A top position with the Federal Subsistence Board is now open, since the Board Chair stepped down after six years of service. Former Chairman Tim Towarak announced his retirement in July, and the Secretary of the Interior, Sally Jewell, is looking to replace him within the next several months.
Eugene R. Peltola, Jr., is the assistant regional director for the Office of Subsistence Management. Peltola says that, regardless of when a new chairperson is hired, business will continue as usual.
“With Tim’s retirement,” he said, “we still have seven very competent individuals on the Board who still continue to operate and function as needed.”
The Chair of the Federal Subsistence Board is a private citizen who is paid on a part-time, per-hour basis for conducting the official business of the Board, which includes regularly scheduled meetings about 4 to 5 times yearly. But, as Peltola mentions, other meetings could come up to address more pressing issues, like the Western Arctic Caribou herd hunting restrictions.
“We still have the special area request out in the State of Alaska, about the Caribou harvest game management in Unit 23 to address, and we have a couple other issues, program etiquette issues, the Kenai gill net request for consideration that still has to be addressed by the Board, and those are probably two significant issues that will probably come before the Board before that January meeting,” said Peltola.
According to Peltola, it is likely that an interim Chair will be appointed until a permanent candidate is selected. The application period lasts until October 7th, and the next regularly scheduled Board meeting won’t happen until the second week of January, 2017.
