REPORTS

Alaska Game Commission. 1952. Thirteenth Annual Report of the Alaska Game Commission to the Secretary of the Interior for the period July 1, 1951, to June 30, 1952.

1953. Fourteenth Annual Report of the Alaska Game Commission to the Secretary of the Interior for the period July 1, 1952 to June 30, 1953. 1954. Fifteenth Annual Report of the Alaska Game Commission to the Secretary of the Interior for the period July 1, 1953 to June 30, 1954. 1953. Quarterly Progress Report, surveys and investigations, Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration, 8(1): 8-10.

1953. Ibid. 8(2): 10–13.
1955. Ibid. 9(4): 14-18.
1957. Ibid. 11: 49–55.

1958. Ibid. 12: 47-51.

Shaller, George B. 1957. (Title not known, but subject is Fauna and Flora of the Sheenjek River Valley, Alaska). M.A. Thesis, University of Wisconsin. Senator BARTLETT. Would you say that anything has been published concerning the wildlife?

Dr. BUCKLEY. In the line of a scientific study, no. There have been a number of publications which discussed the wildlife of the area. Senator BARTLETT. Secretary Leffler, you mentioned the unusual arctic glaciers. Will you describe them a bit more? How are they unusual?

Mr. LEFFLER. They are flowing from the north, of course. I think I will have to ask one of our other men to give you that description. Who can describe those glaciers better than I can? Dr. Buckley. I can give you a general answer, but I would rather have him do it. Dr. BUCKLEY. The question was on the arctic glaciers?

Senator BARTLETT. Specifically, Dr. Buckley, on that parenthetical expression in Secretary Leffler's statement which referred to "unusual arctic glaciers."

Dr. BUCKLEY. Yes, precipitation in the truly arctic area is so reduced that ordinarily there are no glaciers or very few glaciers. This is particularly true in the mountainous areas. I would not say this about Greenland where certainly with its large icecap, it is an exception, but mountainous glaciers are an extremely rare phenomenon in this country.

Senator BARTLETT. How many glaciers are there in the proposed range?

Dr. BUCKLEY. These are restricted to the Michelson area and those adjacent to it. Whether you wish to call each tongue a separate one or whether you wish to call it a single one

Senator BARTLETT. I am wondering if there is as much ice in this range as there is within 20 miles of Juneau?

Dr. BUCKLEY. No where near as much.

Senator BARTLETT. They are unusual simply because they are not generally found in the Arctic?

Dr. BUCKLEY. That is correct and because of this, as you may recall, they had one of the IGY stations for studying glaciology on Mount Michelson for the very reason that there were no other Arctic glaciers available in a convenient area to be studied.

Senator BARTLETT. They would be fairly safe whether or not there was withdrawal of land, would they not?

Dr. BUCKLEY. Yes, sir.

Senator BARTLETT. Just part of the scenic attraction?

Dr. BUCKLEY. Part of the scenic and part of the scientific attraction, yes.

Senator BARTLETT. Mr. Secretary, you are going to permit hunting. Do you permit hunting elsewhere in Alaska? How then is the wildlife in the range, if it is established to be protected to a greater degree than elsewhere in Alaska?

Mr. LEFFLER. The hunting can be controlled.

Senator BARTLETT. It can be controlled everywhere, I hope.

Mr. LEFFLER. Not always as well as it could be in an area where we had a right to close the area, if necessary.

Senator BARTLETT. Yes, but if a person is going to break the law, he is not going to respect a boundary.

Mr. LEFFLER. That is correct. That is, of course, one of the problems we are faced with not only there but elsewhere.

Senator BARTLETT. Why is it then that the wildlife would receive greater protection here?

Mr. LEFFLER. You mean because of the setting of it aside?
Senator BARTLETT. Yes.

Mr. LEFFLER. Because we would then control the places and the times and the kind and amount of hunting that would be permitted. Senator BARTLETT. But the Federal Government has been doing that for over half a century in Alaska and has had exclusive charge over all hunting in Alaska, controlling time, place, and bag limit, so I cannot see how there would be any difference. What is the difference? Mr. LEFFLER. We have had our problems, as you well know, in enforcing the regulations and we have had numerous violations.

