(c) The Secretary of the Interior is authorized to permit the hunting and the taking of game animals, birds, and fish in the wildlife range, or parts thereof, as well as the trapping of fur animals. However, no person may hunt, trap, capture, kill, or willfully disturb any wild mammal, wild bird, or fish or take or destroy the eggs or nests of any such bird or fish within the wildlife range, except as may be prescribed by the Secretary. (d) The Secretary is authorized to administer the wildlife range in accordance with this Act and such regulations as he may issue in the public interest relating to any of the purposes and provisions of this Act. (e) Any employee of the Department of the Interior authorized by the Secretary of the Interior to enforce the provisions of this Act shall have power (1) without warrant, to arrest any person committing in the presence of such employee a violation of this Act or any regulation made pursuant thereto, and to take such person immediately for examination or trial before any officer or court of competent jurisdiction, and (2) to execute any warrant or other process issued by any officer or court of competent jurisdiction to enforce the provisions of this Act or regulations made pursuant thereto. Any Judge of a court established under the laws of the United States, or any United States Commissioner may, within his respective jurisdiction, upon proper oath or affirmation showing probable cause, issue warrants in all such cases. Any wild mammals, wild birds, fish or other property within or relating to such wildlife range, when illegally taken or possessed shall, when found by such employee, or by any marshal or deputy marshal, be summarily seized by him, and upon conviction of the offender, such property shall be forfeited to the United States and disposed of as directed by the court having jurisdiction. Any person who violates or fails to comply with any provision of this Act or any regulation made pursuant thereto shall be fined not more than $500 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both. SEC. 4. Nothing in this Act shall be construed to impair the authority of the President under section 10 of the Act of July 7, 1958 (72 Stat. 339, 345). Hon. RICHARD M. NIXON, Washington, D.C. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: Enclosed herewith is a draft of a proposed bill to authorize the establishment of the Arctic Wildlife Range, Alaska, and for other purposes. We recommend that such proposed legislation be referred to the appropriate committee and that it be enacted. This proposed legislation would permit the establishment of a wildlife area in the State of Alaska to be known as the Arctic Wildlife Range. The purpose of this reservation would be the preservation of wildlife and wilderness values in the particular area. Recognizing that the defense requirements of our Nation are a major consideration, present or future Department of Defense operations in the area would not be affected. Furthermore, use of the area for other purposes would be permitted in a manner that would not impair the intent of this legislation. Looking ahead 50 years to the unfolding story of Alaska's development, it is clear that the only economically feasible opportunity for maintaining a wilderness frontier large enough for the preservation of the caribou, the grizzly, the Dall sheep, the wolverine, and the polar bear, all of which require a sizable unrestricted range, lies in this northeastern Arctic region of the State. Our studies of this matter have led to the selection of an area as set forth in this bill that we believe should be preserved for the purposes in question. This area extends eastward from the Canning River to the Canadian border and inland to include a portion of the south slope of the Brooks Range. At its largest dimensions, the area would be roughly 120 miles from east to west and 140 miles from north to south. The proposed Arctic Wildlife Range offers an ideal opportunity, and the only one in Alaska, to preserve an undisturbed portion of the Arctic large enough to be biologically self-sufficient. It would comprise one of the most magnificent wildlife and wilderness areas in North America, being exceeded in extent only by Canada's Wood Buffalo Scientific Study Area, which is farther south and represents a different habitat. The portion of the Arctic Plain included in the proposal is a major habitat, particularly in summer, for the great herds of arctic caribou. The countless lakes, ponds, and marshes found here are nesting grounds for large numbers of migratory waterfowl that spend about half of each year in the United States. Thus, the production here is important to a great many sportsmen. The river bottoms with their willow thickets furnish habitat for moose. This section of the seacoast provides habitat for polar bears, arctic foxes, seals, and whales. The arctic caribou herds use all of the Brooks Range in summer and the south side particularly in winter. This unmodified region is important for game management research, particularly on caribou range problems. The Dall sheep are year-round residents and, like the caribou, occur in greater total numbers here than in other parts of Alaska. Moose and grizzlies are common. Wolverines are seen occasionally. Ptarmigan are numerous. This spacious unaltered habitat would permit the reintroduction of the musk ox. The south slope of the Brooks Range meets the year-round requirements for all of the native wildlife. In elevation and grandeur, Mount Michelson (9,239 feet) and Mount Chamberlain (9,131 feet) in this particular region are exceeded by no other in the Arctic Circle except for some in Greenland and Siberia. For the wilderness explorer, whether primarily a fisherman, hunter, photographer, or mountain climber, certain portions of the Arctic coast and the north slope river valleys, such as the Canning, Hulahula, Okpilak, Aichilik, Kongakut, and Firth, and their great background of lofty mountains, offer a wilderness experience not duplicated elsewhere in our country. In the circumstances, we consider this proposal to be desirable for accomplishment of the purposes that we have outlined. We believe this proposal is adaptable to this