hunters to let the first ones pass so they have 39 a path. 40 41 MR. WESTLAKE: Thank you, Reppi. You 42 know what I'll say to echo that is the younger guys 43 will respect and listen to guys like Reppi. They might 44 not listen to somebody from Red Dog who they don't 45 know, so it's very important that we have that working 46 relationship with guys like Reppi coming from the mine 47 site. 48 49 Like I said, we're miners, so we don't 50

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Page 49 1 pretend to know all this stuff, so we rely on experts 2 in the area as he just mentioned there of informing the 3 youth and letting them know what's best practices 4 there. We support it 100 percent. 5 6 To get back to the second part of your 7 question about being ready and knowing when the caribou 8 are coming. We don't have anybody over in Kivalina, 9 but the NMS guys there that are coming up next they'll 10 speak a little bit about their program. So they have 11 trespass officers they call them in all the villages or 12 most of the villages. 13 14 If they're on the river there near 15 Kivalina and they see them crossing, then we could find 16 out that information and we could know they're coming. 17 We usually have a good sense of where they are based on 18 our working relationship with those folks in Kivalina, 19 the Subsistence Committee members, but the Trespass 20 Program is probably another example of how we could be 21 forewarned before they get close to the road. 22 23 So good question. Thank you. 24 25 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Tristen. 26 27 MR. PATTEE: This is Tristen. We have 28 stations that are checked quite often during the 29 migration period with the helicopter. The 30 Environmental Department has their own helicopter to 31 check their stations and monitor the water. So the 32 helicopter flies at a certain distance, pretty high, 33 above 2,000 feet when the migration is coming across. 34 So we do wildlife reports to just check on the area and 35 see if there's any wildlife coming through that. We 36 could forewarn anyone on the road. We try not to tell 37 it to more of the public just because it's kind of 38 unfair. Just when they're coming so our workers know 39 to be prepared to stop for the migration. 40 41 That's it. 42 43 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Thank you, Tristen. 44 You guys are all done? 45 46 MR. WESTLAKE: No. We've got a little 47 ways to go. Last slide here. What Reppi talked about 48 or other folks talked about making sure the lead 49 caribou cross. Just like crossing the river the lead 50

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1 caribou will kind of lead that trail there for the rest 2 of the herd to follow. So we try to make sure that 3 when they're first coming down we try to let the 4 hunters hold off a little bit to make sure those lead 5 caribou cross. Reppi helps the young folks understand 6 that and we support that there on the road also making 7 sure our traffic does not affect those animals coming 8 through. 9 10 That is what I had, but Johanna, who is 11 our scientist on the phone, will continue and I'll move 12 through her slides. Johanna, can you hear me? 13 14 MS. SALATAS: I hear you, Fritz. Can 15 you hear me? 16 17 MR. WESTLAKE: Yes. Go ahead. You're 18 loud and clear. 19 20 MS. SALATAS: Okay. Uvlaalluataq, Mr. 21 Chair and esteemed Council members and all the great 22 listeners on KOTZ radio today. Thank you again for 23 letting us, Fritz and I, be on the call to talk about 24 caribou monitoring and studies and what we do at Red 25 Dog for caribou protection. 26 27 This next presentation is based on some 28 work we did in 2018 and I wanted to recap with the 29 slide, Fritz, that has 2001 to 2006. If you could click 30 to that it's subsistence food studies. So for all you 31 listeners on the radio why did we do studies between 32 2001 an 2006. Well, it's because Kivalina and Noatak 33 communities were concerned about subsistence foods and 34 wildlife that they rely upon for their subsistence 35 lifestyle. 36 37 So Red Dog Teck did a large scientific 38 study that was completed in 2007, which we call the 39 Human Health Risk Assessment. Basically that risk 40 assessment determines if conditions are safe for humans 41 and wildlife. In the risk assessment we looked at 42 exposure for children in the communities, adults in the 43 communities, and adult workers that would work in the 44 mine and also live in the communities. 45 46 Activities we looked at were eating 47 subsistence food, drinking water from streams and 48 contacting dust from soil. The exposure of foods that 49 we were evaluating are caribou, ptarmigan common fish, 50

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Page 51 1 salmonberry and sourdock. Today we're going to 2 specifically talk about caribou, but I just wanted to 3 let everyone know that we do a lot of studies and 4 monitoring of many of the media surrounding Red Dog. So 5 this is continual research. It wasn't ended in 2006, 6 it's always ongoing. 7 8 Next slide please, Fritz. So as I 9 mentioned, in 2007 the Red Dog subsistence food studies 10 as part of the Human Health Risk Assessment were 11 completed. We had a presentation to the communities to 12 talk about the results of those studies. Basically the 13 result said that it's safe to continue harvesting 14 subsistence foods in the area. There's no change to 15 subsistence lifestyle needed. Then we always caveat it 16 with the Red Dog policy remains please no harvesting 17 within facility areas because we have huge, heavy 18 equipment operating. So that's off limits. 19 20 So what do the results mean to the 21 subsistence user. Can you eat the food? Yes. Can you 22 drink the water? Yes. Do you need to change the way 23 you live your life to stay safe? No. Are the results 24 from the 2007 risk assessment still useful in 2019? 25 Yes, they most certainly are because we have ongoing 26 monitoring data that can always be compared back to the 27 data that was collected between 2001 and 2004. 28 29 Next slide please, Fritz. So in 2008 30 after we completed the risk assessment there was a 31 large risk management workshop that was conducted in 32 Kotzebue. We had about 40 people attend the meeting and 33 the reason we did this meeting was to rely heavily on 34 traditional knowledge that our subsistence committee 35 and the community has offered to us to make sure that 36 all would be able to make decisions going forward for 37 Red Dog. 38 39 In 2008 one of the questions that came 40 up is how do we make sure at Red Dog that caribou and 41 other subsistence foods are okay to eat in the future. 42 As I mentioned, in 2008 at the workshop there were 43 about 40 people in attendance and in the slide I show 44 the different agencies and their participants. So I'll 45 just read it to everybody on the radio. 46 47 It was elders from Kivalina and Noatak, 48 the Kivalina IRA representative, Kivalina City Council, 49 Noatak IRA, the Red Dog Subsistence committee, NANA, 50

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Page 52 1 the Northwest Arctic Borough, Maniilaq Association, 2 Alaska Fish and Game, National Park Service Alaska 3 Department of Environmental Conservation, Center for 4 Disease Control and EPA. 5 6 So the goal is to hear from all these 7 interested parties and their concerns and to find out 8 how do they want us to go about addressing those 9 concerns in the future. So what happened in the 10 meeting is a risk management plan was developed. Seven 11 objectives were agreed upon in the plan, but one 12 objective we're going to talk about today is the 13 verifying continued safety of caribou, other 14 representative subsistence foods and water. 15 16 Next slide please, Fritz. So in 2018 17 we had a huge caribou monitoring study that happened. 18 Caribou monitoring has occurred at Red Dog four times 19 in the past and today we're going to simply talk about 20 the 2018 study and those results. In order to get the 21 study done we had hired seven hunters who were 22 recommended by our subsistence committee that Fritz 23 mentioned earlier and our hunters were from both 24 Kivalina and Noatak. 25 26 It included Roy Adams, Sr., Michael 27 Hawley, Jim Adams, Darvin Luther, Roger Hawley, Brian 28 Barter and Jared Booth. They were really amazing 29 Hunters. We hired them to hunt the caribou and bring 30 them directly to the site. They also assisted us with 31 the dissection and the preparations and were really, 32 really helpful this whole time. 33 34 So I wanted to let you know that the 35 hunting was done in March 2018. We didn't want to 36 collect caribou during the fall migration. The reason 37 for that is we knew that caribou like to settle in for 38 the winter because that's what our ADF&G Fish and Game 39 contacts Jim Dau and Alex Hansen had explained to us. 40 So our goal was to collect the caribou that had been 41 spending the maximum time near the Red Dog Road. 42 43 So what happened is they were able to 44 collect 20 caribou in about a few days (phone cutout) 45 Red Dog Road, which is shown in the map here, all 46 within 10 kilometers of the road. And then they were 47 also able to collect six caribou from the southern Cape 48 Krusenstern Monument which we consider a reference 49 area. 50 Computer Matrix, LLC Phone: 907-243-0668 135 Christensen Dr., Ste. 2., Anch. AK 99501 Fax: 907-243-1473

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Page 53 1 Next slide please, Fritz. So in this 2 slide for those of you on the radio I showed some 3 photos of caribou that were brought back to Red Dog 4 port, the port site. That's where we turned one of our 5 tents into a research lab. The caribou were not 6 prepared in the field. They were brought back to site 7 so that we could do our necessary health monitoring and 8 tissue collection. 9 10 Next slide please, Fritz. In the 11 slide I'm showing a few pictures of our tent and it was 12 a very, very cold few days, but there was a lot of 13 collaboration in this project. Everyone worked really 14 well together to study these important caribou that 15 were collected. 16 17 So in addition to our subsistence 18 hunters we had Alaska Department of Fish and Game Alex 19 Hansen was there, University of Florida Dr. Nina Hansen 20 and Dr. Brian Seed. They wanted to participate to study 21 leptospirosis with climate change and how that affects 22 caribou up here in the Arctic. We also had one 23 international researcher Dr. Jacques Godfroid from the 24 University of Norway. He was studying Brucella in 25 caribou. 26 27 We basically involved these people 28 because they could help us collect tissues and I also 29 didn't want any parts of these caribou to go to waste. 30 So it was very important for us to collaborate. 31 32 And also in this slide I wanted to show 33 that we had Hazel Walton from Noatak who was one of our 34 employees here at Teck. She was amazing at helping us 35 dissect the caribou and she was working with Brian 36 Seed, one of the veterinarians, side-by-side most of 37 the time, so it was pretty cool. 38 39 The next slide please, Fritz. So in 40 the slide we're showing some pictures of the liver 41 dissections we did, we show Hazel again from Noatak 42 dissecting a caribou that was hung from a makeshift 43 pulley. Finally, after we collected the tissues, the 44 blood and documented everything we needed to for the 45 health assessment, all the remaining meat including the 46 tongues and hearts were sent back to the communities 47 with our subsistence hunters. Again we didn't want any 48 part of these important caribou to go to waste. Taikuu 49 to the caribou. 50

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Page 54 1 Next slide please, Fritz. In this 2 slide we get to the results. It shows zinc and it has 3 a chart up on the screen. On the right hand side the 4 Red Dog caribou concentrations collected in 2018 are 5 shown in blue and then concentrations from other 6 Alaska's caribou are shown in yellow to the left. So 7 basically in the top panel we have meat, tissues and 8 then in the next panel there are liver tissues and the 9 third panel down are kidney tissues. Those are the 10 tissues that were analyzed from each of the caribou. 11 12 So the concentrations of zinc in 13 caribou collected near Red Dog were compared to those 14 in the literature. It's probably hard for anybody to 15 see the slide but I wrote out the places that these 16 other caribou came from. They were Anaktuvuk, Barrow, 17 Cape Thompson, Point Hope, Teshekpuk and Cape 18 Krusenstern. These were samples that were collected in 19 2006 by Todd O'Hara and a bunch of other researchers 20 that were investigating large mortality events in 21 caribou in northern Alaska. So that served as our 22 reference database. 23 24 Basically we compared our Red Dog zinc 25 tissue concentrations to those in the other areas and 26 we found there were no significant differences between 27 the tissue concentrations from Red Dog and other 28 caribou. So that was really good news. 29 30 Next slide please, Fritz. And this 31 slide is very similar to the other slide I just showed 32 except these are the results for cadmium on the left 33 and for lead on the right. Again there were no 34 significant differences detected between the tissue 35 concentrations from Red Dog caribou and those collected 36 from other areas in Alaska. 37 38 Next slide please, Fritz. All right. 39 So in this slide we're showing basically similar 40 information but this time it's being compared to 41 populations of caribou that are in southern Alaska, 42 Canada and Greenland for comparison. So basically the 43 results show that there's a large degree of intergroup 44 variability and there really were no consistent 45 differences noted between Red Dog caribou and other 46 populations when it came to the zinc concentrations. 47 48 We were unable to do any statistical 49 analyses on these data that we found in these published 50

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Page 55 1 literature studies. They just simply didn't offer 2 enough data in their publications, but when it's 3 graphed it shows that there's really not that many 4 consistent differences noted between the Red Dog 5 caribou and the other populations. 6 7 Next slide please, Fritz. This slide 8 shows again two more panels from results showing the 9 Red Dog tissues and again this one is for cadmium and 10 lead and it's basically the same results we had for 11 zinc showing no consistent differences between Red Dog 12 caribou and other populations when you take the tissue 13 concentrations and compare them to the cadmium and lead 14 concentrations from other areas around the world. 15 16 Next slide please, Fritz. We're 17 getting close to the end here everybody. I just wanted 18 to talk about the second study we did with the caribou 19 we were able to collect in 2018. It goes back to an 20 excellent question that came from the communities and 21 during our risk management workshop in Kotzebue in 22 2008. 23 24 When we went to the risk management 25 workshop, we presented the results of the risk 26 assessment that was completed using the data between 27 2001 and 2004 and we talked about how we included meat 28 samples that were collected from caribou in 2002 in the 29 studies. After the presentation some of that Kivalina 30 and Noatak participants asked really great questions 31 and one of those was what happens when you cook the 32 bone and the marrow in the soups. We use these soups to 33 eat. We feed them to our children and grandchildren. 34 35 So they asked did you study the bone 36 and the marrow in the risk assessment because we also 37 eat that in the soups. So what happens when the bone 38 and the marrow is cooked and we eat it? Is it still 39 okay, is it still safe? So like I said it was an 40 excellent question. So we went back to the published 41 scientific literature to see if there were any studies 42 that were done to address this type of question. 43 44 It turned out that there wasn't 45 anything that helped us in the literature, so then it 46 was decided that an uncertainty reduction study was 47 needed. By that I mean a study designed to answer this 48 specific question and that's exactly what we set out to 49 do with the caribou we collected in 2018. 50

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Page 56 1 Next slide please, Fritz. This one 2 should say 2018 cooking study. So from each of the 3 caribou that were collected we cut the leg shanks into 4 four equal-sized pieces. So each piece contained bone, 5 meat and marrow. One piece from each leg was analyzed 6 as an uncooked piece of meat in the lab and then the 7 other three pieces were cooked in soups. So we did that 8 for every single leg. 9 10 Again 20 caribou legs were used in the 11 study yielding -- I put an X there for pieces because I 12 hadn't finished counting how many we had but it was 13 quite a few. There was three different soup recipes 14 prepared with each piece of leg shank. There was a 15 vinegar soup, which is very acidic. A tomato soup, 16 which is acidic. And then a water soup, which is not 17 acidic at all. 18 19 Each soup was cooked for about 6 hours 20 around 70 degrees Celsius. There were three duplicates 21 for each of these soups that we used and we wanted to 22 make them very acidic and then not acidic to try and 23 figure out how much was the lead, cadmium and zinc 24 leaching out of the bone when they were cooked at high 25 temperatures for long periods of time. 26 27 After cooking the piece of bone with 28 the meat and the marrow on it, it was pulled from the 29 soup and 10 grams of meat and marrow were separated 30 from each cooked bone and then the meat, the marrow and 31 the bone samples were analyzed separately. All the 32 remaining ingredients were added back into the soup 33 broth and then the broth itself was also homogenized 34 and analyzed. 35 36 Next slide please, Fritz. Please move 37 to the slide that says cook (phone cutout). In this 38 figure I'm showing a figure that has the results for 39 the cooking study for lead. In the top panel we show 40 meat and then the second panel shows bone, followed by 41 marrow and then finally the soup in the bottom. The 42 uncooked samples are shown in the right-hand column and 43 then the cooked samples for the water soup, the tomato 44 soup and the vinegar soup are all shown in the column 45 to the right of the uncooked samples for comparison. 46 47 So basically the uncooked meat, the 48 bone and the marrow samples were compared to the cooked 49 pieces. For the soups, the water soup was compared to 50

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Page 57 1 the tomato and vinegar based soups, which were more 2 acidic. Basically the results say that the cooked meat 3 did not have higher lead concentrations than uncooked 4 meat. The cooked bone did not have higher 5 concentrations than the uncooked bone. And the cooked 6 marrow did not have higher concentrations than the 7 uncooked marrow. 8 9 So that was really good news because it 10 says cooking did not mobilize lead from the meat, bone 11 or marrow. Also the lead concentrations in the 12 water-based soups did not significantly differ from 13 those in the more acidic tomato and vinegar soups. All 14 of these results were tested statistically, so we can 15 caveat that that these were statistically 16 insignificant. There was no change. 17 18 Next slide please, Fritz. This is a 19 similar figure, but this one shows the results for 20 zinc. Very similar to the last one. In this case the 21 cooked bone did not have higher concentrations than the 22 uncooked bone, nor did the cooked marrow have higher 23 concentrations than the uncooked marrow. The zinc 24 concentrations in the water-based soups did not differ 25 from the more acidic tomato and vinegar soups. What was 26 different is that from the lead results is that the 27 zinc results showed there was an increase in zinc 28 concentrations for cooked meat when compared to 29 uncooked meat. 30 31 Finally, if you could switch again, 32 Fritz, to the next slide, this is the cooking results 33 for cadmium and these results were pretty much 34 identical to what we found for zinc. So I will move to 35 the next slide, Fritz. In this slide I'm showing what 36 we did to compare the lead, zinc and cadmium 37 concentrations from the results of the cooking study. 38 39 Our goal was to compare the cooked 40 concentrations collected in 2018, the raw meat 41 concentrations used in the 2007 Human Health Risk 42 Assessment and the results all showed that the 2018 43 cooked results were always lower than those that were 44 used in the 2002 risk assessment. So again it's good 45 news. We were able to compare and conclude that there 46 have been decreases over time. 47 48 As we knew in 2007, the caribou are 49 safe to continue to harvest and there are no changes 50

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Page 58 1 needed to the subsistence lifestyle. Finally, it 2 suggests that cooking does not increase those metal 3 concentrations. It still is safe to cook and feed that 4 soup to your families. 5 6 Next slide please, Fritz. We're at the 7 very end. Overall results from the monitoring cooking 8 study showed no consistent differences in metals to 9 choose between caribou collected near Red Dog and other 10 caribou herds. Lead, cadmium and zinc concentrations 11 in Western Arctic Caribou Herd were similar to or lower 12 than those in other herds and using acidic ingredients 13 cooking studies did not increase metal leaching from 14 bone or marrow. 15 16 Next slide, please. So in conclusion, 17 the traditional knowledge that was used in every stage 18 of this study from planning to collecting the caribou 19 with our subsistence committee to getting the hunters 20 onsite with their snow machines and rifles and doing an 21 amazing collecting enough caribou for the study and 22 then again we used help from the subsistence committee 23 when we did the laboratory studies so we were able to 24 include their input for designing the lab study and to 25 make the meat, bone and marrow soup preparations. 26 27 Similarly, I wanted to reiterate that, 28 as Fritz mentioned before, the subsistence committee 29 and our communities always provide Red Dog with 30 excellent help and advice to manage the operations so 31 the effects on caribous are always minimized. 32 33 Next slide please, Fritz. This is the 34 last slide. Thank you, Mr. Chair and esteemed Council 35 members. Taikuu for allowing me to be part of this 36 meeting. If you have any questions, you can call me at 37 (907)754-5121. 38 39 Thank you and have a great day. 40 41 Any questions. 42 43 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: We have one question 44 by Reppi. 45 46 MR. SWAN: Yeah, the 2007 studies in 47 other areas I think you should put a study for 2018 in 48 the other areas instead of use the 2007. Comparing the 49 2018 from 2007, that's years of difference. When 50