Senator BARTLETT. Yes, I suspect that you might have violations here too if it were not for the remoteness of the area.

Mr. LEFFLER. There might be some violations, yes, and I would not say there wouldn't be people who would attempt to violate the law. We will have to be alert and vigilant.

Senator BARTLETT. Mind you, Mr. Secretary, I am simply trying to get all the information possible.

Mr. LEFFLER. That is right.

Senator BARTLETT. I do not intend to harass you at all, that is not my intention, but we do want to build a record here and I think you would agree there is a need for that. But, let me ask you this, Mr. Secretary, in a way it seems incompatible to me to set aside this area. for the purposes described and yet, at the same time, seek an arrangement whereby mining will be permitted, which certainly would not contribute to preservation of wildlife, however little you might take away from your protective device, but if you had a lot of mining there, you would have excitement and inducement to killing game that otherwise would not exist. I am wondering how the two jibe?

Mr. LEFFLER. If there was a great deal of mining in there, there is no question but what it would be incompatible in that particular area to wildlife and it might destroy much of the forage. We have the problem then of deciding which is best for Alaska.

Senator BARTLETT. Later on in your statement, you said that if you are to protect the entire herd of caribou throughout their range in Alaska, you would have to set aside a great deal more than that. Couldn't you carry that statement further and say if you wanted to protect all forms of wildlife in Alaska by creating a wildlife range, that you would have to include all of Alaska?

Mr. LEFFLER. No; I do not think so. The caribou is an animal that ranges back and forth and we do not feel that it is necessary to give it protection in other parts, but we do believe that by setting this aside, that we can help to preserve the future of the herd of caribou.

Senator BARTLETT. We seem to be in agreement, Mr. Secretary, that one of the principal reasons, if not the principal reason, for the decline in the number of caribou is because there was overgrazing and yet we know that man has not gone into the Arctic and subarctic and disturbed the range of the caribou, so I can't quite follow on what is going to happen over this proposed wildlife range that is going to give them more food.

Mr. LEFFLER. In the particular area where this is set aside, apparently at the present time, there is an abundance of food. It has not been destroyed as it has perhaps in some other parts of Alaska. If we can preserve the food values here, we can at least save a great many of the caribou that might otherwise have a hard time making a living.

Senator BARTLETT. I have a few more questions about that. Why hasn't it been destroyed there? It has been destroyed to the west. What has been the difference? They have been roaming back and forth all this time, so why is it we find a lot of reindeer moss within this proposed wildlife range and not outside of it?

Mr. LEFFLER. I am going to ask Dr. Buckley to answer that question.

Dr. BUCKLEY. Senator Bartlett, if we go back in time a little bit, to the early part of this century, caribou were rather scarce in this part of the country that we are talking about here in this proposed range. There are undoubtedly more caribou that use that area now than used it then. I think this is part of the inherent pattern of movement of caribou. They use an area for a while and move on. You, from your own experience, will recall in the middle thirties, the great number of caribou there were in Tanana Hills just north of Fairbanks and the sudden shifting of population from there elsewhere. So, the main reason I think that area is less disturbed, as far as use by caribou is concerned, is because it only was in recent times, say of the last 50 years, only within the past decade, has it received the kind of use which could possibly eventually lead to its deterioration. A second thing which enters into the quality of that range, you also have traveled through Barrow in the recent past and you have flown low, I presume, over much of that country and have seen the great effects over fairly large areas of the tractor trains and so on that have been incident to the exploration in Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 4 and other areas, so this in effect is one place in the area which has had little disturbance by man and until very recently, not as heavy use by caribou as some other parts of the territory.

Senator BARTLETT. Well, I used to feel that way because the people who were as informed as they might be on the subject of caribou, believed one of the reasons or the leading reason perhaps why caribou did not come down to Fairbanks anymore was because roads were being cut out through the wilderness hither and yon and this disturbed the migratory habits of the caribou, which might be very true. The fact is, is it not, that this very radical decrease in the number of

43642-59 -5

caribou in the Arctic occurred before the great petroleum explorations were underway?