particular area in that it will provide a practical method of realizing the public benefits to which we have referred and at the same time will permit other uses in the area, such as mineral activities. This bill would permit the Secretary to authorize mineral activity within the range while at the same time it would preclude the appropriation of title to the surface of the land. The Bureau of the Budget has advised us that there is no objection to the submission of this proposed legislation to the Congress. Sincerely yours, FRED A. SEATON, Secretary of the Interior. Senator BARTLETT. The first witness will be Senator Ernest Gruening. Senator Gruening, the committee will be glad to hear from you. STATEMENT OF HON. ERNEST GRUENING, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ALASKA Senator GRUENING. Mr. Chairman, I have a prepared statement, but before going into that, I note with pleasure and interest some of my conservation friends are here, official executives of various conservationist organizations, and I know that conservationist groups warmly support this legislation requested by the Interior Department. In fact, they have so informed me. I have received a number of calls from conservation minded friends who feel that this legislation is in the interest of conservation and knowing me to be a conservationist, they urge that I am expected to support this bill which will set aside some 9 million acres in the northeastern corner of Alaska as a game range and possibly also as a wilderness area. I want to point out that I am proud that I am a conservationist; that I consider myself a fervent conservationist. I think people who are not conservationists are false to a trust to cherish and preserve this great natural heritage that we have in our country, a heritage of forest, waters, wildlife, and soil, and faithless to our responsibility to future generations. But, it has been my experience that we conservationists often differ as to proper methods of applying our conservation principles and putting our theories into practice. I could, and perhaps should, if it would not burden the record, qualify myself at great length as a conservationist. However, I will merely cite a few bits of evidence. One of my first actions when I came to Alaska as Governor in 1939 was to fight against the there existing practice of slaughtering the bald eagle, that noble, national bird. Not only was the bald eagle being slaughtered, but a bounty was put on his allegedly bald, but really white-feathered, head. This shocked me profoundly. I found that there was at that time a good deal of sentiment in Alaska in favor of killing the eagle. There was an illusion among a good many Alaskans that the eagle was a dangerous predator, destructive of salmon, the important fish on which much of Alaska's economy depended; and it was also believed that eagles swooped down on barnyards and seized chickens. It was even alleged that bald eagles preyed upon young Dall sheep and carried them away. Having made a study of the subject, I became convinced that these charges against this noble bird was largely unfounded, that the instances of bald eagle predation believed to exist were at most few and far between. But I found that this bounty provision had been written into Alaska legislation, and I was unable in my first session with the legislature in 1941 to persuade the legislators to remove this legislation. So, the only thing left for me to do was to cancel the bounty appropriation. At that time, in the Territory of Alaska, the Governor had the power to veto appropriation items, and so I eliminated the appropriation item with the result that it was not possible to pay eagle bounties in that biennium, 1941-43. I tried again in the next legislative session, in 1943, to have the eagle bounty legislation repealed. I was again unsuccessful. But again, I vetoed the bounty appropriation. Finally in 1945, I was able to persuade the legislators that this legislation should be repealed. It was repealed. Then in concert with some officials in the Fish and Wildlife Service I got them by Executive order to extend the protection to the eagle in Alaska, which had been excluded from this protection, making Alaska similar in this respect to the 48 States and from that time on, the eagle started again to multiply with the result that we can now see this noble bird in great numbers flying over Alaska. It was thereby saved for the whole Nation, for it is almost extinct elsewhere in our country. Finally, with our Statehood Act, we have been brought into uniformity with the other 48 States. I could go on and give many examples of that kind, and if so only to demonstrate that I am an all-out conservationist. But I will not burden the record thereby. However, I want, because I think it pertinent, to philosophize a little bit about some of the differences between me and some of my fellow conservationists, especially those professionally engaged in conservation promotion: I would say these differences are inherent in the fact that I believe that the purpose of conservation is to conserve our natural resources for the future benefit of human beings, for future generations of men, women, and children. I do not believe we should conserve species for the sake of the species. I don't believe we should conserve moose for the sake of future moose. We preserve them so that future generations of human beings can see moose, and photograph moose, and hunt moose. it they wish to. I prefer to photograph them. The idea of conserving for future generations of people should apply to all our natural resources. Some of our conservationists apparently think we should conserve the species for the species themselves. Sometimes these conservationists go to great lengths to impose their theories and lose sight of the human stake involved. We had an example of such conflict back in the middle 1940's when we felt it very necessary, very desirable to have a cement plant in Alaska. When I was Administrator of the Puerto Rican Reconstruction Administration, in the 1930's, I was able, after some effort, to secure a Government appropriation to construct a cement plant because great quantities of cement were being used in our Puerto Rico