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1 you're going to compare this 2018 to 2007, I think you 2 should have studied the other areas for the recent 3 2018. 4 5 MS. SALATAS: I'm having a bit of 6 trouble hearing. Could somebody repeat the question to 7 me since I'm on the phone. 8 9 MR. SWAN: Can you hear me? 10 11 MS. SALATAS: Yes. 12 13 MR. SWAN: The 2018 study that you did 14 near port side and comparing them to the 2007 studies, 15 the northern area, I think you should have studied the 16 animals up north with the recent 2018 instead of using 17 the 2007 studies. 18 19 MS. SALATAS: Yeah, I think ideally we 20 would have been able to move and get some animals up 21 north as well. It was a logistical nightmare basically 22 to do that. Perhaps in the future it's something we 23 can consider as we've already considered it. Yeah, it 24 would take a lot of coordination. It would be 25 interesting though. 26 27 Thank you. 28 29 MR. SWAN: Yes, it would have made 30 things a little more clear for me because using 2007 is 31 way too long a life span for the studies to be done for 32 2018. 33 34 MS. SALATAS: I think we wanted to 35 compare it to the 2007 data simply to show -- that's 36 the information we used when we did the risk assessment 37 and it was helpful to see over time how does that 38 change and then to compare it to the 2007 results. 39 40 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any further 41 questions. 42 43 MS. ATORUK: Yeah, I do, Chair. 44 45 MR. JOLY: Mr. Chairman. Kyle Joly on 46 the radio. 47 48 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Hang on. Go ahead, 49 Barb. You'll be next on the radio. 50

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Page 60 1 MS. ATORUK: I really enjoyed this 2 report and if we would get some paper, the report in 3 paper, I'd appreciate it. 4 5 Thank you very much. 6 7 MS. SALATAS: Thank you. Taikuu. 8 9 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay, on the radio, 10 did you have a question? 11 12 MR. JOLY: Yes. Thank you, Mr. 13 Chairman. This is Kyle Joly with the National Park 14 Service. I have two questions. One on migration and 15 one of the food studies. I'll start with the migration 16 question. 17 18 The Park Service, along with Fish and 19 Game and others, did a study back in 2016 and we showed 20 that the Red Dog Road was impacting up to about 30 21 percent of the collared caribou coming through delaying 22 their migration. I'm just wondering if any changes 23 were made in light of that study. I'll kick that back 24 to the presenter. 25 26 MR. WESTLAKE: Before I answer that I 27 think what I'll say is there are several reasons for 28 those collared caribou acting in that way. They might 29 not always just be because the road is there. So there 30 are several reasons for that. 31 32 But, yes, as I mentioned before, in the 33 last three or four years we've been meeting with 34 hunters there in Kivalina before each hunting season 35 and that's been really helpful in making sure everybody 36 is on the same page to not disturb the caribou as they 37 migrate through the road. 38 39 Remember during this time, during the 40 fall migration time, we have a couple things. We have, 41 of course, the traffic there, which we have policies in 42 place to minimize the effect. Then we also have people 43 who use the road for subsistence purposes. So there 44 were a couple different activities going on during that 45 time. 46 47 So it's just important to be on the 48 same page. Like I mentioned earlier, working with 49 Reppi and his group of hunters over there and young 50

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Page 61 1 folks over there to make sure we try to minimize that 2 effect. 3 4 MR. PATTEE: Mr. Chair, I have a 5 question. 6 7 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead. 8 9 MR. PATTEE: This is a question for the 10 National Park Service. So rivers basically go 11 horizontal just like a highway. Has there been a study 12 at all on the rivers during the migration pattern to 13 see how much delay a river with a bunch of boats going 14 back and forth on it to see how much delay the caribou 15 migration would have with that impact compared to the 16 road? 17 18 MR. JOLY: Mr. Chairman. This is Kyle 19 Joly with the National Park Service. I'll answer that 20 unless there's someone in the room that wants to do it. 21 22 MR. SWAN: In our rivers, the Wulik and 23 Kivalina Rivers, for most of us our rivers are small, 24 so we need a jet boat, so there's only a very few jet 25 boats that can get that far up. Lately we've been 26 dealing with a lot of sport hunters in both our rivers 27 that's been disturbing our caribou. Since I got on 28 this board I'm going to try and get regulations on our 29 sport hunters because it's been doubling lately these 30 past few years on sport hunters in both our rivers that 31 kind of disturbed our migration route on the caribou in 32 the rivers. 33 34 MR. PATTEE: Mr. Joly, the question I 35 had was for you if you don't mind answering that. 36 37 MR. JOLY: Yeah, sure. So we did do a 38 study looking at caribou migration in the fall in the 39 Noatak and the rivers there do not seem to have much of 40 an impact on caribou migration, but a lot of that 41 migration happens east of where there's a lot of boat 42 traffic, so it's hard to compare. We haven't done a 43 similar analysis along the Kobuk River where it gets 44 obviously a lot more boat traffic and I think that 45 would be more comparable. We haven't seen large 46 impacts from rivers, but we haven't really looked at 47 the Kobuk where we'd expect to see the most. 48 49 Does that answer your question? 50

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Page 62 1 MR. PATTEE: Yes. Thank you. It would 2 be interesting to see a study done on that to compare 3 the two with the river going horizontal just like a 4 road does with a lot of boat traffic and, of course, 5 trucks on the road. 6 7 MR. JOLY: Yeah, I think that's an 8 excellent suggestion. I will put it on my to-do list. 9 10 MR. PATTEE: Thank you. 11 12 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Do you have any 13 questions. 14 15 MR. SWAN: Yeah, the satellite collars, 16 can you do the study on the Kivalina and the Wulik? I 17 know you do them on the Noatak side, but can you get 18 them done on the Wulik side so we can know also? 19 20 MR. JOLY: This is Kyle Joly again. 21 Let me say that we have the capability to do it. We'd 22 just need to find the time and the money. That would 23 be someone like Maija in the room that would be able to 24 promote that kind of research to the forefront. Maija, 25 did you want to comment? 26 27 MS. LUKIN: Hi. Thank you. Your 28 question is about research on the Wulik specifically? 29 30 MR. SWAN: Yeah, Wulik and the Kivalina 31 because that's where the migration of the caribou from 32 the north side go to the Red Dog Road. 33 34 MS. LUKIN: Right. So typically we try 35 to stick within Federal public land, which is Cape 36 Krusenstern National Monument, Noatak National Preserve 37 and Kobuk Valley National Park, but sometimes when 38 there's a resource that goes through our Parks through 39 Federal public land that could be affected, such as the 40 Western Arctic Caribou Herd, and we can make some 41 exceptions for that. 42 43 We just had some proposals that went 44 through to the Subsistence Advisory Committee, which 45 can use the funds this year and next year. Typically 46 with Park Service projects though they're three years 47 out. So what we want to do or what we try to do is 48 find funding that you can use this year or next year. 49 So we can take it up with our Subsistence Resource 50

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Page 63 1 Commission through Cape Krusenstern SRC. Enoch is on 2 that. Maybe possibly look for a SAC proposal next year 3 if that's something you'd like to do. 4 5 In terms of the actual Red Dog Road, we 6 have put together some proposals to see the impact that 7 road could possibly have and they haven't been funded 8 yet, but that's also on our radar. 9 10 MR. SWAN: Okay. 11 12 MR. JOLY: Kyle Joly again. Can I add 13 a little more. 14 15 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. 16 17 MR. JOLY: I just want to clarify my 18 statement about the rivers. We did see some what I'll 19 call resistance to crossing rivers, the larger rivers 20 like the Noatak. It just wasn't a huge resistance. So 21 I just want to clarify that. Like roads, we did see 22 resistance to the Noatak River. I can pass that study 23 along to the Council if you'd like. 24 25 MR. PATTEE: Yes, I'd appreciate that 26 and I'd be interested to see it. 27 28 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: So that's a 29 presentation you're going to do here shortly? We're 30 going to break for lunch at 12 noon. 31 32 MS. LUKIN: Mr. Chair. 33 34 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead. 35 36 MS. LUKIN: I think it's information 37 that we have that we can pass on to Zach, who can pass 38 it out to the Council. Can you include the Red Dog 39 study too, Kyle? 40 41 MR. JOLY: Yes, I can do that. 42 43 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: That would be great. 44 Further studies between different agencies it would be 45 great that Red Dog also be included in a lot of your 46 guys' studies on caribou. We all operate within the 47 region, so I think there should be no reason whatsoever 48 why we can't work together and get these answers that 49 people are asking for. There's a lot of funding out 50

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Page 64 1 there. There's funding. Okay. 2 3 MR. JOLY: There's one follow-up 4 question I had for the presentation. 5 6 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead. 7 8 MR. JOLY: This is for the second half 9 of the presentation on the food study. Looking at the 10 2018 report that came out. I was a little confused as 11 the numbers in the report that came out in the science 12 paper, the numbers there didn't line up with the 13 numbers that are in the PowerPoint presentation. The 14 report that I'm looking at has lead levels that are the 15 highest in the region and also across the arctic lead 16 levels were the highest in the Red Dog samples, both in 17 the kidneys and tissues, and the cadmium levels were 18 also the highest in the muscle tissue. 19 20 So I'm just wondering why there's those 21 disparities in the two presentations. Also if you 22 could tell us how much lead is safe to eat. 23 24 MS. SALATAS: Hello. This is Jo from 25 Red Dog again. Thank you for the question. The paper 26 you're looking at from 2017, I believe, that was data 27 collected earlier, prior to the 2018 study. So the 28 data I was showing today in the presentation was the 29 2018 study. The other past sampling events we had done 30 were in 1996 and 2002 and 2009. So I think that's what 31 you're looking at when you ask your question. 32 33 I just wanted to make sure. Is that 34 true, are you looking at the results from a previous 35 sampling period of 2002 or 2009 perhaps? 36 37 MR. JOLY: Yes, the 2018 paper that's 38 looking at 2009 samples which have the highest lead 39 levels are at Red Dog in 2009 across the region. 40 41 MS. SALATAS: Right. Like I said, that 42 was the previous sampling period. Today we were just 43 looking at the 2018 data. That 2018 report was 44 published in 2018, but it only had the 2009 data in it 45 because we hadn't even collected the 2018 data at the 46 time that paper was prepared. 47 48 MR. JOLY: Thank you. Can you 49 elaborate on how much lead is recommended to eat. 50

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Page 65 1 MS. SALATAS: I think what we have done 2 in our risk assessment is to take the concentrations 3 that are being consumed and then those get input into 4 different models that would be a whole different 5 presentation than this one. So it's not like we're 6 saying the lead is -- you know, you want -- there's no 7 specific caveat. We're just comparing it to what we 8 knew was safe to eat based on the 2002-2004 data 9 collection that went into the 2007 risk assessment. 10 11 Just to reiterate, there's background 12 lead concentrations in all sorts of food throughout not 13 just this region but Alaska and the rest of the 14 continental U.S. and the world. Lead concentrations 15 over time have really drastically gone down due to some 16 of the EPA limits that have been put on lead and 17 gasoline, for example. 18 19 The background, you know, there's 20 always going to be an amount of background lead in our 21 food and our media, so that's something I don't think 22 you can ever get to a zero value. 23 24 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: We have one last 25 question by Louie Commack and after that we'll break 26 for lunch. 27 28 MR. COMMACK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 29 I'm just curious about the lead levels that's being 30 talked about. I have not seen documents concerning 31 this. If we go back three to five years, whatever time 32 that study's been done, I would like this commission to 33 receive documents on the lead levels per caribou or 34 whatever you have in your volume studies. 35 36 Thank you. Is that possible? Could we 37 have it on paper? 38 39 MS. SALATAS: Could you repeat the 40 question. I think my phone beeped while you were 41 talking. It was hard for me to hear. 42 43 MR. COMMACK: I'd just like to see this 44 on paper. I don't have it in front of me. Whether the 45 lead levels have increased or decreased. I'm just 46 curious and I'd like more in-depth reporting on this 47 situation currently on lead levels per 1,000 caribou or 48 per caribou or whatever it is. 49 50

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Page 66 1 Thank you. 2 3 MS. SALATAS: Yes, I thank you for your 4 question and request. I have a paper I've been working 5 on. I haven't finished it yet. I will share it with 6 the Iqauptik (ph) Team which is what Red Dog uses to 7 communicate with all shareholders. I believe through 8 that maybe someone like Tristen can forward it to your 9 Council and members. So that would be the way to do 10 it. It should be finished soon. 11 12 MR. PATTEE: Yes, and I'll be happy to 13 provide it. 14 15 MS. SALATAS: Thank you. 16 17 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Enoch, let's make 18 this quick. We're tapping into our lunch period. 19 20 MR. MITCHELL: Did you run into caribou 21 with high concentration levels? 22 23 MS. SALATAS: When the report comes out 24 you'll be able to see all the concentrations. Nothing 25 was like outstanding as an outlier or anything. It was 26 all pretty much within the same range. There was no 27 specifically high lead concentration to answer your 28 question. 29 30 MR. MITCHELL: Yeah, I'd like to see it 31 too like Louie Commack say. We'd like to see these on 32 papers. 33 34 In the past I heard that there's been 35 some animals that went into the tailings pond. Do you 36 guys have some kind of security guard or something like 37 that to keep them from getting into that tailings pond? 38 39 MS. SALATAS: Oh, a security guard? 40 41 MR. MITCHELL: Yes, ma'am. 42 43 MS. SALATAS: Fritz, are you there? 44 45 MR. WESTLAKE: Yeah, maybe this is a 46 question for Tristen. Tristen, he's asking if animals 47 have gone into the tailings pond. 48 49 MR. PATTEE: Some birds have landed in 50

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Page 67 1 it, but we have a hazing permit, so the people in the 2 environmental department, if anybody reports any type 3 of wildlife getting close to it, we're able to haze any 4 wildlife away from the tailings pond so they don't go 5 into it. We also test the tailings pond to check for 6 water quality. Sometimes when we haze the birds they 7 don't always fly away. So we just make every effort 8 for them to vacate the tailings pond. 9 10 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. It looks like 11 we'll be having you guys at our spring meeting for that 12 report. Thank you guys very much. Appreciate it. 13 Breaking for lunch. 1:00 o'clock. 14 15 (Off record) 16 17 (On record) 18 19 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: We don't have a 20 quorum. We'll break until we get a few more back in. 21 If you guys want to get your presentation set up, go 22 ahead. 23 24 (Off record) 25 26 (On record) 27 28 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: I'd like to thank 29 KOTZ for broadcasting our meeting. Just to let 30 everybody out there know in radioland our number is 31 1-877-638-8165. Your passcode is 9060609. Thank you. 32 You can call in with comments or questions or concerns 33 regarding subsistence resources within your area. 34 35 Thank you. 36 37 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. For 38 our Council, I wanted to also mention that just before 39 the lunch break there was a letter that was provided by 40 the Cape Krusenstern National Monument SRC dated 41 October 25th that was left at your work stations and it 42 explains the comments made by the Cape Krusenstern 43 National Monument SRC to the 2020-2022 wildlife 44 regulatory proposals taken to the Federal Subsistence 45 Board. Each of you have a copy of that letter printed 46 in front of you at your stations. 47 48 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 49 50

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Page 68 1 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. Whenever you 2 guys are ready. 3 4 MR. FANNING: Good afternoon, Mr. 5 Chairman. Council members. I'm Myron Fanning. I'm 6 the security director for NANA Management Services. 7 This is Burke Waldron. He's one of our security 8 managers who is responsible for managing the Trespass 9 Program. We're here today to brief you on our 10 operations for 2019. 11 12 MR. WALDRON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 13 Members. First I'd like to start that this program has 14 been in existence for several years now. Most of you 15 I'm sure are quite familiar with it. Maybe some of you 16 are more familiar with it than I am. I'm not going to 17 bore you too much with details of the actual program 18 and how it works. 19 20 I'm just going to operate on the 21 assumption that you know that. If you don't, please 22 feel free to stop me and I'll answer questions. In the 23 interest of brevity, I'll just get right into some of 24 the things we dealt with in this year's program in 25 specifics rather than the overall program. 26 27 With that being said, does anybody have 28 any general questions before I start? 29 30 (No comments) 31 32 MR. WALDRON: Seeing none, I will 33 begin. No, we have one. 34 35 MR. SWAN: When are you guys going to 36 send a boat for Kivalina area, your trespass program? 37 38 MR. WALDRON: Through the Chair. You 39 mean station a boat in Kivalina? 40 41 MR. SWAN: Yeah. 42 43 MR. WALDRON: I'm pretty sure that 44 happened this year. 45 46 MR. SWAN: No boat. Kivalina didn't 47 get a boat. 48 49 MR. FANNING: Through the Chair. I 50

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Page 69 1 think we bought one. It was shipped out here. Maybe 2 we didn't get it deployed. I'll verify that, but I 3 know we have bought a boat specifically for Kivalina. 4 Maybe it just didn't get out there yet. I'll find out. 5 I'll have to talk to Damon. I thought it made it out 6 here to Kotzebue. 7 8 MR. SWAN: Okay. Thank you. 9 10 MR. WALDRON: I hired someone to 11 operate the boat. Okay. So just in generalities here. 12 The program started this year on the 31st of July with 13 three days of training here in Kotzebue for both 14 returning trespass officers and new hires. That 15 training, in addition to onboarding and getting guard 16 license applications completed and stuff like that, 17 equipment issuing and stuff like that, then we also 18 gave them state required training to get them licensed 19 as security guards, use of force training, First-Aid 20 training, CPR training, things of that sort. So we 21 spent three days doing that. 22 23 Then all the officers returned to their 24 villages and worked on the river patrols and 25 four-wheeler patrols from the 5th of August through 26 October 4th. The week of October 7th we started 27 shutting the program down, getting equipment returned 28 to inventory, paperwork finalized and things of that 29 sort. We do still have two positions ongoing through 30 the end of the month, so they go for just a couple more 31 days. The hunter shack at Red Dog and the caribou 32 observer that the previous speaker spoke of. I'm going 33 to get a little bit more into detail of that later, but 34 that program is ongoing. It should end here this week. 35 36 We did have some changes this year to 37 the program. We added a second position in Ambler and 38 a second position in Noatak. We had one of our 39 returning officers act as the program supervisor. He 40 worked out of Selawik rather than have it supervised 41 here in Kotzebue. We also added a patrol position in 42 Kivalina to operate the boat that we need to apparently 43 look into and get back to you folks about. Then the 44 caribou observer position was added out at the Red Dog 45 site. 46 47 We did have some challenges this year. 48 I don't think they're any different necessarily than 49 challenges we've had in the past. It's always 50

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Page 70 1 difficult to find applicants and the State statutes 2 requiring security guard licensing are fairly 3 stringent, so it's hard to find people that can meet 4 those stringent requirements. 5 6 It's also difficult in the region for 7 us to find people sometimes because, frankly, there's 8 jobs at predominantly Red Dog that will employ them 12 9 months of the year instead of just the two months of 10 the year we're looking at employing them. Hiring 11 people can always be a challenge for us. 12 13 Another continual challenge for us is 14 communication with them. Cell phone. I don't know if 15 it's ongoing, but I continually had issues with the 16 phone would ring but it would never go to voicemail. I 17 had voicemails that sometimes I would leave that were 18 never received. So it would take sometimes many, many 19 days to get in touch with the trespass officers. 20 21 Throughout the summer we did start 22 using the shareholder development coordinators and that 23 was a huge help. A lesson maybe a little slowly 24 learned by me, but certainly will be carried forward to 25 next year's program. They were just invaluable to the 26 program as a communication liaison. 27 28 Then for similar reasons I just 29 described, having the supervisor remotely stationed was 30 also -- he also had communication issues at times and 31 travel. Now he had to travel from Selawik to Kotz 32 before he could travel out from there. So it just 33 almost doubled the likelihood that he'd have weather 34 issues or flight issues of some sort. So that was 35 problematic for us at times. It was nice to have the 36 local knowledge in the supervisor position, it was nice 37 to have the program familiarity in a position, but the 38 remote access was challenging for us at times. 39 40 For our accomplishments this year -- 41 and I use accomplishments not necessarily it was a 42 great feat that we accomplished, more so that it was 43 something that our program added to the region, a 44 service that we were able to provide that without the 45 program may not have been successful. 46 47 We had early in the program one of our 48 trespass officers found an abandoned trespass -- well, 49 we assume it's a trespass cabin out of Kiana. That 50

