Alaska Native appointed to Board of Game

Gov. Palin made her new appointment to the Board of Game - Craig Fleener of Fort Yukon is to replace Teresa Sager-Albaugh, the former president of the Alaska Outdoor Council, Alaska’s largest outdoor sportsmen’s organization.

From the News-Miner:

“Sager-Albaugh, from the Tok area, withdrew her name Wednesday as anger mounted among lawmakers over the governor’s three appointees to the seven-member board. If those appointees had been confirmed, the game board would have had no Native member on it since it was formed in 1976.

The board is responsible for setting hunting and trapping regulations statewide.

Fleener, reached in Anchorage where he is taking a class to complete his master’s degree in wildlife biology, said he has lived in both rural and urban Alaska and can bring that perspective to the board. He is familiar, he said, with a subsistence lifestyle, both his own and others, while at the same time being closely associated with sport hunters and commercial fishermen.

“I probably bring a unique perspective of both sides of the issues,” he said.

Some Native lawmakers and leaders said it was essential that a Native be on the board. Others, such as Sen. Donny Olson, D-Nome, felt the more serious problem was that the board would have no one who had lived off the road system and truly understood life in the Bush.

Fleener negates both those complaints. He is Athabaskan and from Fort Yukon, a town of about 600 residents about 145 air miles from Fairbanks.

Olson said the governor did the right thing in picking Fleener.

“She was sensitive enough to go and answer the objections,” he said.”

Read the rest of the story: Fairbanks Daily News-MinerOn the Net:

http://www.boards.adfg.state.ak.us/gameinfo/index.ph