rehabilitation program. The people of Puerto Rico were paying high prices for this cement after they paid the high freight and wharfage charges. A local cement plant would not only lower the price but give employment. There was, of course, a good deal of objection on the part of the mainland cement producers. The proposal for an island cement plant was called socialism, as many good things are called but we got this cement plant built. It has functioned 365 days of the year ever since and this was about 1936. That pioneer cement plant in Puerto Rico was so successful, that within a few years, it had paid back the amortization and interest and then was sold to private enterprise. It never cost our taxpayers one red cent, but it benefited the people of Puerto Rico enormously. It was so successful that another cement plant was started by private enterprise and these two cement plants have been going ever since under private ownership and they have saved the people of Puerto Rico millions and millions of dollars. I had a similar hope for the people of Alaska. Now, to locate a cement plant successfully, you have to have certain conditions. You have to have a deposit of limestone at the site of the plant. Likewise a cement plant should be near transportation. After surveying the whole field in Alaska, we found that there was such an area, perhaps 25 acres in extent right alongside the Alaska Railroad on a bed of limestone. So we hopefully moved in the direction of having this project developed, but discovered that this little tract of land was in the extreme southeast corner of Mount McKinley National Park. It had no relation whatever to the scenic beauties of the park. It had no relation to the wildlife values of the park. I doubt whether there was even a ground squirrel in it. That area was actually adjacent to and contiguous with the Alaska Railroad. But, because it was in the park, a tremendous furor was raised by conservationist organizations and we were not allowed to proceed. A great barrage of opposing correspondence descended upon us and the Interior Department-a well-organized lobby-and so the people of Alaska were denied the opportunity to have this great bonanza which would have saved them millions of dollars, dollars which could have been invested in wildlife restoration and conservation, in better and lower cost housing and in all kinds of beneficial measures. Now if one looks at the boundaries of Mount McKinley National Park, enclosing an area of 3,000 square miles, if I remember my figures, the southern boundary is drawn arbitrarily, a straight line perhaps 100 miles in length from east to west. It might just as well have been drawn 500 feet further to the north. It was arbitrarily 43642-59- -2 drawn as it was way back in, I think, 1918, when the park was set aside and when Alaska was totally unsurveyed, when the railroad was not built. So in view of these circumstances there was absolutely no valid reason why this point involving an infinitesimal area and of no value from a park standpoint, shouldn't have been yielded in the public interest. But it wasn't. No good was served by this narrow misconception of conservation. This is merely an illustration of the conflict that exists between a theoretical, and often fanatical, conservationism and another kind of conservationism that is no less conscious of the supremely important values that inhere in scenic beauty and national parks, and natural resources, and unspoiled wilderness areas. None of these would in any sense have been damaged by this proposal, in the slightest degree. I could go on indefinitely in pointing out these divergencies between sound conservation and examples of misapplication of conservation. Now we have a very striking example of conservation failure in Alaska in the steady depletion of our Alaskan salmon, which was once Alaska's greatest natural resource and the Nation's greatest fishery resource. For years, the people of Alaska, who are fully conscious of the importance of the resource, and more concerned than anyone else, alarmed at its depletion, perturbed at its overfishing, critical of some of the methods that were used in taking salmon, protested against these practices. These protests began way back in the early days of the century. Their chief protagonist at that time was a very distinguished Alaska delegate in Congress by the name of James Wickersham. He felt that the absentee fishery interests operating out of California, Oregon and Washington were not concerned with the conservation of the salmon but solely concerned with profits, that they wanted to take out this resource as rapidly as they could, without regard to the future. For nearly half a century, the people of Alaska, through their representatives in the territorial legislature, through their voteless delegates in Congress, raised their voices in protest. Wickersham was succeeded by Dan Sutherland who was succeeded by Anthony J. Dimond and he in turn was succeeded by my able and distinguished colleague, the senior Senator of Alaska, Bob Bartlett, who for 14 years was our voteless delegate in the House. Through all those years, they tried, carrying out the wishes of the people of Alaska, to introduce conservation measures that would prevent this tragic depletion of the salmon. But they could not prevail. The people of Alaska could not prevail— and conservation was cast to the winds. Yes, the salmon interests were too powerful. Year after year, Delegate Bartlett, as had his predecessor, Tony Dimond, would introduce bills to bring about abolition of the destructive fishtraps which have been abolished in all other areas where the Pacific salmon exists, areas where the salmon were a much lesser resource to begin with, areas such as British Columbia, and Washington and Oregon, yet where the resource nevertheless has been conserved, and conserved because the people have been in control and have been able to abolish the fishtraps. Finally we arrived at statehood and there apparently was the fulfillment of our dream and the hope for conservation of this once great resource. We were going to get the fisheries transferred to Alaska. We would be able, we hoped, to stop this tragic depletion, a depletion |