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Page 71 1 camp appeared to have been there months if not years 2 and there were several weapons left behind, firearms, 3 archery equipment as well as the camping equipment that 4 was all just left deteriorating in the elements. He 5 cleaned that up and brought it back to Kiana and then 6 all that stuff was turned over to the State troopers. 7 I think that was certainly a value added to the region. 8 9 We assisted in a search and rescue out 10 of Noorvik. This goes back to what I was talking about 11 earlier about the accomplishment. The end results of 12 that were certainly unfortunate. Again, we had a 13 resource there that was ready and able. You know, 14 search and rescues you folks know better than I how 15 taxing it can be on the local residents both 16 emotionally, financially, all of the above. We were 17 more than willing to provide a boat, provide fuel and 18 one or two operators to go assist in any way that they 19 could. 20 21 Reaching back to the earlier 22 presentation a little bit. A question was asked, I 23 don't recall specifically who asked it, about caribou 24 that unfortunately sometimes are hit on the Red Dog 25 Road. There was one that was hit this year that our 26 caribou observer actually was able to respond to. Was 27 there within moments is my understanding and was able 28 to determine that -- you know, take an outside look in 29 that the Red Dog policies were being followed. 30 31 The caribou was not part of a large 32 migration, it was a lone animal that was not seen by 33 the driver. The driver in this case was a light-duty 34 vehicle too, not one of the big haul trucks. The 35 caribou came out of the ditch, unseen by the driver and 36 unfortunately was struck and killed. 37 38 I can tell you that this is -- the end 39 result obviously is unfortunate, but it's not that 40 uncommon. We have several security contracts across 41 the North Slope for oil exploration and things like 42 that and unfortunately this happens time to time 43 throughout the year. 44 45 Obviously everybody tries to avoid it, 46 but the added benefit was that, you know, we had an 47 officer that was able to respond, document the scene 48 and document that the policies were being followed and 49 that it did not have an impact on a large migrating 50

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Page 72 1 herd. 2 3 MR. FANNING: I'd like to add one 4 thing. Mike Burke said this does happen. We have 5 numerous contracts across the North Slope with oil 6 companies and I just had one three weeks ago, almost 7 identical circumstances. A lone caribou came up out of 8 the ditch, it was dark, my security officer driving 9 normal speeds never saw it until it was right in front 10 of him. So it's an unfortunate event, but it does 11 happen from time to time and this was not part of the 12 migration. It was a lone animal. 13 14 MR. WALDRON: Okay. So we still are in 15 the process of gathering some of our statistics in 16 terms of contacts and things like that that were made 17 on the river, but what I do have to offer and you can 18 see throughout this, our officers are spending hundreds 19 of hours in the field protecting the lands and 20 protecting the resources either by boat or 21 four-wheeler. Many of you know these people I'm sure. 22 23 Ambler, we have one officer there, Sam 24 Jones, and he had over 400 hours. That was the duration 25 of the program. You'll see some people 412 will come up 26 again. That's for people who worked 40 hours a week 27 standard throughout the program. We had some people 28 that worked more than that because of overtime needs 29 for whatever reason and then some people mostly because 30 they were hired late in the season or whatever that 31 worked fewer hours than that. I mean that's 400 hours. 32 That's a lot of time. 33 34 In Buckland, again, Irvin Morris 412 35 hours. In Deering, I'll just say Alvin, 412 hours and 36 that's mostly by ATV and foot. Kiana we had two 37 officers and you can see combined they had over 800 38 hours. Usually they're working together, on the boat 39 together, but sometimes at least in Benny's case we 40 would send him other places and Kyle would have been 41 working by himself. Sometimes one of them would go out 42 on the river by themselves while the other one had 43 administrative work or whatever to do, but over 800 44 hours patrolled. This is a lot of time being spent in 45 the field. 46 47 Kivalina, this was a late hire to 48 operate the boat. I don't have his picture he was hired 49 so late. So that's why there's only 160 hours. He was 50

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Page 73 1 only there for a month or less. 2 3 Kobuk, again 412 hours. Noatak, these 4 are Fred and Duke oh, some of our more experienced 5 officers that we have. Fred did double duty for us. 6 Sometimes he's in Noatak and sometimes back-filling 7 positions at the Red Dog site. Patrol positions were a 8 standard 40 hour week unless needs dictated otherwise. 9 Red Dog site is two weeks on/two weeks off, just like 10 most of the day other people that work at the site. Two 11 weeks of 12-hour days. 12 13 Noorvik, Ed Coffin, he was a little bit 14 of a late hire as well. He's got just under 300 hours 15 on the river. 16 17 Selawik, you can see there we had two 18 positions there. One of them was a supervisor, so he's 19 got a few more hours than some of the other officers, 20 but he also had a lot more administrative duties. I 21 didn't have a way to break down how much of it was 22 patrol work for him and how much of it was supervisory 23 work. We were able to backfill a vacancy there about 2 24 weeks into the program or 3 weeks into the program and 25 Bruce had about 290 hours I'll Patrol time. Again close 26 to 300 hours. 27 28 In Shungnak, we had William Lee, again 29 over 400 hours. 30 31 Here you can see the Red Dog Port site. 32 We had two different platforms that we worked on at the 33 Port site. We had what's referred to as a hunter shack 34 and then this year was the caribou observer. That was 35 new this year and that position patrolled the road 36 making sure that he was observing and documenting where 37 animals or and then when there were animals close to 38 the road, making sure that people we're observing the 39 no-go policy and handing out the caribou cards when 40 they were necessary and things like that. 41 42 You can see roughly 550 hours at the 43 hunter's shack and 560 hours on the road. again those 44 numbers are a little bit different of course because 45 they were working 84 hour work weeks instead of 40 hour 46 work weeks. It's a shorter program. It didn't start 1st 47 of August like everything else did. That started later 48 on in August. Waited until they started to see some 49 migration how far we put those positions in place and 50

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Page 74 1 they're staying there through the end of this month. So 2 those numbers were as of our last I'll pay period, so 3 it would have been a week and a half ago. 4 5 That's all I have except for hopefully 6 a question or two. 7 8 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Reppi. 9 10 MR. SWAN: With Fred patrolling the 11 road that was really helpful to us hunters on the road. 12 We were able to communicate with him and talk with him 13 on what's going on on the road. To have a patrol on 14 the road that really helped us a lot also, so thank you 15 for that. 16 17 MR. WALDRON: Thank you for that. 18 That's the kind of feedback we need to hear because I'm 19 sure we'll be in communication with Teck and Damon in 20 the future evaluating the program to see what parts of 21 it we want to enhance or add to or cut back from, so 22 that's good information for us to hear. 23 24 Thank you. 25 26 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Zach. 27 28 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. For 29 our listeners on KOTZ radio, if there's members of the 30 public that were interested in getting involved with 31 the trespass program, who should they contact? 32 33 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 34 35 MR. WALDRON: Through the Chair. Again 36 that is another excellent question. I'm glad you asked 37 it because I should have given the sales pitch. NMS 38 does have a website and through the website there's 39 recruitment pages on there. We'll probably start 40 posting the positions mid-June to first of July next 41 year to start our hiring process. 42 43 I should have put contact information 44 on one of the slides. I didn't think of it because 45 that would have been an excellent tool to do that with, 46 but they can certainly call us any time and we'll keep 47 a record of their name so we can reach out to them 48 again next summer so they can contact our recruitment 49 office. 50

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Page 75 1 Do you have anything to add to that? 2 3 MR. FANNING: No. We continue to grow 4 the program. I mean we added several positions this 5 year, so we appreciate all the support. Like Burke 6 said, any way that you all could help us in the 7 recruitment field we would appreciate because that was 8 the most difficult and that's why some of the hours 9 were later. As the program started, we were getting 10 hired late. So any way we can get ahead of that next 11 year would be very beneficial to us and I think overall 12 the region. 13 14 MR. SWAN: I think through the Facebook 15 page you would be able to get more information out. 16 Just about all the villages have a Facebook. 17 18 MR. WALDRON: Through the Chair. So I 19 guess I'll ask that question back to you. So you're 20 saying on our Facebook page post something or the 21 village -- they have group Facebook pages for the 22 villages and post on those pages? 23 24 MR. SWAN: Yeah, if you can -- they're 25 pretty much the same, but if you can..... 26 27 MR. WALDRON: Great idea. Excellent 28 idea. Thank you. 29 30 MS. ATORUK: Through the Chair. I 31 really appreciate this program because it involves our 32 people, our younger people to be there and then 33 whenever there's any problem that comes up, they know 34 there are other hunters and they understand what they 35 are talking about and what they are doing out there. 36 So it really helps us in the villages to be able to say 37 go see so and so in each village. I didn't even know 38 there were others. We just have an idea who ours is at 39 Kiana. So I really appreciate this program. 40 41 Thank you. 42 43 MR. WALDRON: Thank you for that. I'd 44 like to add to that that this program is done as a 45 partnership between NMS and NANA itself and also Teck. 46 We at NMS enjoy that partnership and certainly we take 47 pride in what we're helping give back to the community 48 in terms of hiring the local people. We buy a lot of 49 fuel in the villages and groceries and equipment. We 50

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Page 76 1 certainly feel it's mutually beneficial and we hope the 2 people of the region do as well. 3 4 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: In the past I've seen 5 Mr. Sheldon. Is that the one in Kiana? 6 7 MR. WALDRON: Uh-huh (affirmative). 8 9 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Yeah, I've seen him 10 post pictures on there when he was out patrolling. 11 That's pretty good to see that he's posting pictures 12 that he's out on the Kobuk River and different places 13 in the river and taking pictures and putting them on 14 his Facebook. That's a pretty good thing. 15 16 That just goes to show that he's out 17 there taking care of the river and taking care of the 18 country and the lands, you know. I've seen him out 19 there a couple times go by. He's always out there 20 looking around and doing what he's supposed to do. 21 It's a pleasure having these guys out there patrolling. 22 23 24 In my mind it would be very interesting 25 to see that you guys 26 could start pairing an officer with either one of the 27 Park Service rangers, BLM guys, State guys so they 28 could learn to handle people who are difficult or may 29 be difficult. Because these are local guys out there 30 and, you know, us as Inupiats we're naturally a shy 31 person. 32 33 It would be great to go out there so 34 these guys could learn those kind of tactics that these 35 guys endure when they're in the field and be able to 36 learn to handle people and talk to them, you know. 37 That way there would be never ever any conflicts out 38 there with trespass officers and other people. 39 40 Thank you. 41 42 MR. WALDRON: Again, Mr. Chair, thank 43 you. That's also very good feedback. During those 44 three days of training that I talked about we did 45 discuss with both the State troopers and BLM and some 46 of the other Federal partners working together and 47 doing those patrols. 48 49 On the abandoned camp that I described 50

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Page 77 1 earlier plans were in the works for the troopers to go 2 upriver with our officer, but unfortunately weather 3 didn't allow that and the flight couldn't get to the 4 village. We tried I believe twice to get there and 5 couldn't get to the camp because water levels were too 6 low and the water levels came up and we had to take 7 advantage of the window when we had the right water to 8 get there. So we just couldn't wait. 9 10 It's not a novel idea to us. It's just 11 we weren't able to make it work out this year, but it's 12 still excellent feedback. 13 14 Thank you. 15 16 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any further 17 questions, Council. 18 19 MS. M. MOTO: Mr. Chair. 20 21 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. Please state 22 your name and your question. 23 24 MS. M. MOTO: Hi. This is Marlene Moto 25 calling from Deering. I think NANA trespass officer 26 must be Alvin Iyatunguk, Jr. and thank you for hiring 27 him, but I am concerned about between here and 28 Buckland, in Candle area, they definitely need an 29 honest NANA trespass officer there too because of all 30 the stories that we encounter through there in regards 31 to hunting and fishing and myself too even. 32 33 I worked up there in Chicago Creek, 34 Candle and Utica Mine and some of the stories were not 35 easy for me to digest because there was some people say 36 we get moose -- when I was working, they'd say we've 37 got to watch out for Fish and Game. They'd say we'll 38 get it for you, Marlene. We got it. You've got to 39 tell them. It's still haunting me to this day. That's 40 why I call and say you guys need a NANA trespass 41 officer there. 42 43 And those Super Cubs coming around 44 sport hunting. Even though results for what they catch 45 in early 2000, this guy had 250 sport hunters Kotzebue 46 people helped me go testify in Fairbanks that time. I 47 didn't know about it until somebody told me and all of 48 our moose disappeared then. And then after that now 49 we've got no more reindeer herds and now caribou is 50

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Page 78 1 hard to come by. I think these people shouldn't even 2 put on National Geographic stories that are not related 3 to us that live here. Subsistence is year around. 4 5 Thank you. 6 7 I've got to hang up because I'm 8 expecting a call from my doctor. 9 10 Thank you. 11 12 MR. WALDRON: Thank you. 13 14 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Hazel, do you have a 15 question. 16 17 MS. SMITH: This is Hazel Smith with 18 Alaska Department of Fish and Game. I'm really glad to 19 hear about NANA Management's Trespass Program. I'd 20 like to see if you guys could make it your goal to 21 train local guides and transporters so that we're not 22 getting a couple hundred people coming up, guides and 23 transporters. We should have homegrown local people 24 that do that work that know our country. 25 26 Thank you. 27 28 MR. WALDRON: Through the Chair. Just 29 to clarify, please. Are you suggesting that NMS train 30 local people to be guides and transporters? Is that 31 what you're suggesting? 32 33 MS. SMITH: Yes. We already have them. 34 Just that we need to follow some kind of system 35 somewhere that somebody tells you've got to have this 36 and you've got to have that. Just help us put that 37 together because we have people that already know how 38 to do it. 39 40 Thank you. 41 42 MR. WALDRON: Thank you. 43 44 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Louie. 45 46 MR. COMMACK: Thank you and thank you 47 for the NANA Trespass Program. I'd just like to know 48 how many miles above Kobuk do you patrol? 49 50

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Page 79 1 MR. WALDRON: Through the Chair. I 2 don't have much local area knowledge and I can't answer 3 that. I don't know. I apologize. 4 5 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: I know the last quite 6 a few years my brother Lance has really taken a serious 7 part in that NANA Trespass Program. He's taken pretty 8 good care of those guys. Lance being able to do that 9 because he's a good guy to work for. 10 11 MR. WALDRON: Yeah. 12 13 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: It's an honor having 14 you guys go out there and -- you know, these guys 15 taking chances with their lives everyday to protect the 16 subsistence resources, the rivers, the lands and the 17 people. 18 19 I still think that we need to come up 20 with something where all these organizations, agencies, 21 including you guys, can always intermingle and be able 22 to take some of these Trespass Program people out there 23 in the field to be able to learn human behavior. I mean 24 they might run into a hunter who is just a complete 25 idiot and they'd be able to watch one of the rangers or 26 something de-escalate the situation and learn how to 27 be able to be a people person because a lot of these 28 guys out here are shy-natured. 29 30 It would be wise for these guys to get 31 a lot of time out in the field with these gentlemen who 32 go out there and handle people on a daily basis. 33 34 MR. WALDRON: I like the idea. We'll 35 work on that for next year. We do train them in 36 de-escalation techniques and strategies, but it's only 37 a few hours. It's not the same as actually being in 38 those situations as you well know. 39 40 You're right, I appreciate everything 41 Lance did for the program because he knocked it out of 42 the park for us the last couple of years and made our 43 job a lot easier. So we appreciate that too. 44 45 MS. ATORUK: Through the Chair. 46 Thinking about this, you know, we have a lot of spike 47 camps that are further up inside the Noatak and 48 probably in the Upper Kobuk area somewhere in there. 49 If our trespass officers would be informed of where 50

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Page 80 1 those spike camps would be so they have an idea of 2 where they are at. 3 4 I'm saying this because of the 5 migration of the caribou has changed so much within the 6 last two years. From what I understand and heard is 7 that because of the spike camps are further up inside 8 the Noatak passing that -- what is that, the Controlled 9 Use Area and further up in there. 10 11 How far do the trespass officers have 12 jurisdiction? Is it just within the area of their 13 villages or can they go further up in there? I know 14 they wouldn't be able to be flying over there without 15 any assistance from someone else, but then that is a 16 concern right now for our region because of these spike 17 camps that we do not have control of. 18 19 It's the transporters and the sport 20 hunters who are out there and still putting them out 21 further away from our reach. The thinking is that 22 they're dispersing our caribou from the original 23 migrating routes. That seriously needs to be looked 24 into and understood by the people within the region to 25 know where those spike camps are. 26 27 Thank you. 28 29 MR. WALDRON: Through the Chair. I 30 think the only point there I may be able to offer some 31 clarification is the trespass officers -- you mentioned 32 jurisdiction. They have no authority off of NANA-owned 33 lands. So if it's beyond the NANA lands, on the 34 Federal or State-controlled lands, they wouldn't have 35 any jurisdiction in those regions. I don't know where 36 these spike camps are that you're describing. 37 Certainly if they're on NANA lands we'll do what we can 38 to get our guys up the river so they can check in on 39 them. 40 41 MS. ATORUK: Okay, thank you. That's 42 what I thought it was. I thought they would just be 43 within the NANA region and not further up there where 44 -- somebody else's business then. 45 46 Thank you. 47 48 MR. WALDRON: Okay. 49 50

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1 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any further questions 2 from the Council. Maija. 3 4 MS. LUKIN: Thank you. Maija Lukin, 5 Park Service. I think what you're talking about is 6 past the Controlled Use Area in the Noatak National 7 Preserve. Every year we have a number of transporters 8 and guides as well who put up these spike camps up in 9 the eastern area of the Preserve. Is that what you're 10 talking about? 11 12 MS. ATORUK: Uh-huh (affirmative). 13 14 MS. LUKIN: So each year we do a 15 transporter database. We don't have the information 16 for this year, but we have the information for the 17 several years past. We can provide that information to 18 the NANA Trespass Program. I know our District Ranger 19 Joe works really well with the Trespass Program and we 20 really appreciate at the Park Service the work that NMS 21 does. 22 23 They do provide information if it's 24 requested and if it's something that NMS would like, 25 the transporter database of all the specific spots 26 where people are dropped off at, we'll provide that for 27 them. 28 29 MS. ATORUK: Okay. Thank you. 30 31 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any further questions 32 from the Council. 33 34 (No comments) 35 36 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Tristen, do you have 37 anything? Are you back yet? 38 39 MR. PATTEE: No, I'm okay. Thank you. 40 41 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Thank you, guys. 42 43 MR. WALDRON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 44 45 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Next on the agenda is 46 wildlife proposals, OSM Wildlife/Anthropology. Page 32 47 of your book. 48 49 MS. MAAS: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 50

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Page 82 1 Members of the Council. For the record my name is Lisa 2 Maas and I'm a wildlife biologist in the Office of 3 Subsistence Management. I'll be presenting a summary 4 of the analysis for Wildlife Proposals 5 WP20-43/44/45/46, which begin on Page 33 of your 6 meeting books. 7 8 Wildlife Proposal WP20-43 was submitted 9 by the Kotzebue Sound AC. Proposal WP20-45 was 10 submitted by this Council and requests a year-round 11 bull season for caribou in Unit 23. Wildlife Proposal 12 WP20-44 was also submitted by the Kotzebue Sound AC and 13 requests that harvest of caribou calves be permitted 14 in Unit 23. Wildlife Proposal WP20-46 was submitted by 15 the 16 Western Arctic Caribou Herd Working Group or WACH 17 Working Group and requests a year-round bull season and 18 that harvest of caribou calves be permitted in Unit 23. 19 20 21 The Kotzebue Sound AC noted that 22 migration of the Western Arctic Herd has occurred later 23 in recent years resulting in a bull season already 24 being closed when caribou pass through accessible 25 areas. Therefore, harvest has switched to cows, which 26 could become a conservation concern. Opening the bull 27 closure would allow harvest of younger bulls that do 28 not stink during the rut, conserving cows and 29 alleviating compliance issues associated with 30 distinguishing between bulls and cows. 31 32 The Kotzebue Sound AC also stated that 33 while no one target's calves, legalizing calf harvest 34 would allow take of orphan calves that may otherwise be 35 killed by predators. The WACH Working Group provided 36 the same rational as the Kotzebue AC. 37 38 The Northwest Arctic Council states 39 that eliminating the bull closure would allow Harvest 40 of younger bulls reducing harvest pressure on cows. The 41 Council echoes concerns of the Kotzebue AC that due to 42 caribou migration occurring later in the year only the 43 cow season is open when caribou migrate through 44 accessible areas. Eliminating the bull closure would 45 take pressure off Federally qualified subsistence users 46 to harvest caribou during a certain timeframe. 47 48 In 2013 an aerial photo census 49 indicated significant declines in the Western Arctic 50

