A formal written apology acknowledging hurtful impacts of past subsistence bird harvest prohibitions is paving the way for a much more congenial working relationship between Alaska Native subsistence hunters and government managers.
“We are all ecstatic,” said Patty Schwalenberg, executive director of Chugach Regional Resources Commission, whose mission is to promote tribal sovereignty and protect the subsistence lifestyle.
“This letter will do a lot for healing for the Alaska Native subsistence hunters,” said Schwalenberg, who is also executive director of the Alaska Migratory Bird Co-Management Council. “It will also help us work more collaboratively together at the co-management council level.”
Schwalenberg’s comments on Sept. 18 came in the wake of the formal apology presented earlier in the week by Greg Siekaniec, regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Sam Cotten, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
More than three dozen people, including subsistence hunters and federal and state agency employees, attended the signing ceremony in Anchorage.
The apology recognizes hardships that Alaska Native families experienced from implementation of the migratory Bird Treaty Act in the 1960s and 1970s. Under that legislation the migratory bird harvest was prohibited from March 10 through Sept. 1 throughout the United States, including Alaska.
Outlawing the spring and summer harvest of migratory birds and their eggs meant that Alaska Natives were forced to hunt illegally for these subsistence foods to feed their families. When caught doing so, they could be arrested, and their weapons confiscated.
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act was actually signed into law in 1918 to protect migratory bird populations, which had been severely depleted by commercial hunting. The act was amended in 1997 to allow for spring and summer subsistence harvests by all rural Alaska residents, after an effort led by Alaska Native leaders.
The first legal spring-summer migratory bird hunt was held in 2003. AAMBCC officials also noted that the amended act directed that a co-equal partnership of federal, state and Alaska Native representatives be established to manage the subsistence migratory bird hunts, and that led to the establishment of the AMBCC in 2003.
