Since Alaska’s Board of Game already exemplifies the exact opposite of constitutionally-mandated “diversity,” what would explain the following leaked Email from Rod Arno (apparently representing the Alaska Outdoor Council) in which he threatens state legislators with an ultimatum if they don’t confirm yet one more hunter/trapper/game guide? And not just any hunter/trapper/game guide but a hunter/trapper/game guide who absolutely clings to the idea that killing wild predators is God’s answer to every imaginable wildlife management situation.

Thanks to Mudflats for the following:

“An email obtained by The Mudflats shows Republican Party Chair Randy Ruedrich forwarding an email from Rod Arno of the Alaska Outdoor Council which threatens legislators with strong-arm tactics if they don’t approve Governor Sean Parnell’s latest disastrous appointment to the Board of Game.
From: Randy Ruedrich
Date: March 30, 2012 8:09:07 AM AKDT
To:  , ,  

Subject: Anti’s go after Lynn Keogh’s confirmation to Board of Game
Get the word out, we can’t let the antis defeat Lynn’s [Keogh] confirmation to the BOG like they did with Al Barrette. POMs [what the hell is a “POM?” There are over 200 definitions on the internet.] need to be sent to every legislator from now until the Joint House and Senate Confirmations vote supporting Keogh. Plus let legislators know we’ll go after everyone of  them who votes against Keogh next November.Thanks Rod , AOC”
“’Go after every one of them who votes against Keogh?’  Mr. Arno and Mr. Ruedrich may wish to note that legislators do not take an oath to special interest groups, nor to their political party. They take one to the people. Lynn Keogh’s appointment to the Board of Game needs to be confirmed by the legislature for him to keep his seat on the board. Keep in mind that the Board of Game is supposed to represent a diversity of wildlife interests – hunting, trapping, biology, photography, tourism, bear watching, and those who simply enjoy the opportunity that the outdoor life in Alaska affords to sometimes catch sight of its amazing wildlife. This diversity isn’t just a suggestion, or an idealistic goal – it is mandated by statute that demands a diversity of interest and points of view. At this point in time, the Board is overrun with only a couple of these groups, namely big game hunting and trapping. Does Keogh bring anything new to the board? Hardly. So far he has approved killing both wolves and bears from helicopters, and also the baiting of brown bears… He also voted to approve total extermination of bears in a 540 square mile area and to reduce wolves to the “lowest level possible” in a 1,360 square mile area. Not only that, but in the growing tradition of Parnell appointments who do not appear to have been vetted, Mr. Keogh has a civil court record as long as your arm. He is the defendant in all cases, and the plaintiff is the State of Alaska. Most of the long list of offenses are for traffic violations, but four are of particular interest, and involve illegal use of a high horsepower motor while guiding, and not paying boat launch fees. He seems to have a problem with issues of respecting rules, and repeatedly trying to get away with things about which he should know better…
(http://www.courtrecords.alaska.gov/pa/pa.urd/PAMW6500”

Thanks, Mudflats!

Clearly, Mr. Arno and the Church of Predator Control still seem rattled that the legislature had denied Fairbanks wolf-skinner Al Barrette a seat on the “Board of Diversity”---which happened because Mr. Barrette absolutely flaunted a gleeful and undisguised spiritual joy in skinning out wolves. The only difference between Al Barrette and Lynn Keogh---and most other Board of Game appointees---is that their spiritual joy in killing wildlife is only barely disguised.

As this leaked Email shows, the defeat of Al Barrette as Board of Game nominee did ripple the sense of ideological purity of the industrial wildlife-killing crowd…but it didn’t make a damned bit of difference in the implementation of random, senseless predator-killing. In fact, the more pressure that is put on this special interest crowd, the more they will attempt to wipe out every wolf and bear in Alaska before they eventually get kicked out of power. Mr. Arno and the Outdoors Council must be totally discombobulated that the Keogh nomination has now just been rejected!

BACK TO ZERO -

In light of his consistent appointment of cronies of questionable character to the Board of Game and Fish & Game positions---Corey Rossi being the worst of the lot---Alaskans have cause to wonder about Governor Sean Parnell’s loyalty to his oil company cronies from when he was director of government relations for Conoco Phillips and then worked for the Patton Boggs lobbying firm (which represented Exxon Mobil in the Exxon Valdez oil spill litigation). Is he also giving away our oil to the petroleum industry? Who knows about that---but the wildlife part has left a clear trail of betrayal of trust. Governor Sean Parnell has clearly turned management of Alaska’s wildlife over to the wildlife killing industry.

Instead of diversity on the Board of Game, the wildlife-killing industry is seeking one-hundred percent, total and absolute uniformity of belief in the credo that that the only good wolf/bear is a dead wolf/bear. Through Mr. Arno, the wildlife-killing syndicate has issued a “Black Hand” letter: If you legislators don’t further violate the constitution by giving us total, absolute, complete 100 percent control of wildlife in Alaska…we’re coming after you.

That’s what they want---the bipolar opposite of diversity---complete and absolute control by a narrow, ideological faction of traffickers in dead wild animals.

It’s bad enough that Alaska has become a subsidized game farm for hunter and trappers. But what really renders my fat is that it’s a grotesquely mismanaged game farm run by those who profit directly from it, leaving nothing for the people who pay the cost for killing all those wild predators so a minority can kill a few more moose!

Lynn Keogh was handpicked by the hunting/guiding/trapping industrialists and lousy game farmers to deliver more of the same policy of decimation for our wildlife mismanagement system. The Board of Game (and Fish and Game) are already so rigged it might not make a bit of difference if yet another handpicked, predator-killing, hunter-trapper insider got on the Board of Game---but reform has to start somewhere and this would be a good time to insist on at least one smidgeon of token, symbolic diversity as mandated by the state constitution.

Obviously, the wildlife management system is completely rigged---but the Legislature, which just rejected Mr. Keogh by one vote, can cite the court record of Mr. Keogh if they wish to gracefully avoid retribution from the wildlife-killing syndicate in rejecting his nomination on these grounds rather than the total lack of diversity that his confirmation would simply have reinforced.

- Rudy Wittshirk