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Page 83 1 Herd. in response the Board of Game and the Federal 2 Subsistence Board implemented a suite of regulatory 3 restrictions across the range of the Western Arctic 4 Herd in 2015, including closing the bull season during 5 the rut and prohibiting calf harvest. Therefore, these 6 restrictions have only been in regulation for a short 7 time and were intended as conservation measures during 8 a time of steep decline. 9 10 The Kotzebue Sound AC and the WACH 11 Working Group also submitted identical proposals to the 12 State, Proposals 19, 20, 24 and 25. The Board of Game 13 will act on these proposals in January 2020. 14 15 The Western Arctic Herd declined from a 16 peak population of 490,000 caribou in 2003 to a low of 17 201,000 caribou in 2016.In 2017, The herd increased to 18 an estimated 259,000 caribou. While a photo census was 19 not completed in 2018, results from a successful 2019 20 photo census are currently being processed and should 21 be available by December. 22 23 Bull/cow ratios have been adequate and 24 generally above 40 bulls per hundred cows. Caribou 25 calving generally occurs in while weaning occurs in 26 late fall before the breeding season. Calves stay with 27 their mothers through their first winter which improves 28 calves access to food and body condition. Calves 29 orphaned after weaning have a greater chance of 30 survival than calves orphaned before weaning. 31 32 Since about 2000 the timing of fall 33 migration has become less predictable often occurring 34 later than in previous decades. Caribou have been and 35 are a primary subsistence resource in the Northwest 36 Arctic Region. 37 38 Traditionally cows and calves were 39 highly valued for their hides and were harvested in 40 late summer when their hides were prime for making 41 clothes. Calves also provided food for elders as their 42 meat was more tender and easier to chew. However, 43 hunters no longer target calves in the Northwest Arctic 44 region and Northwest Arctic Council members indicated 45 harvest of calves to be wrong and unethical. 46 47 The harvestable surplus of the Western 48 Arctic Herd is calculated and 7 percent of the 49 estimated population. In 2016 harvest likely exceeded 50

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Page 84 1 the harvestable surplus when harvest was estimated at 2 15,000 caribou while the harvestable surplus was only 3 12,000 caribou. However, the population increased in 4 2017 and increased the harvestable surplus estimate to 5 18,000 caribou likely bringing harvest back to 6 sustainable levels. 7 8 Local community harvest reflects 9 caribou availability rather than population trends and 10 Federally qualified subsistence users account for 11 approximately 95 percent of total Western Arctic 12 caribou harvest. As caribou migration has been 13 occurring later in recent years subsistence harvest has 14 also been occurring later in late October or November 15 for example rather than December. 16 17 One alternative considered was to 18 maintain the prohibition on calf harvest as some 19 members of the Northwest Arctic Council voiced strong 20 opposition to calf harvest. Initiatives by Kotzebue 21 elders and a caribou hunter safety work group are also 22 helping to educate people about safe and respectful 23 hunting practices including taking enough time before 24 shooting to avoid orphaning a calf. 25 26 Since no conservation concerns are 27 associated with allowing calf harvest and it increases 28 Harvest opportunity, OSM supports calf harvest but 29 recognizes Northwest Arctic council members may 30 consider calf harvest to be in conflict with their 31 subsistence lifestyle and beliefs. Regardless, that is 32 for the Councils to decide not OSM. 33 34 Additionally, other subsistence users 35 on the Kotzebue AC and the WACH Working Group support 36 calf harvest and other Councils, including the North 37 Slope, Western Interior and Seward Peninsula also 38 considered this issue. 39 40 If these proposals are adopted, the 41 bull caribou season would be open year-round and the 42 harvest of caribou calves would be permitted in Unit 43 23. Eliminating the bull closure provides more harvest 44 opportunity and imposes no conservation concerns. 45 Young bulls could still be harvested during the rut 46 taking harvest pressure off of cows and providing more 47 harvest flexibility to Federally qualified subsistence 48 users. 49 50

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Page 85 1 Permitting calf harvest would allow the 2 harvest of orphan calves, however identifying orphan 3 calves can be difficult because cows and calves are 4 sometimes separated by substantial distances. Allowing 5 calf harvest may also reduce wanton waste as calves 6 mistakenly shot are left in the field since they cannot 7 be legally harvested or salvaged. 8 9 Northwest Arctic Council members and a 10 local biologist have reported seeing wounded or 11 orphaned calves out in the field that are not legally 12 available for harvest. The Western Arctic and 13 Teshekpuk Caribou Herds are the only herds in Alaska 14 where calf harvest is prohibited and it's only been 15 prohibited since 2015. 16 17 Calves only comprise an estimated 2 18 percent of the harvest. This was of course before 2015 19 when they were prohibited, which is not biologically 20 meaningful. Indeed, prohibiting cow harvest would have 21 much more of a conservation impact on herd abundance 22 than prohibiting calf harvest. 23 24 The Board of Game will consider these 25 issues in January. If only the Board of Game passes 26 these proposals and not the Federal Subsistence Board, 27 Federal regulations would be more restrictive than 28 State regulations, contrary to ANILCA. 29 30 Differing State and Federal regulations 31 would also create user confusion and cause users to 32 distinguish between Federal and non-Federal lands 33 including the mean high-water mark, which can be very 34 difficult to define. In summary, adopting these 35 proposals increases harvest opportunity and there are 36 no conservation concerns although there may be social 37 or cultural concerns. 38 39 The OSM preliminary conclusion is to 40 support WP20-46. That's the proposal that requests both 41 the year-round bull closure and allowing calf harvest 42 and to take no action on Proposals WP20-43, 44 and 45. 43 44 45 Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd be happy, and 46 Hannah is here too, to answer any questions. 47 48 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any questions. 49 Reppi. 50

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1 MR. SWAN: Do you guys keep track of 2 the sport hunters that harvest bull caribous? 3 4 MS. MAAS: The sport hunters have to 5 get -- they report their harvest, so the State has 6 records of the harvest from any sport hunters or 7 non-local users. 8 9 MR. SWAN: Okay. What I'd like to know 10 is from the last year's report on how much bull 11 caribous were harvested from the sport hunters all 12 together. 13 14 MS. MAAS: Alex, do you have those 15 numbers? 16 17 MR. HANSEN: Through the Chair. This 18 is Alex Hansen, Alaska Department of Fish and Game here 19 in Kotzebue, the caribou biologist. I don't have the 20 hard and fast numbers in front of me, Reppi, but 21 roughly the average numbers in the last couple of years 22 have been around 250 to 300 bulls per year. 23 24 MR. SWAN: Do you guys keep track of 25 how much meat they take home? 26 27 MR. HANSEN: We don't track the amount 28 of meat they take home. As far as enforcing salvage, 29 that would be up to the wildlife trooper and Scott 30 could speak to that, but it's my understanding that 31 they either take home or donate all of that meat that's 32 taken out of the field. 33 34 MR. SWAN: Every year we have that 35 problem with sport hunters wasting a lot of meat in our 36 area. That's something that you guys should address 37 because we need the meat. If they could communicate 38 with us when they first get their catch, we could take 39 their meat home as soon as they get their antlers 40 because that's a lot of meat that they waste when they 41 take them home with them because they're out there for 42 weeks and their meat sits out there with them. 43 44 MR. BJORK: I can address that, Reppi. 45 Scott Bjork, Alaska Wildlife Trooper. During the 46 hunting season, especially during the non-resident 47 hunting season, I am constantly out in the field 48 contacting hunters, making sure that they salvage all 49 the meat per State regs. If they don't, then they get 50

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Page 87 1 cited. I also contact a lot of hunters coming in from 2 out in the field to make sure that all the meat has 3 been salvaged. 4 5 Once it's out of the field some of them 6 decide to bring it home and others donate it. Usually 7 the transporters have different contacts who they 8 donate it to. The State doesn't get involved in that. 9 10 MR. SWAN: Okay. How much do they get 11 fined for bad meat or the meat they left if they can't 12 salvage the meat? 13 14 MR. BJORK: It just depends on the 15 totality of circumstances. There's no set fine 16 scheduled. They'd be issued a summons to appear in 17 court and that's something that the judge -- if found 18 guilty, that would be something the judge would 19 determine what the fine is. 20 21 MR. SWAN: I think it should be when 22 the meat is not salvageable, you know, when they bring 23 it in to either here or the villages, the meat is bad 24 already and it can't be salvaged, that's a lot of meat 25 that's been wasted that could have been used for here 26 or any other village. 27 28 MR. BJORK: I understand. That's part 29 of my job and I check in on a daily basis. If we do 30 come across those situations, then they do get cited, 31 but that part of the State regulations is it has to be 32 salvaged for human consumption. 33 34 MR. SWAN: My next question. What is 35 the average fine that they get? 36 37 MR. BJORK: Again it would have to go 38 through an adjud..... 39 40 MR. SWAN: Just a general. 41 42 MR. BJORK: That would have to be up to 43 the judge to determine. It could be a couple hundreds 44 of dollars to thousands of dollars depending on just 45 didn't salvage the rib meat or did they not salvage the 46 entire caribou. 47 48 MR. SWAN: These sport hunters, you 49 know, they pay thousands to go out there and hunt. 50

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Page 88 1 They pay thousands. To hear the fines being low, like 2 a couple hundred dollars or a couple thousands, you 3 know, that's their pocket change. They're sport 4 hunters, they can afford it. 5 6 MR. BJORK: Again there's no set fine 7 schedule for the salvage of meat. It's a court summons 8 and that's something that the judge or magistrate 9 determines on what kind of a fine would be issued. 10 11 MR. SWAN: I think it should be changed 12 while it's there that's not salvageable should be 13 determined by someone that's there like you to 14 determine whether they should be fined or not instead 15 of waiting. 16 17 MS. MAAS: Mr. Chair. ADF&G and the 18 law enforcement officers are going to present later in 19 the meeting. Right now we're focused on Wildlife 20 Proposal WP20-43 through 46, which has to do with 21 allowing bull harvest and calf harvest for Federally 22 qualified subsistence users. So I think some of 23 Reppi's questions might be more appropriate when the 24 agencies give their presentations. 25 26 MR. SWAN: Okay. 27 28 MR. BJORK: And I can address any of 29 that when we give our presentations. 30 31 MR. SWAN: Thank you. 32 33 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Reppi, we have a 34 section in here for law enforcement briefing. 35 Currently on the floor right now we have WP20-43, 44, 36 45, 46 is on the table right now. That's to eliminate 37 bull closure and prohibit taking of calves. 38 39 I've seen calves back here and I admit 40 I shot one before because it didn't have a lower jaw. 41 It was mistakenly shot and when I had seen it its head 42 was down in a snowbank and when I pulled up to it it 43 didn't even try to look at me because it wouldn't do 44 anything. I wasn't going to just leave that thing 45 there. So I went over there myself and I just shot it, 46 but I did take it home. 47 48 I salvaged the hide and an elder used 49 that hide for crafts. I gave her most of the meat. I 50

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Page 89 1 only kept a little bit, but I gave her all the meat. 2 That calf did not go to waste. It was better than that 3 calf sitting out there feeding foxes. Occasionally we 4 do run into caribou that have been accidentally hit by 5 stray bullets, whether they're intentional or 6 unintentional. 7 8 This all comes down to being able to 9 decipher making our own people a criminal for taking 10 this calf or making it legal for him to be able to 11 shoot this calf and put it out of its misery because of 12 it being accidentally hit by a bullet. I think the 13 calf portion of it should be considered and the bull 14 closure be eliminated because a lot of people have 15 brought that up to me. 16 17 I think there should be a limit as to 18 how many calves per year can be harvested because that 19 way it's kept track of. Say Game Management Unit 23 is 20 allowed 10 calves per year. That don't mean go out and 21 hunt one, but if you go out and find one wounded and 22 you shoot it, then you could call it in and that will 23 be one of the 10 calves that's been harvested. 24 25 People would be sent to this person as 26 to why they shot it and they'll have to fill out 27 necessary paperwork to show that this calf was shot for 28 good reasons, when it's suffering. They used the meat 29 and they used the hide for crafts. That was my thought 30 about this whole thing with these proposals here. 31 32 Does anybody else have any questions on 33 that or anybody agree, Council? 34 35 MR. KANTNER: My name is Seth Kantner. 36 I live here and upriver. Are you talking about hunting 37 calves or just putting them out of their misery? 38 39 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Being able to harvest 40 them if they are in time of peril. 41 42 MR. KANTNER: That would be the only 43 harvest. 44 45 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Yeah, that would be 46 the only harvestable time that they can be harvested 47 and be used. 48 49 MR. KANTNER: Okay. So you wouldn't go 50

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Page 90 1 get calf skins for making a parka on purpose. On 2 purpose, mom is standing there and you're 100 percent 3 harvesting. This would be just in times of suffering. 4 5 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Yeah. 6 7 MR. KANTNER: Okay. Thanks. 8 9 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: That way we're not 10 making our people criminals. We're allowing a 11 subsistence resource to be used, not wasted. 12 13 MR. KANTNER: I see. 14 15 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any further questions 16 by the Council. 17 18 (No comments) 19 20 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Hearing none. How 21 would we like to take action on these? 22 23 MS. MAAS: You have a card there. 24 25 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Zach. 26 27 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. 28 There were no written public comments regarding 29 Wildlife Proposal 20-43, 44, 45 or 46. 30 31 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 32 33 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Do we have any public 34 comments regarding these proposals? 35 36 (No comments) 37 38 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Do we have any 39 Regional Council recommendations regarding this? 40 41 MS. MAAS: Through the Chair. The 42 Western Interior, Seward Peninsula and North Slope 43 Councils have already considered and made 44 recommendations on this proposal and all those Councils 45 supported WP20-46 and then took no action on the 46 remaining proposals. They made the same recommendation 47 as OSM. 48 49 MR. COMMACK: Mr. Chairman. Could I 50

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Page 91 1 call for a five-minute break, please. 2 3 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Yeah. We'll go for a 4 five-minute break. 5 6 (Off record) 7 8 (On record) 9 10 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. Do we have any 11 agency comments on this proposal? We'll start off with 12 Alaska Department of Fish and Game. 13 14 MR. COMMACK: Mr. Chair. 15 16 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead. 17 18 MR. COMMACK: I'm asking for 19 clarification on 46, calf harvest be permitted for 20 caribou in 23. Does that include a limit or timeframe? 21 I'm not sure how that's being proposed. 22 23 MS. MAAS: Lisa Maas for the record. 24 It would be the same as the bull or cow harvest. The 25 calf harvest would just -- there wouldn't be a specific 26 harvest limit for calves. It would be whatever the 27 five caribou per day harvest limit would be. Does that 28 make sense? There's no specific harvest limit for 29 calves. If calf harvest is permitted, then you could 30 harvest calves the same as you'd harvest the bulls and 31 cows. 32 33 MS. ATORUK: Through the Chair. If 34 that does happen, I know many years ago there used to 35 be some calves that were harvested because they used 36 them for clothing. We don't do that anymore today. I 37 haven't heard of anyone harvesting fawns for anything. 38 I personally haven't. If we're going to open it up, I 39 would make it so that -- like the Chair was saying, he 40 shot it because it was already in despair or hurt. 41 42 So if there would be a wording in there 43 to say if the calf has been wounded or if the calf is 44 alone out there in the tundra or the country or if it's 45 laying there and it's hurt. The hunters would clearly 46 know and understand that. There will be some hunters 47 out there who will just shoot fawns, just shoot calves 48 for whatever reason just because it's open, but if this 49 was made clear to them and for them to understand it be 50

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Page 92 1 opened to help the calves, I think that would be more 2 presentable than just opening it up. 3 4 This is my feeling. 5 6 Thank you. 7 8 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Hazel. 9 10 MS. MAAS: We're just going to go 11 through the process to let all the agencies provide 12 comments. 13 14 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. 15 16 MS. MAAS: And then after they provide 17 comments then it's time for Regional Council 18 recommendation and deliberation. 19 20 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. We'll go with 21 Alaska Department of Fish and Game. 22 23 MR. HANSEN: Through the Chair. This 24 is Alex Hansen, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, 25 caribou biologist here in Kotzebue. I just wanted to on 26 the record say that I agree with OSM's recommendations. 27 We don't see any conservation concern for the harvest 28 of calves nor for the increased harvest or potential 29 for harvest of bulls. 30 31 We recognize that there is a 32 possibility that if some bulls are harvested later in 33 the season, that may potentially reduce the harvest of 34 cows, which is the productive component of the herd, so 35 that is a potential benefit to that. 36 37 I guess just basically adding calves 38 into the bag limit just cleans up the regulations. 39 This is the only herd, this and the Teshekpuk Herd, 40 that have a restriction on calf harvest. We don't 41 think that the calf harvest is very high. As stated by 42 OSM, about 2 percent. 43 44 Just kind of going along those lines, 45 we have a current calf survival study going on right 46 now and our overall survival is about 40 percent. So 47 mostly this mortality on calves would be compensatory. 48 It would be animals that would probably die and have 49 natural causes anyway. There's potential for that. So 50

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Page 93 1 that is kind of our recommendation. 2 3 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Thank you. 4 5 MS. VOORHEES: Through the Chair. I 6 just wanted to respond to Barbara's comment, which is 7 very well taken. I think that my understanding is that 8 there could be an issue with enforceability and 9 distinguishing or making sure that calves are only 10 taken when they're wounded. However, I think this is 11 an example of a place where local traditional practices 12 and education could converge very well and reinforce 13 language in the regulations. So I'm hoping that we can 14 work towards a solution. 15 16 Thank you. 17 18 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Hazel. 19 Alaska Department of Fish and Game. 20 21 MS. SMITH: Hazel Smith, Fish and Game. 22 I believe the authors of the calf taking is on the 23 incidental take of calves. We're not opening up a 24 whole new calf season. We don't go out for calves, 25 like Barbara said. You know, maybe years ago we 26 targeted them for clothes, but we don't anymore. 27 28 This is just to close a loophole when 29 we have an incidental take of a calf that we're not 30 turned into criminals anymore and that's the purpose 31 behind the original proposal on calves. 32 33 Thanks. 34 35 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Thank you. That 36 clarifies everything. Are there questions of the 37 Alaska Department of Fish and Game. 38 39 (No comments) 40 41 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any further 42 information? 43 44 (No comments) 45 46 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Next we'll go ahead 47 and go to Federal agency comments regarding these 48 proposals. 49 50