Dr. BUCKLEY. Yes, I would not consider these two as cause and effect. What I said had nothing to do with the number of people that use it but rather the alterations of the surface of the land reresulting from that. I would not attribute it to any one thing. I would say that all of these uses which have affected the surface of the land, whether they be by caribou grazing or by use of the land by man or by fires which have been started by man, have all adversely influenced the caribou range.

I agree with you, certainly, and we have a good example in the Nelchina area of use of an area heavily by caribou where there are many roads and trails which cross that area.

Senator BARTLETT. Thank you very much for your statement, Mr. Secretary. You said this, and I quote:

The proposed range has been restricted to the area which contains all of the requisites for year-round use.

What are those requisites?

Mr. LEFFLER. Principally food and cover and that is on the south side of the mountain.

Senator BARTLETT. We apparently don't know too much about year-round aspects of this because it has been testified that not one single official from the Department of the Interior has ever spent the whole year there.

Mr. LEFFLER. But they have flown over it.

Senator BARTLETT. I know, but my goodness, I have flown over the United States many times, but I don't know too much about what lies beneath. I think that is quite different from being there physically month after month.

Mr. LEFFLER. I believe they would probably see a greater area from a plane on the south side than if they were holed up in a cabin. Senator BARTLETT. No doubt about that, and using snowshoes or dog team. How far south of the Brooks Range is this crest?

Dr. BUCKLEY. The crest of the range is about here [indicating]. You mean in terms of miles?

Senator BARTLETT. Approximately.

Dr. BUCKLEY. I would guess probably 50 miles south of the crest of the range and perhaps further than that along some of the river valleys.

Senator BARTLETT. And south beyond the foothills?

Dr. BUCKLEY. No, sir; still in the foothills of the range. It does not extend beyond the Brooks Range to the south.

Senator BARTLETT. How is the fishing up there, Mr. Secretary? Mr. LEFFLER. They tell me it is very good.

Senator BARTLETT. What kind of fish are to be taken?

Mr. LEFFLER. I assume there are grayling in that area and probably some trout.

Dr. BUCKLEY. Lake trout in that particular area, arctic char and grayling are the three principal ones.

Senator BARTLETT. You referred to the lofty mountains, lofty in terms of comparison with the mountains of Virginia, perhaps, but not lofty in terms of other mountains in Alaska.

Mr. LEFFLER. They are not as high as some other mountains in Alaska, but they create an impression of grandeur and height.

Senator BARTLETT. I can well believe it.

Mr. LEFFLER. It is beautiful, and particularly the time I flew over it, the fireweed was in bloom and there was mile after mile of red valley.

Senator BARTLETT. Mr. Secretary, how many acres does the Interior Department now have reserved in Alaska for wildlife purposes?

Mr. LEFFLER. You mean now in refuges?

Senator BARTLETT. In other withdrawals?
Mr. LEFFLER. Just for wildlife purposes?
Senator BARTLETT. Yes.

Mr. LEFFLER. About 7,827,255.

Senator BARTLETT. Would you break that down, please. Do you have a list there?

Mr. LEFFLER. Yes.

Senator BARTLETT. Perhaps instead of reading it you merely furnish it for the record.

Mr. LEFFLER. We will furnish it for the record if you don't want me to read it.

Senator BARTLETT. If you don't have one readily available, I have one here, too.

Mr. LEFFLER. That is where I got it.

Senator BARTLETT. You answered the question correctly, but additionally, we have other areas where the Federal Government has a special interest and in most cases, even as concerning wildlife, Glacier Bay National Monument, Sitka and Katmai National Monuments, Mount McKinley National Park, Chugach National Forest, totaling in all 27,652,317 acres, making a grand total of 35,485,472 acres. Now, that does not mean that you did not answer my question. Mr. LEFFLER. I understood you to mean under our jurisdiction of wildlife.

Mr. STEVENS. Senator, were you including in that Park Service lands and Fish and Wildlife land?

Senator BARTLETT. No, well, in that grand total I did. When I mentioned the 35 million acres, 7,833,144 acres is wildlife and then these other areas I mentioned were, in some cases.

Mr. STEVENS. I would like to provide a breakdown of those, if I may, for the record, Senator. My figures, that I got out last night, show that we have approximately 6,900,000 in the Park Service and a little over 7,800,000 in Fish and Wildlife Service, with a total of somewhat like 14.5 million in these two categories.