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Page 94 1 MR. FRONSTIN: This is Raime Fronstin, 2 biologist with the Park Service here in Kotzebue. We 3 also agree with OSM's analysis. Instinctually, I think 4 I feel the way you do about killing calves. I don't 5 like it when I think about it. So I ran the numbers 6 just to maybe give you some numbers because I think 7 they satisfied me more. 8 9 When we say historically, there was a 10 study done with 22 years of caribou data and 11 historically when calf season was open 2 percent of the 12 harvest was calves and the harvest estimate was 13 averaged at 15,000. So 2 percent of 15,000 is 300 14 animals. So 300 of those animals were calves. 15 16 Then we talk about compensatory versus 17 additive mortality. So we say the mortality rate is 60 18 percent for calves, which means that two out of every 19 three calves will die just from predation and other 20 things, natural causes. So if you look at 300 animals, 21 200 of those are going to be compensatory. They're 22 going to die from some other reasons. 23 24 So really if 100 of those are 25 harvested, they'd be additive, so we'd be talking about 26 100 animals, which is really, in a conversation point 27 of view, is not going to do any harm to the population. 28 I understand though, you know, not liking it. 29 30 And then I think just to clarify. 31 While the intent of the proposal I also heard was for 32 incidental taking of calves or for calves that were 33 injured as it's written now it's just opening calf 34 seasons. I believe it can be requested to be modified 35 by you if you wanted to, but as it's written right now 36 it's just open to calves. 37 38 Thank you. 39 40 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any other Federal 41 agencies. 42 43 (No comments) 44 45 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Seeing none. Tribal 46 agencies regarding proposals. 47 48 MS. MAAS: Just through the Chair. We 49 did hold a tribal and ANCSA corporation consultation 50

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Page 95 1 for these proposals, but no comments were received. 2 3 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Do we have any other 4 comments by Regional Councils regarding these 5 proposals? 6 7 MS. MAAS: Lisa Maas for the record. 8 As previously stated, the Western Interior, Seward 9 Peninsula and North Slope Councils have customary and 10 traditional use determination for caribou in Unit 23, 11 so they also considered these proposals and they 12 basically agreed with the OSM conclusion. 13 14 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead. 15 16 MR. PATTEE: I'm just having a really 17 tough time hearing you guys because of the rain on the 18 roof here, but are we making a decision on whether or 19 not to open or close the calf hunting season? 20 21 MS. MAAS: Tristen, this is Lisa Maas. 22 We are considering Proposals WP20-43, 44, 45 and 46. 23 So those proposals consider opening the bull season, so 24 a year-round bull season, and lifting the restriction 25 on calf harvest. Do you copy that, Tristen? 26 27 MR. PATTEE: Yeah, just barely. I did 28 hear the recommendations from the agencies and my 29 stance is to go ahead and support the recommendations 30 of the agencies. I can see how difficult it can be for 31 enforcement to be able to consider what's been shot or 32 you see a calf in danger. I know if a hunter is out 33 there, they're going to want to put it down. 34 35 In my experience, I hadn't really seen 36 a hunter go after calves on purpose. Like someone said 37 before, if you're able to pass on that traditional 38 knowledge, just like you pass on letting the first 39 caribou cross, I feel that we can do the same thing 40 about calves, you know. I don't think a lot of people 41 will be actively hunting calves even if we keep it 42 open. Usually they're after the bulls. 43 44 But if there is that circumstance that 45 there is a calf that needs to be put down so it doesn't 46 suffer, I think not making them criminals would be a 47 good thing. 48 49 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any other further 50

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Page 96 1 questions by..... 2 3 MR. PATTEE: Were you guys able to hear 4 me? 5 6 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: .....Council. Yes, 7 we were. 8 9 MR. PATTEE: Okay. Thanks. 10 11 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Do we have any 12 summary of written public comments. 13 14 MS. MAAS: (Indiscernible - away from 15 mic). 16 17 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Advisory group 18 comments of the region, Councils, Fish and Game 19 Advisory Committees. 20 21 MS. SMITH: Hazel Smith, Fish and Game. 22 I'm one of six regional regulatory program assistants 23 for the State. We facilitate advisory committee 24 meetings across the state on all hunting and fishing 25 regulations that are proposed. 26 27 The Kotzebue Sound AC met last Thursday 28 and on opening a year-round resident season for caribou 29 bull harvest was a proposal that was submitted by the 30 Kotzebue Sound AC. They unanimously supported it. The 31 same with the WACH caribou proposal to open a 32 year-round resident season. 33 34 There was another proposal to reduce 35 the bag limit for caribou in Unit 23, but that was 36 unanimously opposed. The same with the Northern Seward 37 Peninsula's proposal to extend the taking of caribou 38 cow season was opposed. Restriction of the use of 39 snowmachines for taking caribou in Unit 23 was also 40 opposed. 41 42 They unanimously supported removal of 43 the restriction of caribou calf harvest both from the 44 AC and the WACH and, as I have stated, this is on 45 incidental take of calf. This is not opening up a calf 46 season. They just don't want people outside the law if 47 they happen to get a calf. They want something in the 48 books that will protect them so that was their action 49 last Thursday. 50

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Page 97 1 I don't know if Alex or somebody has 2 anything else to add. Mike, you were at the meeting. 3 4 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Lisa. 5 6 MS. MAAS: I just wanted to clarify for 7 the Council that Hazel is reporting on the Kotzebue 8 AC's actions on State proposals, but the State 9 proposals are identical to these Federal proposals, so 10 I think it's safe to say if they support it under State 11 regulations, they would probably support it under the 12 Federal regulations. Just again this issue is being 13 considered by both the Board of Game and the Federal 14 Subsistence Board. 15 16 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: We need to somehow 17 mirror our proposals with the State and that way there 18 is no confusion. Is there any other considerations 19 from the Council or wording from the Council. 20 21 Go ahead, Louie. 22 23 MR. COMMACK: Thank you. Given the 24 report from Kotzebue again I ask that you are saying 25 that you're not giving the perception that hunting 26 calves is full season. So you're not giving the idea 27 it's a full season. It's only when they're suffering. 28 Did I hear you right? 29 30 MS. SMITH: Yes, exactly. The proposal 31 is incidental take of calf. They're not opening a calf 32 season. 33 34 MR. COMMACK: Okay. I want to be sure 35 of that, that we don't give the perception that you go 36 out and get five bull caribou, but you're allowed five 37 calves. 38 39 MS. SMITH: Uh-huh, exactly. 40 41 MR. COMMACK: I'm not with that. I'm 42 with only -- there should be an amendment to this 43 Proposal 46 amending the proposal that we do it like 44 Hazel suggests. I don't know the wording for it. 45 46 MS. SMITH: Incidental take. 47 48 MR. COMMACK: Okay. All right. 49 50 Computer Matrix, LLC Phone: 907-243-0668 135 Christensen Dr., Ste. 2., Anch. AK 99501 Fax: 907-243-1473

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1 MS. ATORUK: Would that be incidental 2 calf take? 3 4 MS. SMITH: Incidental take of calves. 5 6 MR. COMMACK: Or wounded or suffering 7 or what's the wording? 8 9 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Incidental pretty 10 much describes that. I think it should be a harvest. 11 That way it's harvested and not wasted. 12 13 MR. COMMACK: Okay. 14 15 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: What I'd like to do 16 is see that wording incidental be included with that 17 opening calf season only for incidental reasons. Being 18 wounded, motherless, completely away from the herd, 19 whatever it may be. That bull closure be reopened 20 year-round again. Is that what I'm understanding is 21 the wish of the Council? 22 23 MR. COMMACK: I hear you loud and 24 clear. Thank you. 25 26 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. With that 27 being said, do we have any SRC comments. 28 29 MS. ATKINSON: Hi. This is Hannah 30 Atkinson with the National Park Service. I support the 31 Kobuk Valley Subsistence Resource Commission and the 32 Cape Krusenstern National Monument Subsistence Resource 33 Commission and also letters that you have in front of 34 you. 35 36 Both the Commissions reviewed the 37 proposals, so I'll just read -- I can read the whole 38 comment that they gave. I provided a lot of comment 39 from the members or I can just read the summary and 40 then you have it in front of you if you want to just 41 see the individual comments from the members. 42 43 On this proposal the Commission voted 44 to support the year-round bull harvest. This is for 45 the Kobuk Valley SRC. They voted to support the 46 year-round bull harvest for caribou season, but opposed 47 the elimination of the prohibition on calf harvest. 48 They provided comments about how they wanted to 49 harvest. They wanted to harvest bulls year round, but 50

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Page 99 1 had some concerns about harvesting calves. 2 3 The Cape Krusenstern Subsistence 4 Resource Commission voted to support the year-round 5 bull caribou season, but did not come to a consensus on 6 the portion of these proposals that addresses calf 7 harvest. 8 9 So there were some members who agreed 10 that it would be nice to harvest orphan calves or calf 11 incident take, but then there were some members of the 12 Cape Krusenstern Subsistence Resource Commission that 13 agreed that it's not a part of the culture to harvest 14 calves anymore, that there isn't calf harvest going on, 15 and that it should just be left to nature to determine 16 the fate of wounded calves. 17 18 Are there any questions? 19 20 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any questions by the 21 Council. 22 23 MS. ATKINSON: I'll just also mention 24 that the Kobuk Valley Subsistence Resource Commission 25 created the Hunter Success Working Group that is 26 mentioned in the analyses. So as you're talking about 27 if this is to pass what kind of educational initiatives 28 would be needed to pair with the regulation, I can 29 answer any questions about that working group. 30 31 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead. 32 33 MR. BJORK: Through the Chair. Scott 34 Bjork, Wildlife Troopers. I just want to clarify 35 something with the regulation proposed to the AC with 36 the orphan calves. The intent to my understanding is 37 to remove the restriction on calf harvest so it will 38 allow the take of incidental, but if it is removed, 39 there's no way to enforce just incidental, so it does 40 open up for anybody to take if it's incidental or not 41 incidental. 42 43 I just wanted to clarify that it's not 44 just for incidental. It will just remove the wording 45 that it's prohibited of harvest of calves. Does that 46 make sense? 47 48 MS. ATORUK: So it is better if we want 49 it open or want it to be permitted, then that wording 50

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1 would have to be that calf harvest be permitted for 2 caribou. We can't add the word in incidental? 3 4 MR. BJORK: I can comment on 5 enforceability and incidental would be very hard to 6 enforce because unless I'm right there to know if it's 7 injured or not, if we contact a hunter coming in and 8 they just have a calf, we don't know if it was orphaned 9 or injured. 10 11 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Lisa. 12 13 MS. MAAS: Through the Chair. 14 Currently under regulations there's a provision that 15 says harvest of cows with calves is prohibited and I 16 guess I'm asking the State Trooper here whether that's 17 an enforceable regulation or not. 18 19 MR. BJORK: It is hard depending on 20 when you contact if you're out in the field watching 21 the person take the -- let's say there's a cow and a 22 calf out there and not the rest of the herd. Obviously 23 if there's hundreds of caribou running around, it's 24 hard to know which calf goes to which cow, but if 25 there's only a cow and a calf out there and a hunter 26 just took the cow, then there's only going to be a calf 27 left. If somebody was out there observing that, 28 documenting it, then it could potentially be enforced. 29 30 MS. MAAS: So I guess I just want to 31 make the point that there's already these regulations 32 that are somewhat unenforceable, so this provision to 33 allow incidental take of calves is kind of similar to 34 that prohibition on the take of cows with calves. To 35 enforce it would require a State Trooper, a law 36 enforcement officer, to be watching the hunter, which 37 doesn't happen very often. 38 39 MR. BJORK: It's my understanding that 40 the AC originally proposed to remove that wording just 41 so it does allow somebody to take incidental if they 42 see it out there, but it also will allow anybody to 43 take any calf as well. 44 45 MS. ATORUK: Through the Chair. You 46 know, this proposal is submitted by the Western Arctic 47 Caribou Herd Working Group. Okay. 48 49 MS. MAAS: Through the Chair. In 50

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Page 101 1 response to Barbara's comment. The representatives 2 from the Kotzebue AC are also on the Western Arctic 3 Caribou Herd Working Group, so that's how the working 4 group ended up submitting the exact same proposals. 5 They had representatives from the Kotzebue AC at their 6 meeting that recommended that. 7 8 MS. ATORUK: And then come back and not 9 support it under the AC? Did they not support it? 10 11 MS. MAAS: The WACH Working Group 12 hasn't met yet. They'll meet in December. 13 14 MS. ATORUK: I mean the advisory 15 committee. 16 17 MS. MAAS: Oh, they supported it, but I 18 think they just wanted to clarify their intention. 19 20 MS. ATORUK: Okay. 21 22 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Yeah, by making it 23 incidental. Speaking with Alex earlier, he did say 24 that if this was opened there would be several slots on 25 the harvest ticket where we'd have calves. I think it 26 would be beneficial to be able to -- you know, if 27 somebody did take one incidentally -- and that's one of 28 the things that's in the Inupiat culture is respect for 29 the animals, respect for culture. 30 31 That's a key thing in our Inupiat 32 values. One who does not follow the Inupiat values, 33 then that's one wrong person. Everybody who lives out 34 there by our Inupiat values usually goes true to the 35 reasoning why they're harvesting a caribou and they'll 36 report it, especially when it's a calf. I mean I don't 37 like seeing wounded calves out there. I'll take one if 38 need be, but I want to be able to make it legal to 39 where if I do see one that someone else had 40 accidentally shot, I could take it incidentally and 41 claim it on the harvest ticket. 42 43 As Alex stated, several calves a year 44 taken does not really have an effect on the herd. 45 We're just trying to show respect for the caribou by 46 taking out a wounded animal and being able to harvest 47 it and for an elder being able to use the hide and use 48 the meat. If it's allowed to be reportable that they 49 can report it on their harvest ticket, I think that 50

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Page 102 1 would be great. 2 3 MS. ATORUK: Through the Chair. But I 4 think what the Officer just said is that if we put in 5 incidental, then he would have to be there to prove it 6 was incidental versus just being an open season for 7 calves. Am I right or wrong or anything? 8 9 MR. PAPPAS: Mr. Chair. You said 10 something pretty important -- this is George Pappas, 11 OSM -- about four or five sentences ago. Something 12 about having two cutouts on your tag for calves. Is 13 that being discussed at all or being entertained as the 14 possibility of having a limit of one or two calves per 15 household so then maybe the concerns of a lot of folks 16 going out and hunting calves intentionally might be 17 reduced? That's an issue that hasn't been discussed. 18 19 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Yeah, that's one of 20 the points why I was only allowing two slots on the RC 21 registered caribou 907 tag, that there be two slots on 22 there that has calves in the addition portion of it, 23 bull, cow, calf, to where it would be reported. 24 25 It would also state on there that when 26 they do get the ticket, say, hey, you ran into a calf 27 that's wounded, maimed, motherless. You're allowed to 28 harvest it and report them on this tag legally without 29 getting into trouble. We don't want to make our people 30 into criminals for doing the right thing. Respect for 31 animals is in our culture and our values. Being 32 truthful is one of the things in our culture also. 33 34 Go ahead, Enoch. 35 36 MR. MITCHELL: I'd like to open up the 37 bull all around because when the big bulls go in rut in 38 wintertime we start hunting the young bulls. I don't 39 see no definition in there where it says big bulls or 40 young bull, but it says bull. 41 42 Because of the fact what I hear from 43 the Fish and Game trooper over there that says that if 44 we open up the calves for incidental, we're going to 45 open it up for all the calves. So my feeling is that I 46 kind of don't like that. If we open up the calves, we 47 open it up for all the calves. If we open it up for 48 one wounded calves, we're going to open it up for all 49 the calves. So I'd rather keep it closed and protect 50

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Page 103 1 the calves. Keep the bulls open because we hunt the 2 young bulls all winter long. I like that idea too, not 3 open up the calves. We could protect all of them by 4 not opening it up. 5 6 MR. BJORK: Thank you, Enoch. You guys 7 would have to decide, but if it does go through for the 8 State, it is opened up for all calves. The AC's 9 reasoning was just allow the harvest of it incidentally 10 so they don't get in trouble. But it would allow 11 anybody to potentially harvest as many -- up to five a 12 day. 13 14 MS. MAAS: Lisa Maas for the record. I 15 just wanted to clarify for the Council that if the 16 Board of Game approves calf harvest and hypothetically 17 the Federal Subsistence Board does not approve calf 18 harvest, everyone could still harvest calves under 19 State regulations on all Federal public lands except 20 National Parks and the closed area around Noatak. 21 22 So we don't know what the Board of Game 23 will decide. They're not meeting until January, but 24 the Federal Subsistence Board, when they act in April, 25 they will know what the Board of Game decided on these 26 proposals. That's just another consideration. 27 28 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: So what I'm seeing 29 here WP20-44 calf harvest be permitted for caribou, 30 Kotzebue Sound AC, with the amendments including that 31 calves can only be taken when they're deemed to be 32 abandoned or incidently shot already. With only two 33 slots on the RC907 being allowed for calf harvest, that 34 somewhat covers someone who has to take a calf because 35 it is wounded or abandoned just for respect to the 36 animal. 37 38 I think that allowing someone to be 39 able to harvest a calf incidentally for the purpose of 40 it being wounded or abandoned would be an ethical way 41 of being able to take care of this animal just as long 42 as it's not wasted and the hide is used and it's 43 reported. I don't see no problem with opening up calf 44 harvest with two slots on the RC907 being permitted. 45 46 MR. PAPPAS: Mr. Chair. Thank you very 47 much. You're making it very clear one step at a time. 48 I appreciate this. Just like last meeting, one more 49 level of complexity. If this Regional Advisory Council 50

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Page 104 1 does not want to see calves harvested by non-Federally 2 qualified people on Federal public lands, you could 3 recommend that to the Board. You could ask the Board 4 to restrict the harvest of non-Federally qualified from 5 hunting calves. 6 7 If you have the Federal subsistence 8 permit containing whatever calves you want and the word 9 incidental in there, it's imperative that you guys 10 build a record here on that. But you do have the 11 option if you're concerned and this is something you 12 want, say so, build a record and take it to the Federal 13 Board. The Federal Board does have that authority and 14 it has exercised that in recent. 15 16 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 17 18 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: What he said. 19 20 (Laughter) 21 22 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: That's what I was 23 trying to get at. 24 25 MR. PAPPAS: To clarify, since I'm full 26 of words all the time, if you do not want non-Federally 27 qualified hunters to take calves on Federal public 28 lands, which is under the jurisdiction of the Federal 29 Subsistence Board, the Federal Subsistence Board 30 listens to you. So if you do not want that, I 31 recommend you make your amendment and provide a 32 justification. 33 34 This is going to be controversial. It 35 always is controversial when the Federal Board steps 36 in, but this is your place of responsibility. 37 38 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 39 40 MS. ATORUK: Mr. Chair. 41 42 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Barbara. 43 44 MS. ATORUK: Did you just say that on 45 that other wildlife proposal on WP20-44 for incidental 46 take only or if the calf needs to be put down? How 47 come we don't see that wording on this proposal right 48 here if that's what it is that they had said or 49 supported? 50

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Page 105 1 MS. MAAS: Lisa Maas for the record. 2 In response to Barbara's question, even though the 3 intention of the proponents in submitting these 4 proposals was to allow harvest of orphan calves, the 5 way the proposal was submitted was just to eliminate 6 that prohibition. So there's kind of a difference 7 between what they submitted in regulation and what 8 their rationale and intentions were. 9 10 Do you want to speak to the permit? 11 12 MR. HANSEN: Through the Chair. This 13 is Alex Hansen, Alaska Department of Fish and Game. I 14 just wanted to speak to the permit that Mike had 15 mentioned or Mr. Chairman. 16 17 We had a sidebar conversation talking 18 about how we could track the harvest of calves and we 19 can look into the inclusion of calf harvest in an RC907 20 permit, which will be able to allow us to understand 21 what the harvest level of calves is and that's probably 22 something we would look at closely so that we can 23 understand calf harvest if this were to go forward. 24 25 I think it would be very hard to 26 include the harvest of incidental calves as orphaned or 27 abandoned or wounded calves. I think that would be 28 kind of hard to track in the permit. I can discuss it 29 with my colleagues, but I think on more of a voluntary 30 basis we could get that information, but to enforce 31 that would be pretty difficult. 32 33 MS. MAAS: Thanks. Through the Chair. 34 I just had a question for Alex. So is inclusion of 35 calves on the RC907 permit is that a decision ADF&G can 36 make without the Board of Game's involvement? 37 38 MR. HANSEN: Lisa, I'm going to have to 39 get back to you on that one. I think we can do that, 40 but I'm going to have to double check. 41 42 MS. MAAS: Okay. Just my point is that 43 right now both Federal and State regulations uses RC907 44 permit, so any modifications this Council would make to 45 the permit would need to go through the State. The 46 State would need to concur with those proposed changes. 47 48 49 Establishing a Federal registration 50

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Page 106 1 permit is always an option, but this is such a new 2 permit we're already struggling with trying to get 3 people to use this new permit and report their harvest 4 that introducing a whole other permit there's more 5 challenges involved in that. Again, that's something 6 for this Council to consider. 7 8 MR. HANSEN: If I may reiterate one 9 more time, we don't feel like there's a conservation 10 concern here. We would be interested in tracking calf 11 harvest and we could look at getting that information 12 through the RC907 permit. However, we don't feel like 13 there's enough interest in harvesting calves that's 14 going to cause a concern. A lot of those calves, up to 15 60 percent, are going to die regardless of whether you 16 take one home to eat it or you make a set of leggings 17 or a vest out of it. Those animals are probably going 18 to die, a large portion of those anyway, at 60 percent. 19 20 21 So I just wanted to make my point clear 22 that the State does not have a conservation concern 23 when it comes to harvesting calves. If we want to look 24 at reduction in mortality or we want to watch the herd 25 grow, then we need to focus our harvest on the cow 26 level where the production takes place. 27 28 MR. DOOLITTLE: Through the Chair. Tom 29 Doolittle, Acting Assistant Regional Director for the 30 Federal Office of Subsistence Management. Again, when 31 you look at 804 of ANILCA and you look at 815 of 32 ANILCA, one of the big qualifying factors about whether 33 you look at an issue relative to what this body does -- 34 and I always like to look at the words unless necessary 35 for the conservation of this resource, then that starts 36 to trigger it in. 37 38 Then also there's the continued 39 opportunity for subsistence. Is this a necessary 40 action that you're going to take relative to 41 conservation concern in and of itself and if it is, but 42 also this is important to you as a cultural norm not to 43 harvest calves. That needs to be clearly stated on the 44 record. 45 46 I agree with my colleagues about how 47 difficult it is to enforce the incidental take of 48 something and how do you make that meaningful. I think 49 many times it takes our own individual responsibility 50

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Page 107 1 if there was no change to that, if it was incidental, 2 that you call up a trooper and said, hey, part of its 3 jaw was blown off, as Mike said, and I dispatched the 4 animal and I just want you to know that I did that, and 5 we know that there's a lot of common sense discretion 6 in the field used by our officers, whether on the State 7 or Federal side. I think that that's always out there. 8 9 10 I think if you do provide for a 11 modification of this particular proposal to look at the 12 incidental take, you're going to need to probably think 13 about the verbiage of that a little bit more because, 14 again, with the permit systems between the State and 15 Federal agencies, is that, yeah, we can go our separate 16 ways, but I'd rather that we didn't make it more 17 cumbersome especially on a newer process in trying to 18 work with this particular permit. 19 20 However, you are the body that 21 represents this region and your opinions go in front of 22 another decision body, which will be the Federal 23 Subsistence Board. So they'll weigh this RAC's 24 opinions along with the opinions of the other Councils 25 and bodies that are advising on this issue and make a 26 decision one way or the other. 27 28 So I'd like folks to really look at 29 that bigger picture of what we do relative to 30 subsistence. You can change any decision. This body 31 has that total ability. If we see something's not 32 working or you see a calf harvest that you think is out 33 of control, you can say this is out of control, let's 34 change this. Sometimes it's getting into new water, 35 but don't let people forget about what the record says 36 about your concerns that you just don't want to harvest 37 calves. That's just fine. 38 39 On the other hand there's kind of this 40 open-ended loophole that both the Federal and State 41 programs are trying to control on the users we have. 42 43 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 44 45 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any further 46 questions. 47 48 Zach. 49 50

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Page 108 1 MR. STEVENSON: So presently we are at 2 the point in this process to identify the Council's 3 recommendation. Specifically is there a motion to 4 support, oppose or support with modification these 5 proposals. The proposals before us are Wildlife 6 Proposals 20-43 through 46 on Page 33 of your meeting 7 book for caribou in Unit 23. 8 9 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 10 11 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Lisa. 12 13 MS. MAAS: I just wanted to encourage 14 this Council to take action on 46 and then take no 15 action on the remaining proposals because 46 has both 16 the bull caribou issue and the calf caribou issue. 17 That's the proposal that all the other Councils and OSM 18 have acted on. So it would be a lot cleaner if you 19 could just take action on 46 and then no action on the 20 remaining proposals. 21 22 Thanks. 23 24 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: What's the request of 25 the board. 26 27 Go ahead, Barbara. 28 29 MS. ATORUK: Well, after that big long 30 discussion about this, I understand -- I know the bull 31 season will be opened and that calf harvest be 32 permitted for caribou will also go. If we try to add 33 another word into it, incidental, then it becomes even 34 harder for it to be followed. And I for one am against 35 the harvesting of calves, but I can go with the bulls 36 because I know 37 the hunters always get the bulls and also get the 38 younger ones when the big bulls come into rut. 39 40 (In Inupiaq) So I will support the 41 bull season, but I won't support opening the calf being 42 permitted. I'll probably lose out, but that's okay. 43 I'll vote against the proposal. I will not support the 44 proposal. 45 46 Thank you. 47 48 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Do we have someone on 49 the phone? 50

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Page 109 1 MR. PATTEE: Mr. Chair, it's Tristen. 2 One thing is I'm going to go ahead and support the 3 recommendations of the agencies. My reasoning is I 4 think it's up to us, to all the hunters, to educate the 5 younger hunters and also the current to make sure that 6 they're not actively hunting calves and I think that 7 will go a long way and it will be looked down upon to 8 actively seek calves. 9 10 If they do see an injured calf out 11 there, an adult hunter and they have their kid there, 12 and they say can't shoot it even though it's suffering 13 because of this law, I don't think that would look very 14 good. So I think by leaving it open it will eliminate 15 any confusion on the two different lands, which is 16 Federal and State, for all the hunters out there. 17 18 If they do see this calf, an incidental 19 injured calf, then they can kill it without breaking 20 any law. At the same time these hunters are educating 21 their young to not actively do it and they kind of tell 22 them the reason why they're killing that calf and it's 23 because it's injured. 24 25 So I support the agency's 26 recommendation to open calves, but I think it is up to 27 us to educate everyone why we're doing it. 28 29 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: I agree with that, 30 Tristen. Do we have a motion on the floor to support 31 WP20-46 and oppose the remainder proposals 43, 44, 45? 32 33 MR. PATTEE: I'll make that motion. 34 35 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Motion by Tristen. 36 Any second? 37 38 MS. MAAS: Lisa Maas for the record. I 39 know I encouraged you to just take action on 46, but if 40 it would help the Council you could break that action 41 into two parts where first you take action on the bull 42 closure and then you consider the calf harvest portion 43 because it seems like the Council might have some 44 differing opinions concerning those two issues. So 45 that's just an option to first consider the bull issue 46 associated with 46 and then consider the calf issue. 47 48 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Take a five-minute 49 recess. 50

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Page 110 1 (Off record) 2 3 (On record) 4 5 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Tristen, do you copy? 6 7 MR. PATTEE: Yeah, I copy. 8 9 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: We're going to do a 10 roll call vote on WP20-43, 44, 45 and 46 to support, 11 take no action or oppose. So what I'm looking at is if 12 you wanted to rescind your motion and we go through a 13 roll call vote on these four proposals. 14 15 MR. PATTEE: I rescind the motion. 16 17 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Copy that. He 18 rescinded the motion. We're going to have a roll call 19 vote WP20-43. Madame Secretary, can you do a roll call 20 vote on WP20-43. 21 22 MS. ATORUK: Do we need a motion? 23 24 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Zach. 25 26 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair, 27 addressing the question. There's no motion needed 28 because there was never a second to the previous 29 motion. 30 31 MS. ATORUK: No, but then on 43, 44 and 32 45 I would need a motion and a second on each proposal 33 before I do a roll call vote, right? 34 35 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. 36 That's correct. Is the request now to have a motion to 37 support, oppose or support with modification Wildlife 38 Proposal 20-43, am I hearing that correct? 39 40 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Yes. 41 42 MS. ATORUK: I so move. 43 44 MR. MITCHELL: Second. 45 46 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: I have a second. 47 48 MS. MAAS: Through the Chair. I just 49 wanted to clarify. So the first up WP20-43 is for a 50

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1 year-round bull season. 2 3 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Roll call vote, 4 Barbara. 5 6 MS. ATORUK: Okay. Tristen Pattee. 7 8 MR. PATTEE: Yes, go ahead. 9 10 MS. ATORUK: Are you voting yes or no? 11 12 MR. PATTEE: I'm sorry. I'm really 13 having trouble hearing. Are we voting on the 14 year-round bull season right now? 15 16 MS. ATORUK: Yeah. Year-round bull 17 season on Proposal 20-43. 18 19 MR. PATTEE: Yes, I support that. 20 21 MS. ATORUK: Okay. Beverly Moto. 22 23 MS. MOTO: Yes. 24 25 MS. ATORUK: Michael Kramer. 26 27 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Yes. 28 29 MS. ATORUK: Raymond Lee, Jr. 30 31 MR. LEE: Yes. 32 33 MS. ATORUK: Replogle Swan, Sr. 34 35 MR. SWAN: Yes. 36 37 MS. ATORUK: Louie Commack, Jr. 38 39 MR. COMMACK: Yes. 40 41 MS. ATORUK: Enoch Mitchell. 42 43 MR. MITCHELL: Yes. 44 45 MS. ATORUK: Barbara Atoruk, yes. 46 47 Thank you. 48 49 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: It's unanimous on WP20-43. 50

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1 We'll move on to our next proposal, WP20-44. Request 2 calf harvest be permitted for caribou. Is there a 3 motion on the floor? 4 5 MS. ATORUK: So moved. 6 7 MR. MITCHELL: Second. 8 9 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Roll call vote. 10 11 MS. ATORUK: Tristen Pattee. 12 13 MR. PATTEE: Lisa, can you clarify what 14 the vote is. I'm really having trouble hearing. 15 16 MS. MAAS: Tristen, this is for 17 Proposal WP20-44 for calf harvest be permitted. Did 18 you copy that? 19 20 MR. PATTEE: Yes, I support that. 21 22 MS. ATORUK: Okay. Beverly Moto. 23 24 MS. MOTO: Yes. 25 26 MS. ATORUK: Mike Kramer. 27 28 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Yes. 29 30 MS. ATORUK: Raymond Lee, Jr. 31 32 MR. LEE: Yes. 33 34 MS. ATORUK: Reppi. 35 36 MR. SWAN: Yes. 37 38 MS. ATORUK: Louie Commack, Jr. 39 40 MR. COMMACK: Yes. 41 42 MS. ATORUK: Enoch Mitchell. 43 44 MR. MITCHELL: Yes. 45 46 MS. ATORUK: And Barbara Atoruk, no. 47 48 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. The results of 49 this one is 7 yes, 1 no. Passed unanimously for yes on 50

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Page 113 1 WP20-44. 2 3 Right now we're going to WP20-45. 4 5 MS. MAAS: So 45 and 46 consider the 6 exact same issues you all just voted on. So an option 7 would be to take no action on 45 and 46 because you 8 already took action on those issues. 9 10 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. Is it the wish 11 of the board to take no action? 12 13 MS. ATORUK: No action on 20-45..... 14 15 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: And 46? 16 17 MS. ATORUK: .....so moved. 18 19 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: There's a motion on 20 the floor. 21 22 MR. SWAN: Second. 23 24 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Seconded by Reppi. 25 All those in favor of taking no action on 45 and 46. 26 Roll call vote. 27 28 MS. ATORUK: Excuse me. Was that just 29 on 45? Are you combining both of the proposals, 45 and 30 46? 31 32 MR. MITCHELL: We're on 44? 33 34 MS. ATORUK: We just did 44. You guys 35 just passed that calf season permit, 7 to 1 no. 36 37 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Zach. 38 39 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. 40 Addressing the question for Member Atoruk. The 41 recommendation was to have the Council consider taking 42 no action on proposals 20-45 and 20-46 because that 43 issue was already addressed in Proposal 20-43 and 44. 44 45 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 46 47 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Louie. 48 49 MR. COMMACK: I have a question on 44 50

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Page 114 1 and 46 calf harvest. Those are both calf harvest. 2 3 MS. ATORUK: Yeah. 4 5 MR. MITCHELL: Yeah. 6 7 MR. COMMACK: There was a confusion 8 here. 9 10 Go ahead, Enoch. 11 12 MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Chair. I was 13 confused here on 44. I didn't see that calf harvest 14 part on that 44. I thought 43, 44 and 45 was the same 15 and only 46 had calf harvest. You're going to have to 16 excuse me because I've got cataracts and I didn't see 17 this part. I'd like to go back to 44 and rescind my 18 vote because of the fact that I was confused and I 19 didn't see that calf harvest part. 20 21 So I wanted to support 43 and 45 and 22 oppose 44 and 46 because 44 and 46 is about the same 23 and 43 and 45 is about the same. If I support 43 and 24 then I support 44, I'm supporting the bulls and I'm 25 also supporting the calf harvest and I'm opposing calf 26 harvest, so I'm confused here. I want to see if we 27 could bring back 44 because I don't want to see calf 28 harvest be opened up. 29 30 MS. ATORUK: Mr. Chair. Can we 31 reconsider Proposal 20-44 so it clarifies that 32 submitted by Kotzebue Sound Advisory Committee requests 33 that calf harvest be permitted for caribou in Unit 23. 34 Can we go back to reconsider Proposal 44? 35 36 MR. DOOLITTLE: Mr. Chair. Could I 37 just put a point of order in here. 38 39 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead. 40 41 MR. DOOLITTLE: If you want to 42 reconsider a vote because you're within the meeting, 43 that's well within your purview, but what you should do 44 is say that we'd like to reconsider that vote and you 45 actually vote on doing that. So make a motion to the 46 group and then say we'd like to reconsider our vote on 47 that. You agree to do that and then you can readdress 48 that particular proposal number if you so desire. 49 50

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Page 115 1 MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Chair. 2 3 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead. 4 5 MR. MITCHELL: I'd like to reconsider 6 WP20-44. 7 8 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: We have a motion. 9 10 MS. ATORUK: Second. 11 12 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Seconded. All those 13 in favor say aye. 14 15 IN UNISON: Aye. 16 17 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Anyone opposed same 18 sign. 19 20 (No opposing votes) 21 22 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Hearing none. That 23 is rescinding the motion to support WP20-44, right? 24 25 MR. MITCHELL: Yes. 26 27 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Is that oppose or 28 take no action? We'll do a re-roll call vote on 29 WP20-44. 43 was already passed. 30 31 MS. ATORUK: George, do we do another 32 action before we do a roll call vote again? 33 34 MR. PAPPAS: Yes, you're going to want 35 another action. We're here if you need more 36 information about the issue. If not, you'll do a 37 motion and a second and then you'll go into another 38 vote. 39 40 MS. ATORUK: Okay. I make a motion 41 that we -- to vote on Wildlife Proposal WP20-44 42 submitted by the Kotzebue Sound Advisory Committee 43 request that calf harvest be permitted for caribou in 44 Unit 23. 45 46 MR. MITCHELL: Second. 47 48 MS. ATORUK: Thank you. 49 50

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1 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Madame Secretary, 2 roll call vote. 3 4 MS. ATORUK: Okay. Roll call vote on 5 20-44. Tristen Pattee. 6 7 MR. PATTEE: I support. 8 9 MS. ATORUK: Okay. Beverly Moto. 10 11 MS. MOTO: I oppose. 12 13 MS. ATORUK: Mike Kramer. 14 15 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Support. 16 17 MS. ATORUK: Raymond Lee, Jr. 18 19 MR. LEE: Oppose. 20 21 MS. ATORUK: Reppi. 22 23 MR. SWAN: Support. 24 25 MS. ATORUK: Louie Commack, Jr. 26 27 MR. COMMACK: Oppose. 28 29 MS. ATORUK: Enoch Mitchell. 30 31 MR. MITCHELL: Oppose. 32 33 MS. ATORUK: Barbara Atoruk, oppose. 34 Mr. Chair, you have three yes and five no on Proposal 35 20-44. 36 37 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. 20-44 38 described as request calf harvest be permitted for 39 caribou has been unanimously voted no, not to support 40 this proposal. 41 42 MR. STEVENSON: Mr. Chair. Just for 43 clarification, the vote was not unanimous. There were 44 five votes against Proposal 20-44 and three in favor, 45 so the majority lead the proposal failing. 46 47 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 48 49 MS. MAAS: Mr. Chair. I would 50

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1 recommend once again since you already took action on 2 Proposals 43 and 44 that you can now take no action on 3 45 and 46 because those issues were already considered 4 in 43 and 44. 5 6 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Is there a motion on 7 the floor not to support 20-45 and 46. 8 9 MR. STEVENSON: Take no action. 10 11 MR. MITCHELL: I so move. 12 13 MS. ATORUK: Second. 14 15 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Zach. 16 17 MS. ATORUK: All in favor. 18 19 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. The 20 recommendation from Lisa Maas was not to oppose, but 21 rather take no action on Proposals 45 and 46. The 22 justification being that the request for year-round 23 bull caribou season in Unit 23 was already addressed in 24 Wildlife Proposal 20-43. 25 26 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 27 28 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Is there a motion on 29 the floor to take no action on 45 and 46? 30 31 MS. ATORUK: Mr. Chair. There was. 32 Enoch motioned it and I seconded it. 33 34 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. For the 35 record, the motion was made and it was seconded. All 36 those in favor of opposing -- take no action on 45 and 37 46 say aye. 38 39 IN UNISON: Aye. 40 41 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Passed unanimously to 42 take no action on WP20-45 and 46. 43 44 Okay. Now we're going to discussion. 45 46 Go ahead, Tristen. 47 48 MR. PATTEE: I just want to make a 49 comment just so it's clear to everybody that's 50

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Page 118 1 listening on the radio. The reason the proposal was 2 not passed, I just want to make sure that everybody 3 knows that, even though you see a suffering calf you 4 cannot kill it on Federal land. It will be against -- 5 you can get in trouble. Just so everybody knows out 6 there. 7 8 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead. 9 10 MR. PAPPAS: Additional information. 11 That would be if the Federal Subsistence Board does 12 take action for the Federal subsistence hunt. For the 13 Federal subsistence hunt, if it goes as you voted, then 14 there wouldn't be a calf harvest available to Federally 15 qualified. This would not impact the State hunt if the 16 Board of Game approves whatever proposals they are, but 17 if this -- one last time I'll indicate if this Council 18 is interested in seeing no calf harvest on Federal 19 public lands, this is the time and place to take an 20 action to recommend to the Board. 21 22 That's what I have, Mr. Chair. 23 24 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Keep in mind no 25 shooting calves. What was next on there? 26 27 MR. STEVENSON: Next is Proposal 20-47 28 on Page 76 of the meeting book. 29 30 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. Next is 31 WP20-47, moose Unit 23, request closure of cow moose 32 and to require the use of State registration permit 33 RM880 to harvest moose. 34 35 MS. MAAS: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 36 Again, for the record, my name is Lisa Maas. I'm a 37 wildlife biologist with the Office of Subsistence 38 Management. I'll be presenting a summary of the 39 analysis for WP29-47, which begins on Page 76 of your 40 meeting books. 41 42 Wildlife Proposal WP20-47 was submitted 43 by this Council, the Northwest Arctic Council and 44 requests closure of the cow moose season and requiring 45 a State registration permit for moose in Unit 23. 46 47 The proponent is concerned about 48 declines in the Unit 23 moose population stating this 49 proposal would help conserve cows, improve harvest 50

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Page 119 1 reporting, align State and Federal regulations and aid 2 in the recovery of the moose population. 3 4 The cow moose season and non-resident 5 season have been closed under State regulation since 6 2017 due to conservation concerns. In 2018, both cow 7 and bull moose seasons were shortened under Federal 8 regulations. In 2019, this regulatory year, the cow 9 moose season was closed under Federal regulations by 10 Special Action, an authority delegated to the in-season 11 manager to close to non-Federally qualified users, if 12 warranted, due to serious population viability 13 concerns. 14 15 The Unit 23 moose population has 16 declined approximately 25 percent in the past two years 17 from an estimated 7,500 moose in 2017 to an estimated 18 5,600 moose in 2019. Low calf/cow ratios also indicate 19 poor recruitment and that the population decline will 20 likely continue. Moose are a relatively recent 21 subsistence resource for local people. the recent 22 declines in the western Arctic Caribou Herd has likely 23 resulted in more people harvesting to meet their needs. 24 25 Harvest likely exceeds the harvestable 26 surplus. Non-local resident harvest has averaged 42 27 moose per year and local harvest is estimated at 350 to 28 450 moose per year while the harvestable surplus is 29 currently only 336 moose per year. 30 31 If WP20-47 is adopted, the Federal cow 32 season will be closed and the RM880 State registration 33 permit will be required to hunt moose under Federal 34 regulation in Unit 23. The RM880 must be obtained 35 between June 1st and July 15th in local villages, which 36 burdens Federally qualified subsistence users with 37 traveling to a licensed vendor to get a permit during a 38 certain time period. If users fail to get a permit in 39 June or July, then they cannot legally hunt during the 40 RM880 season. 41 42 Serious population viability concerns 43 exist for the Unit 23 moose population due to 44 population declines, low calf/cow ratios, and likely 45 exceedance of the harvestable surplus. Conserving cows 46 is particularly important in conservation of the 47 population as cows are the engine of population growth. 48 49 Adopting this proposal could aid in the 50

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Page 120 1 population recovery and decrease regulatory complexity 2 in the area through alignment of State and Federal 3 regulations. The OSM preliminary conclusion is to 4 support WP20-47 with modification to change the harvest 5 limit from one bull to one antlered bull to prevent 6 inadvertent cow harvest after antlers have dropped. 7 8 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 9 10 I'm happy to answer any questions. 11 12 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Thank you. That 13 modification -- moose hunting for bulls is only open 14 from August 1 to September 30th. At that time these 15 moose are still antlered. They aren't antlerless then. 16 So adding this modification is pretty much irrelevant 17 to me because any bull does have horns on his head come 18 into September. They do not shed them until late 19 November, December if I'm correct. 20 21 MS. MAAS: Mr. Chair. The open season 22 is August 1st to December 31st, so I think you're 23 thinking about the State harvest ticket season maybe. 24 The Federal season is August 1st to December 31st. 25 26 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. That wasn't 27 defined in here. I didn't see that in here. I just 28 looked at what I have in front of me. Is there any 29 reports on Board consultations, tribes, ANCSA 30 corporations? 31 32 Thank you for your presentation, Lisa. 33 34 MS. MAAS: Mr. Chair, there are no 35 tribal or ANCSA corporation comments during the 36 consultations. 37 38 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Agency. Alaska 39 Department of Fish and Game. 40 41 (No comments) 42 43 MR. SWAN: I have a question. 44 45 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead. 46 47 MR. SWAN: With the decline of moose, 48 how much do you guys sell the permits to sport hunters 49 or whoever sells them? 50

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Page 121 1 MS. MAAS: Yeah, so it's a registration 2 permit, so they're available to anyone. The caveat 3 with the RM880 permit is they're only available in Unit 4 23 villages from June 1st to July 15th. So any 5 non-local users, whether it's a non-resident or someone 6 from Anchorage, would have to travel up to Unit 23 in 7 the summer, get a permit and then come back in 8 September to harvest a moose or any time during the 9 fall to harvest a moose. So they have to make an extra 10 trip to get a permit. 11 12 That's the way that the State 13 identified to try and limit non-local use of moose in 14 this area, but then it also requires Federal users to 15 get that permit during that time period under State 16 regulations. If this proposal passes, then they'd have 17 to do that under Federal regulations too. 18 19 MR. SWAN: So if we're having this 20 problem of moose declining in our area, I think that 21 you guys should consider restricting outsiders for 22 hunting the moose. Basically those sport hunters are 23 there for mostly the antlers. 24 25 MR. BJORK: Through the Chair. Can I 26 just clarify something. Currently there is no 27 nonresident hunting of moose period. State of Alaska, 28 like they said, has the RM880 and if you want to 29 participate in RM88, it's residents, so that allows 30 people from Fairbanks or Anchorage or any other part of 31 the state if they're an Alaska resident, but to get 32 that RM880 registration they have to fly to Kotzebue 33 region to obtain those permits during that period of 34 time. As far as nonresidents, it's closed period to 35 nonresident hunting for both general season and 36 registration permit. 37 38 MR. SWAN: Okay. Thank you. 39 40 MS. ATORUK: That's good to know. What 41 about workers from Red Dog that are nonresident from 42 the region that do come in and go out and hunt and 43 harvest a moose? 44 45 MR. BJORK: If they're a nonresident 46 and they harvest a moose, then that's something that 47 should be brought to my attention because they're not 48 allowed to hunt moose period in Game Unit 23. There's 49 no nonresident open season. Some people might lie on 50

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1 their license if they're residents or not and we look 2 into that as well. 3 4 MS. ATORUK: Thank you. I'll talk to 5 you later. 6 7 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: We'll go to Alaska 8 Department of Fish and Game. 9 10 MS. MAAS: We already did ADF&G. Now 11 it's Federal. 12 13 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. Federal 14 agencies. I was trying to figure out where we were at 15 here. 16 17 (No comments) 18 19 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Seeing none. Tribal. 20 21 (No comments) 22 23 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Seeing none. 24 Advisory group comments. Other Regional Councils. 25 26 MS. MAAS: Through the Chair. The 27 North Slope Council considered this proposal since 28 Point Hope is part of Unit 23 and they supported the 29 proposal. 30 31 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Fish and Game 32 Advisory Committees. 33 34 MR. PATTEE: Mr. Chair. 35 36 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead. 37 38 MR. PATTEE: I just want to say that I 39 do support this proposal. I think this is the same one 40 we discussed at our meeting. It's basically closed to 41 cows if I remember correctly, right? But an Alaskan 42 resident is able to harvest a bull on Federal lands 43 just so they don't focus all on State lands. Is this 44 the same one we talked about in the last meeting? 45 46 MS. MAAS: Through the Chair. That was 47 another alternative considered that I didn't specify in 48 terms of brevity. Yeah, one alternative considered was 49 closing Federal public lands to non-Federally qualified 50

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Page 123 1 users. However, due to concerns voiced by this Council 2 about a Federal closure concentrating non-local hunters 3 on State lands, this alternative was not further 4 considered. 5 6 Did that answer your question, Tristen? 7 8 MR. PATTEE: Yes. 9 10 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any Subsistence 11 Resource Commissions. 12 13 MS. ATKINSON: This is Hannah Atkinson 14 with the Western Arctic National Parklands and I have 15 comments from the Cape Krusenstern National Monument 16 Subsistence Resource Commission and the Kobuk Valley 17 National Park Subsistence Resource Commission. 18 19 The Cape Krusenstern National Monument 20 Subsistence Resource Commission voted to support the 21 moose cow closure, but they opposed the implementation 22 of the RM880 on Federal lands. The Commission is 23 concerned about harming opportunity for Federally 24 qualified subsistence users. There's a fair number of 25 people from the region who live in villages that don't 26 get the RM880, which you have to get in June and July 27 and right now they can just get a State harvest ticket. 28 29 The RM880 was developed to make it more 30 challenging for non-local hunters to get permits, so 31 the intent was never to restrict Federally qualified 32 subsistence users from using Federal lands to harvest 33 moose. So they are concerned that the implementation 34 of the RM880 would do that, so they opposed that. 35 36 The Kobuk Valley National Park 37 Subsistence Resource Commission basically made the same 38 motion, so they're both concerned about the outcome of 39 this proposal. 40 41 Any questions? You have their comments 42 in front of you if you want to look at any particular 43 comments. 44 45 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any questions from 46 the Council. 47 48 (No comments) 49 50

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1 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Hearing none. 2 Summary of written public comments. 3 4 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. 5 6 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead. 7 8 MR. STEVENSON: Addressing Wildlife 9 Proposal WP20-47 featured on Page 76 of the meeting 10 book, addressing moose in Unit 23 requesting the 11 closure of the cow moose seasons and to require the 12 State registration permit RM880 to harvest moose 13 submitted by the Northwest Arctic Regional Advisory 14 Council, there were no written public comments. 15 16 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 17 18 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. Public 19 testimony. 20 21 (No comments) 22 23 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Hearing none. 24 Regional Council recommendations, motion to support. 25 26 (No comments) 27 28 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Is there any 29 recommendations by the Council? 30 31 MR. PATTEE: This is to align the State 32 and Federal regulations with RM880, right? 33 34 MS. MAAS: Through the Chair. Correct, 35 Tristen. This is to have a complete cow closure and 36 then to require the State RM880 permit under Federal 37 regulations. 38 39 MR. PATTEE: Do they only have to fill 40 out one? 41 42 MS. MAAS: Yeah, it would be the same 43 permit, so they would just get one permit to hunt under 44 both State and Federal regs. 45 46 MR. PATTEE: Without it would they not 47 be allowed to hunt until December 31st on State and 48 Federal? 49 50

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Page 125 1 MS. MAAS: Currently Federally 2 qualified subsistence users, so basically people who 3 live in Unit 23 can hunt moose from August 1st to 4 December 31st with only a harvest ticket, but if this 5 proposal passes, then they would need to get that RM880 6 permit. One of the requirements of the RM880 permit is 7 to get it between June 1st and July 15th, so that would 8 require Federally qualified subsistence users to make a 9 special trip to a licensed vendor to get that permit in 10 the summer. 11 12 If they don't get that permit in the 13 summer, then they would not be able to harvest moose 14 during the August 1st to December 31st season. They 15 could only harvest under the State harvest ticket 16 season, which is in September and I think there's 17 antler restrictions. 18 19 MR. PATTEE: Oh, gotcha. Okay. So 20 I've actually run into some problems with that for some 21 of the residents of Ambler that were out of town and 22 the person selling the license was out of town and they 23 weren't able to access that person selling the RM880 in 24 town, so it became a problem for Federally qualified 25 subsistence users. 26 27 If we can, I would like to oppose 28 having that for the proposal just because of the 29 problems I've seen it cause and the worry that they had 30 that they didn't get that RM880 and they needed the 31 meat. 32 33 MS. MAAS: So in response to that, 34 Tristen, an option would be to support with 35 modification to not support the RM880 permit. 36 37 Just for the Council's information, 38 another alternative OSM considered was to require a 39 Federal registration permit because the intent of 40 requiring the RM880 permit was to improve harvest 41 reporting. With the moose population in dire straits, 42 extreme conservation concern, improving harvest 43 reporting is really important to helping to manage and 44 conserve this population. 45 46 With the Federal registration permit, 47 it's kind of the same issue Tristen mentioned with the 48 RM880 where there's not really the infrastructure in 49 place to distribute those permits across the region and 50

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1 there might be issues of people trying to get them and 2 not being able to access them. So OSM didn't further 3 consider requiring a Federal permit either for those 4 same concerns Tristen mentioned. 5 6 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Enoch. 7 8 Thank you, Tristen. 9 10 MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Chair, I support 47. 11 I'm sure that will help our moose population go back 12 up. 13 14 Thank you. 15 16 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any further questions 17 from the Council. Is that a motion..... 18 19 MR. MITCHELL: Yeah, so move. 20 21 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: .....to support? 22 23 MR. SWAN: Second. 24 25 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Seconded. All those 26 in favor of supporting WP20-47 moose in Unit 23, 27 request closure of cow moose season and to require the 28 use of State registration permits RM880 to harvest 29 moose with the modification to change the harvest limit 30 from one bull to one antlered bull. All those in favor 31 say aye. 32 33 IN UNISON: Aye. 34 35 MS. MAAS: Mr. Chair, I just wanted to 36 clarify the motion before people voted on it to make 37 sure. So with the intention to support the OSM 38 conclusion to require the RM880 permit, close the cow 39 moose season and change the harvest limit to one 40 antlered bull? 41 42 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Yes. 43 44 MS. MAAS: Okay. I just wanted to make 45 sure everyone was clear on the motion and the 46 intention. 47 48 Thank you. 49 50

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Page 127 1 MR. PATTEE: I'm opposed to that 2 motion. 3 4 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Can we go to 5 discussion before we have a vote. 6 7 MS. ATORUK: We just voted. 8 9 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. 10 11 MS. ATORUK: We can consider it if you 12 want. 13 14 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Unanimously 15 supported. 16 17 MS. MAAS: Tristen. 18 19 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Tristen with one nay. 20 Any further questions, discussion. 21 22 Go ahead, Zach. 23 24 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. 25 Point of order. I had a motion to support from Member 26 Enoch Mitchell, seconded by Member Swan, but I did not 27 see a roll call vote yet issued for this proposal. 28 29 MS. ATORUK: The Chair called for a 30 vote all in favor and we all said yeah except for one 31 and that's Tristen. He didn't ask for a roll call 32 vote. 33 34 MR. STEVENSON: Noted. Thank you. 35 36 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: So the decision is 37 unanimous to support WP20-47. 38 39 MR. STEVENSON: Not unanimous. 40 41 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: With one nay. Sorry 42 about that. 43 44 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. 45 Correction. It was not a unanimous vote, it was a 46 majority. The majority with seven votes in favor, the 47 minority with one against. So it looks like the 48 majority seven votes take it in support of the 49 proposal. 50

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Page 128 1 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: We're in discussion. 2 Is there any conservation concerns? Will the 3 recommendation address the concern? Council members. 4 5 MR. STEVENSON: Mr. Chair. 6 7 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead. 8 9 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. The 10 reason for this proposal was due to a conservation 11 concern about the decline of moose in Unit 23 and the 12 proposal was introduced I believe at our last meeting 13 by our member from Buckland who cited a concern about 14 the lack of abundance of moose. There appears to be a 15 conservation concern reflecting the traditional 16 knowledge presented by the Council as well as some of 17 the documentation provided by our agency partners and 18 that was the reason why this proposal had been 19 introduced. 20 21 Regarding the second question, is the 22 proposal recommended or supported by evidence, be that 23 biological and traditional knowledge. I would go back 24 to the comment I just shared. The answer is yes. 25 26 Will the recommendation be beneficial 27 or detrimental to subsistence needs and uses? I think 28 that's for the Council to address and decide. 29 30 Will the recommendation unnecessarily 31 restrict other uses? I think that that too is a point 32 that the Council should discuss. 33 34 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 35 36 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Lisa. 37 38 MS. MAAS: Thanks. I just wanted to 39 offer an option to the Council that if you agree with 40 OSM's conclusion and OSM's justification, then you 41 could just state that on the record that you support 42 with OSM's justification. 43 44 MR. PATTEE: I support the 45 justification by OSM about the implementation of the 46 RM880, but keep everything else the same. The reason 47 was because it is difficult for some of the residents 48 to actually get that RM880 before the deadline. 49 50

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1 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Is there any further 2 discussion. 3 4 MS. M. MOTO: Yes. 5 6 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead and state 7 your name. 8 9 MS. M. MOTO: Marlene Moto calling from 10 Deering in regards to this RM880. My husband is a 11 year-round resident, but he's not here every time they 12 put out this RM880. Can he leave his license with me 13 and get an RM880 because I am too disabled to get them. 14 If I have to, I will though. If I have to get my hands 15 on it for him. He can't be around here around the time 16 they give out that RM880 moose permit. 17 18 And that moose permit has to be filled 19 out by all the sport hunters too? That should limit to 20 sport hunters and keep it for all the people in Unit 23 21 for them that live here because they're getting more 22 and more extinct, sounds like it when listening to 23 everything going on so far. 24 25 MR. PAPPAS: Mr. Chair. This is George 26 Pappas answering a question about who can get an RM880 27 permit. That would be all residents of Alaska, 28 anywhere across the state, but they would have to come 29 here to get the permit as described. 30 31 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 32 33 MS. M. MOTO: If he's in another part 34 of Alaska, can he get his hands on it down there and 35 use it up here in a different part of Alaska? 36 37 MR. PAPPAS: Through the Chair. George 38 Pappas, OSM. No. The permit is only issued here 39 locally during the prescribed time. It's only issued 40 here. 41 42 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Here as in Game 43 Management Unit or..... 44 45 MS. M. MOTO: So he'd have to come up 46 here and get an RM880 to hunt moose or what? He'd like 47 to hunt moose and where he come from, he moved here, 48 he's lucky to get moose where he lived along the coast 49 from where he lived too. Somehow there should be some 50

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Page 130 1 kind -- if they're getting extinct or something, the 2 RM880 should be for people who use it and live here in 3 this area. 4 5 I remember back in the years before 6 NANA, Fish and Game started to come around some of 7 these animals, even fish and wildlife, mammals, if they 8 start to come around with these things in writing and 9 putting these things in place, those animals won't come 10 back. 11 12 What really hit hard was when they come 13 back from Elephant Point. They started to put 14 restrictions on Elephant Point. Somebody over there 15 said they won't get no more beluga. They're putting 16 restrictions in place and our people hardly go over 17 there for hunting before NANA come around anyway. They 18 hunted here. The same way with the moose too now. 19 20 MS. ATORUK: Excuse me, Marlene. 21 22 MS. M. MOTO: I have a year-round 23 elders hunting permit. If they don't ever take it away 24 from me, can they let me use it for the RM880? 25 26 MS. ATORUK: Excuse me, Marlene. 27 Marlene. 28 29 MS. M. MOTO: Yes. 30 31 MS. ATORUK: I think it needs to be 32 clarified here. This is in Unit 23, but it's mostly 33 pointing to that portion north and west of and 34 including the Singoalik River drainage and all lands 35 draining into the Kukpuk and Ipewik Rivers. That's up 36 in the Kivalina area. Am I correct? 37 38 MS. MAAS: No, this is for all of Unit 39 23. 40 41 MS. ATORUK: Oh, okay. 42 43 MS. MAAS: Yeah, there's two hunt 44 areas, but it applies to both hunt areas. 45 46 MS. ATORUK: And anybody can apply. 47 Okay. 48 49 MR. PATTEE: Mr. Chair. 50

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Page 131 1 MS. M. MOTO: Us people that live here 2 don't like to break the Fish and Game regulations 3 either. They like to abide by them that live here. 4 The question is can I use my elder hunting permit 5 towards the RM880 or do I have to buy a Fish and Game 6 license? He buys a Fish and Game license every year. 7 8 MS. MAAS: Marlene, I think you're 9 referring to a hunting license and this permit is in 10 addition to a license. So your elder license is good 11 for life, but sometimes you have to get an additional 12 permit. So you would still need to get this RM880 13 permit under State regulations to hunt moose. If this 14 proposal passes, you'd have to get it under Federal 15 regulations as well. 16 17 MS. M. MOTO: Now I understand I have 18 to get a hunting license too even if I have this elder 19 license. This elder license is not doing any good to 20 me in any way. 21 22 MS. MAAS: No, the license and the 23 permit are two different things. Everyone needs a 24 license to hunt, but for some hunts you need an 25 additional permit. So your elder license -- I think 26 we're getting a little off topic here. 27 28 MS. M. MOTO: So with my elder hunting 29 license I can get an RM880? That's the question. 30 31 MR. PAPPAS: This is George Pappas, 32 OSM. If you have your elder permit I.D. State hunting 33 license, that permanent ID serves as your hunting 34 license, so you never ever have to buy another hunting 35 license again if you have your State-issue elder permit 36 I.D. 37 38 MS. M. MOTO: Because I don't like to 39 break the hunting regulations either. That's why every 40 time I go out I (indiscernible). Too fast. Okay. 41 42 Thank you. 43 44 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Thank you, Marlene. 45 Any questions by the Council. Tristen, did you have 46 something? 47 48 MR. PATTEE: I just wanted to -- I 49 think the reason that we wanted to align the State and 50

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Page 132 1 Federal was to track the population or track the moose, 2 right? I thought I heard Lisa say there was a 3 different way we could track and get rid of the RM880 4 and be able to have people fill out a harvest ticket of 5 some sort that doesn't have a deadline. Did I hear you 6 correctly earlier, Lisa? 7 8 MS. MAAS: Tristen, OSM considered 9 requiring a Federal registration permit instead of 10 going along with the RM880 State registration permit 11 and the Federal registration permit could be available 12 year-round or during the moose season. But you run 13 into the same issue of distributing the permit and not 14 all local venders might be open or available to 15 distribute that permit, but it would get around the 16 time requirement so they could get that permit at any 17 time, but they'd still have to find a licensed vender 18 to get the permit. 19 20 MR. PATTEE: Oh, gotcha. So it could 21 still be a barrier. 22 23 MS. MAAS: It could still be a barrier 24 and then just the logistics of developing the permit 25 and distributing it, but it is an option to help with 26 the harvest reporting, to better track harvest 27 reporting, but not have that summertime period where 28 you have to get your permit during a certain time 29 period. 30 31 MR. PATTEE: I see. 32 33 MS. M. MOTO: Doesn't that RM880 speak 34 for yourself when you turn it in and then my elder 35 hunting license got no say? It sounds like I can't 36 hunt them either without a State of Alaska hunting 37 license, right? 38 39 MR. PAPPAS: This is George with OSM. 40 41 MS. M. MOTO: I really don't hunt 42 animals here anyway. 43 44 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Hang on, Marlene. 45 46 MS. M. MOTO: My husband likes to hunt, 47 but times like this with less caribou and less 48 reindeer, we need that moose in times like this anyway. 49 50

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1 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Raymond. 2 3 MR. LEE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. This 4 is Raymond Lee. Marlene, I understand that you are 5 trying to say that you cannot get your RM880 with your 6 elder's license. You can get your RM880 with your 7 elder's hunting license. 8 9 Thank you. 10 11 MS. M. MOTO: I could? 12 13 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Yes. You just need 14 to be present in Kotzebue or wherever there's a vendor 15 that can provide an RM880. Your elder hunting license 16 is valid, it's good. You don't need an additional 17 hunting license. You just need to get your permit 18 within Game Management Unit 23. That's either here in 19 Kotzebue or if there's a vendor there in Deering 20 between June 1st and July 15th. 21 22 MS. M. MOTO: Did you just say I need 23 an additional hunting license? 24 25 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: No. Your elder 26 hunting license is permanent. You don't need to buy an 27 additional license. 28 29 MS. M. MOTO: Okay. Thank you. 30 31 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Thank you, Marlene. 32 33 Any other questions. 34 35 MS. M. MOTO: Can they get a different 36 date to get the RM880 while he's home? That's what I'm 37 getting at. A different date to get that RM880. 38 39 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: If we allow people to 40 get that RM880 at any other time other than June 1st to 41 July 15th, that will make it wider and broader for 42 other people who are non-local residents to get these 43 permits. That's why we are here in Game Management 44 Unit 23 and we are allowed to get these permits within 45 GMU 23. Any non-local resident hunter is not permitted 46 to hunt on Federal lands on the RM880 if I'm correct. 47 48 MS. MAAS: Through the Chair. Federal 49 public lands are open to all users for moose hunting. 50

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Page 134 1 So if someone from Anchorage came up, got an RM880 2 permit, they could hunt on Federal public lands except 3 the National Parks with that permit. 4 5 MS. DAGGETT: This is Carmen Daggett 6 with Alaska Department of Fish and Game. May I offer a 7 little bit of comment here? 8 9 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Carmen. 10 11 MS. DAGGETT: One option might be that 12 you, yourself, could get an RM880 permit and then 13 perhaps you could have someone else proxy hunt for you 14 under that RM880 permit, but you might want to talk 15 with the Fish and Game office about that. That would 16 mean that maybe your husband could proxy for you. If 17 you're already under an elder hunting license, you 18 should be eligible to have someone proxy for you. 19 20 MS. M. MOTO: I be there with him with 21 my license and let him hunt it for me? 22 23 MS. DAGGETT: Yes. 24 25 MS. M. MOTO: Who do you work for? 26 27 MS. DAGGETT: This is Carmen Daggett 28 with Fish and Game. 29 30 MS. M. MOTO: Are you in Kotzebue now 31 or what? 32 33 MS. DAGGETT: I work out of the Barrow 34 office. 35 36 MS. M. MOTO: Hmm. Okay, thank you. 37 I'll go over to the tribal council and they'll explain 38 to me in regards to hunting. I'm just trying to see 39 how come he can't get it no more. 40 41 Thank you. 42 43 MS. MAAS: I was just going to 44 encourage Marlene if she had any additional questions, 45 because we are in the middle of a meeting with a lot of 46 additional things to cover, that maybe she could 47 contact someone with OSM or ADF&G to get more of her 48 questions answered. 49 50

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Page 135 1 MS. M. MOTO: Thank you. 2 3 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Thank you, Marlene. 4 We already voted on that one. We are on WP20-16, Page 5 99 of your book. Request extending the sealing period 6 for wolf trapping and removing language referencing -- 7 and this is put in Southeast Alaska Subsistence 8 Regional Advisory Council, a statewide proposal. OSM 9 supports it. 10 11 MS. MAAS: Mr. Chair. WP20-16 concerns 12 wolves in Unit 2. That's in Southeast Alaska. My 13 understanding was that you were interested in hearing 14 this proposal, but it is a pretty involved, complex 15 proposal. Before I would begin the presentation I 16 would just want to verify this Council does want to 17 consider wolves in Unit 2. 18 19 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Are there any wishes 20 by the Council on this one? 21 22 Go ahead, Zach. 23 24 MR. STEVENSON: For clarification, the 25 affected area, Unit 2, is in Southeast Alaska. That 26 would be Prince of Wales Archipelago, the group of 27 islands down in Southeast Alaska. In preparing for 28 this meeting and speaking with the Council, there was 29 some interest in addressing this proposal and the 30 interest came from the concern about competition for 31 subsistence resources and learning from what other 32 Councils might be doing to address the management of 33 wolves in their regions. 34 35 Granted this is a different region, but 36 the approach of extending the sealing period for 37 hunting of wolves in particular, changing the harvest 38 limit, in this case to no limit, and removing the 39 language referencing a combines State and Federal 40 harvest quota for wolves, was of interest to this 41 Council. That's why you see it reflected on the agenda 42 today. 43 44 Thank you, Mr. Chair. 45 46 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Take a five-minute 47 break. Everybody agree? 48 49 (Council nods affirmatively) 50

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Page 136 1 (Off record) 2 3 (On record) 4 5 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Are we ready to 6 convene? Next up is Proposal WP20-16 and 17. Lisa. 7 8 MS. MAAS: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 9 Again, for the record, Lisa Maas with OSM and I'll be 10 presenting a summary of the analysis for Wildlife 11 Proposal WP16/17, which begins on page 99 of your 12 meeting books. Both proposals 20/16 and 17 were 13 submitted by the Southeast Alaska Subsistence Regional 14 Advisory Council. Wp20-16 requests extending the 15 sealing period for wolf trapping from within 14 days of 16 harvest to within 30 days of the end of the season and 17 removing language referencing a combined Federal-State 18 harvest quota for wolves in Unit 2. 19 20 Wildlife Proposal WP20-17 requests the 21 same sealing period extension and removal of harvest 22 quota for wolf hunting in Unit 2 as well as increasing 23 the hunting harvest limit from five wolves to no limit. 24 25 The Alaska Board of Game adopted a new 26 harvest management strategy for wolves in Unit 2 in 27 January 2019 resulting in misalignment of State and 28 Federal regulations. The proponent states that their 29 intent is to align State and Federal regulations, to 30 implement the new harvest management strategy under 31 Federal regulations and to increase harvest 32 opportunity. 33 34 Of note, Unit 2 wolves are part of the 35 Alexander Archipelago subspecies, which occupies 36 Southeastern Alaska and coastal British Columbia. 37 38 In 1993 and 2011, the Alexander 39 Archipelago wolf was petitioned to be listed under the 40 Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife 41 Service found the listings not to be warranted on both 42 occasions as the rangewide population appeared stable. 43 44 In 1997, the Board of Game and the 45 Federal Subsistence Board adopted harvest guideline 46 levels to manage the Unit 2 wolf population, which 47 established annual harvest quotas based on Wolf 48 population estimates. Seasons would close early if 49 quotas were expected to be met. 50

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Page 137 1 Between 2013 and 2018 Seasons closed 2 early with reported Harvest well exceeding quotas in 3 some years. In 2018 ADF&G submitted Proposal 43 to the 4 Board of Game to change the harvest management strategy 5 from using harvest management guidelines to meeting 6 population objectives. 7 8 The Board of Game adopted Proposal 43 9 in January 2019 establishing the Unit 2 population 10 objective range as 150-200 wolves. The Board of Game 11 also extended the State trapping season to align 12 Federal and State seasons. 13 14 The Southeast Council also submitted 15 Wildlife Special Action WSA19-02, which requested the 16 same changes to the sealing period and harvest 17 management 2019 as these proposals, for the 2019-20 18 regulatory year. 19 20 The Board approved WSA19-02 in August, 21 stating that the new management strategy should help 22 ensure a sustainable population and encourage better 23 harvest reporting. The Board also stated that 24 announcing predetermined season lengths provides 25 predictability to users and renders the in-season 26 sealing requirement unnecessary. 27 28 Before 2013 Unit 2 wolf abundance was 29 uncertain. Since 2013 a method using DNA from fur 30 samples has been used to generate population estimates. 31 Between 2013 and 2018 wolf population estimates have 32 ranged from a low of 89 wolves in 2014 to a high of 231 33 wolves in 2017. 34 35 Human harvest accounts for the vast 36 majority of wolf mortality in Unit 2. However, wolves 37 are very resilient to high harvest levels due to their 38 high reproductive potential and ability to disperse 39 long distances. In Unit 2, wolf abundance is closely 40 linked with deer abundance, their primary prey. Deer 41 are primarily limited by habitat, which is being 42 negatively affected by logging of old-growth forests in 43 Unit 2. Logging operations also construct roads, 44 providing easy hunter and trapper access into 45 previously remote areas. 46 47 The new harvest management strategy 48 consists of four zones, as depicted in Figure 2 on Page 49 113 of your meeting books. Different zones correspond 50

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Page 138 1 to different population levels and season length. Zone 2 3 is the desirable zone where the wolf population is 3 within the objective range of 150 to 200 wolves and a 4 season of up to two months would be announced. The 5 2019 wolf population is 170 wolves, placing it in Zone 6 3 and resulting in the 2019-20 season opening for two 7 months from November 15th to January 15th. 8 9 Between 1997 and 2018 total trapper 10 numbers in Unit 2 averaged 14.5 trappers per year with 11 Unit 2 residents primarily from Klawock and Craig, 12 harvesting 89 percent of the wolves on average. Over 13 this time period catch per trapper averaged 3.4 wolves. 14 However, usually just two to three skilled trappers 15 harvest most of the wolves. Harvest primarily occurs on 16 Federal lands under a combination hunting/trapping 17 license and little harvest occurs before mid-November 18 when only the Federal hunting season is open. 19 20 Since 1997, when the harvest guideline 21 level was initiated, annual reported harvest has ranged 22 from 7 to 76 wolves, averaging 50 wolves and the annual 23 harvest quota has been exceeded five times. High 24 unreported harvest rates 38 to 47 percent have likely 25 resulted in unsustainable harvest in some years. 26 27 Adopting WP20-16/17 would extend the 28 sealing requirement, eliminate the Federal/State 29 harvest quota and increased the hunting harvest limit. 30 Extending the sealing requirement would align Federal 31 requirements for sealing requirements for the State 32 trapping season and decreases the burden on users by 33 allowing them to seal all their wolf pelts at one time. 34 35 Eliminating the harvest quota and 36 managing for a population objective provides managers 37 with a quantitative benchmark to gauge success and 38 mitigates disagreements between stakeholders over what 39 is sustainable wolf population. Additionally, harvest 40 quotas discouraged harvest reporting because of a 41 threat of seasons closing early. Announcing season 42 lengths ahead of time provides predictability, allowing 43 trapper's to plan for the season and, importantly, does 44 not discourage harvest reporting. 45 46 Changing the hunting harvest limit to 47 no Limit increases harvest opportunity for Federally 48 qualified subsistence users from September 1st to 49 November 14th and presents little conservation concerns 50

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Page 139 1 due to low harvest during this time period. 2 3 The new management strategy also 4 alleviates concerns about illegal or unreported harvest 5 by basing management on population estimates and 6 objectives rather than on harvest quotas and reported 7 Harvest. While the new management strategy depends on 8 year old population estimates to determine season 9 lengths, the harvest guideline level strategy also 10 depended on year old estimates to announce quotas. 11 12 One reason a species can be listed 13 under the Endangered Species Act is inadequacy of 14 existing regulatory mechanisms. In response to the 2011 15 petition, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found wolf 16 harvest regulations in Unit 2 to be inadequate in 17 ensuring sustainable harvest, especially since reported 18 harvest well exceeded quotas in 2016 in 2017. 19 20 The Wolf Technical Committee stated 21 that establishing population objectives through a 22 public process reduces the likelihood of future 23 litigation. While managing through season length may 24 initially result in more or less wolves harvested than 25 expected, State and Federal managers can fine-tune 26 season lengths over time as patterns are established. 27 28 However, past experience suggest 29 harvest is more a function of abundance rather than 30 season length. The Craig District Ranger currently has 31 delegated authority to close, reopen or adjust the 32 Federal hunting and trapping season for wolves in Unit 33 2. This individual would announce season length in 34 coordination with State managers after the population 35 estimate is available. 36 37 Effective wolf management in Unit 2 38 depends upon coordination between State and Federal 39 regulations, managers and users. Adopting WP20-16/17 40 facilities management and reduces user confusion. 41 42 The OSM preliminary conclusion is to 43 support WP20-16/17. 44 45 Thank you, Mr. Chair 46 47 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Thank you for your 48 presentation analysis. Report on board consultation. 49 Do we have any tribes? 50

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Page 140 1 (No comments) 2 3 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any ANCSA 4 corporation. 5 6 MS. MAAS: Through the Chair. There 7 was a representative from Southeast Alaska, Sealaska, 8 but I believe all her comments had to do with Southeast 9 deer proposals. I don't recall any comments on this 10 particular proposal. 11 12 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Agency comments. 13 Alaska Department of Fish and Game. 14 15 (No comments) 16 17 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: None. Any Federal 18 agencies. 19 20 (No comments) 21 22 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: None. Any tribal 23 agencies. 24 25 (No comments) 26 27 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Hearing none. 28 Advisory group comments. Other Regional Councils. 29 30 MS. MAAS: The Southeast Council has 31 not met yet, so they have not acted on this proposal 32 and I'm not aware of any other Councils addressing it. 33 34 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Go ahead, Zach. 35 36 MR. STEVENSON: Through the Chair. To 37 Lisa's point, the Southeast Council meets in about a 38 week. There was one written public comment and that 39 opposed Wildlife Proposal 20-16 and 17. That letter 40 came from an organization called Alaskans for Wildlife 41 and can be found on Pages 124 and 125 of your meeting 42 books. 43 44 I'm going to summarize that two-page 45 letter and basically say that the main points in the 46 letter stated that the lands in question are publicly 47 owned, belonging to all citizens in the United States 48 and that the Alaska Constitution states that all 49 Alaskans are stakeholders and essentially owners with 50

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1 respect to its natural resources and how they were 2 managed. 3 4 On Page 125 the letter states that 5 wolves serve an important part of the natural world and 6 are keystone or apex predators and provide an important 7 role in maintaining the health of the biosystem, the 8 biodiversity, and that the proposal would undermine 9 both the science and health of the land and is not 10 based on sound science. 11 12 That's all. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 13 14 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any other comments. 15 Fish and Game Advisory Committees. 16 17 (No comments) 18 19 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Hearing none. 20 Subsistence Resource Commissions. 21 22 (No comments) 23 24 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Hearing none. 25 Summary of written public comments. That was on Page 26 125 and 126. Is there any public testimony regarding 27 this? 28 29 (No comments) 30 31 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Regional Council 32 recommendations. Motion to support, oppose or take no 33 action. 34 35 Go ahead, Enoch. 36 37 MR. MITCHELL: I support this because 38 it will be beneficial and help us with the predator 39 control. With the sealing, we don't have to meet a 40 deadline when we're busy. 41 42 Thank you. 43 44 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Any further comments 45 by the Council. My recommendation for this one is the 46 sealing requirements extended for one month. Is that 47 what you said? 48 49 MS. MAAS: Currently the sealing 50

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1 requirements are within 14 days of harvest and the 2 change would be to within 30 days of the end of the 3 season. 4 5 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Is there a 6 recommendation by the Council that we can make a 7 modification to extend that for our Game Management 8 Unit 23 for sealing requirements? 9 10 MS. MAAS: Through the Chair. This is 11 for Unit 2. You can recommend whatever you want, but 12 changing the sealing requirement for Unit 23 is beyond 13 the scope of this proposal. 14 15 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Okay. Go ahead, 16 Enoch. 17 18 MR. MITCHELL: So this proposal is only 19 pertaining to Unit 2. It won't help us. 20 21 MS. MAAS: Correct. This is only for 22 Unit 2, not Unit 23. 23 24 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: What's the wish of 25 the Council. 26 27 MS. MAAS: Through the Chair. Some 28 options. The Council can either support, oppose, 29 support with modification or take no action. 30 31 MR. PATTEE: I'd like to make a motion 32 to take no action. 33 34 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: There's a motion on 35 the floor to take no action. 36 37 MR. COMMACK: Second. 38 39 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Seconded by Louie. 40 41 MR. COMMACK: Question. 42 43 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: The question has been 44 called. Any further discussion. 45 46 (No comments) 47 48 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Hearing none. All in 49 favor of taking no action on Proposal 2016/17 say aye. 50

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Page 143 1 IN UNISON: Aye. 2 3 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Same sign nay. 4 5 (No opposing votes) 6 7 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: Hearing none. 8 Unanimously passed. Okay. How about we make the 9 motion to adjourn and return back tomorrow. We'll 10 convene tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. 11 12 MR. STEVENSON: Thanks, everybody. 13 14 CHAIRMAN KRAMER: See you tomorrow, 15 Tristen. 16 17 (Off record) 18 19 (PROCEEDINGS TO BE CONTINUED) 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

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1 C E R T I F I C A T E 2 3 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ) 4 )ss. 5 STATE OF ALASKA ) 6 7 I, Salena A. Hile, Notary Public in and for the 8 state of Alaska and reporter for Computer Matrix Court 9 Reporters, LLC, do hereby certify: 10 11 THAT the foregoing pages numbered through 12 contain a full, true and correct Transcript of the 13 NORTHWEST ARCTIC ALASKA FEDERAL SUBSISTENCE REGIONAL 14 ADVISORY COUNCIL MEETING, VOLUME I taken electronically 15 on the 28th day of October in Kotzebue, Alaska; 16 17 THAT the transcript is a true and 18 correct transcript requested to be transcribed and 19 thereafter transcribed by under my direction and 20 reduced to print to the best of our knowledge and 21 ability; 22 23 THAT I am not an employee, attorney, or 24 party interested in any way in this action. 25 26 DATED at Anchorage, Alaska, this 15th 27 day of November 2019. 28 29 30 31 Salena A. Hile 32 Notary Public, State of Alaska 33 My Commission Expires: 09/16/22 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

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