Matt Miller

There’s less than a week for Alaskans to weigh in on the new Catch Sharing Plan for halibut. The deadline is next Wednesday, September 21st.

A final rule could be issued this fall on the proposal that allocates halibut between commercial longliners and charter operators. The Secretary of Commerce could approve it by December. That could put the plan in place for next year.

Rachel Baker, a fisheries management specialist for NOAA Fisheries, briefed members of the Juneau Chamber of Commerce on the players involved in halibut management and how the new Catch Sharing Plan would work on limiting growth in the charter sector.

Baker says the proposed Catch Sharing Plan was designed for its predictability and includes an initial allocation and a set of daily bag limits for the charter sector. There’s also a potential transfer of Individual Fishing Quota from commercial longliners to charter operators in the form of Guided Angler Fish, or GAF.

Here’s the first part of Baker’s presentation before the Chamber on Thursday:

Part two:

Part three:

More on information on the Catch Sharing Plan can be found at NOAA’s website. Scroll down to the section on Public Comment Periods

Comments can be submitted at www.regulations.gov

A Tee Harbor man who was accused of feeding as much as 19,000 pounds of dog food to black bears over two seasons will avoid jail time, but he’ll have to pay a hefty fine and somehow help state biologists with their bear tracking or attractant mitigation efforts.

Arnie Hanger, 66-years old, appeared before Juneau District Court Judge Thomas Nave on Wednesday afternoon. He pled guilty and was immediately sentenced on a single consolidated charge of intentionally feeding bears during the summers of 2009 and 2010. Hanger was sentenced to ten days in jail with all ten days suspended. Twenty-five hundred dollars was suspended from a $5,000 fine, but there’s also $1,500 restitution that he must pay to the state for the potential euthanization of two collared bears. That’s $4,000 to pay, plus 80 hours of community work service, and two-years probation.

Hanger was initially charged with three misdemeanor counts of feeding game and one count of reckless endangerment stemming from two years of feeding dog food and birdseed to bears and coyotes in his yard. The remaining charges for feeding the coyotes and reckless endangerment are being dropped.

“All I can say is I appreciate you taking the time to deal with this,” Hanger said as he addressed his comments to Judge Nave. “Other than that, I have no comment.”

District Attorney Dave Brower compared the case and Wednesday’s sparsely attended court hearing to a recent case concerning the poached two black bears and a black wolf nicknamed Romeo.

“As far as fish and game goes and danger, this is a more egregious case,” said Brower. “It’s a more serious case.”

Defense attorney Kevin Fitzgerald described Hanger as a retired mechanical engineer who took up the hobby of photography and photographing bears.

“He is kind and gentle soul and he is a good man in every sense of the term,” said Fitzgerald during comments made over the phone.

But Judge Nave hoped that Hanger realized the consequences of his actions, habituating the bears to dog food and possibly causing them to lose their fear of people.

“Hopefully, you realize that what you were doing was making them dependent,” said Nave.

The community work service may be specifically tailored to Hanger’s case. Brower read a message from Department of Fish and Game’s Ryan Scott, the biologist everyone calls when it comes to bears in northern Southeast. Scott said he’d be willing to work with Hanger on a form of public service program focusing on improper storage of garbage, food, and other bear attractants.

“I believe there is a lot of credibility when there is person who is involved in something like this conveys a message to the people,” Scott wrote.

According to court documents, Alaska Wildlife Trooper Sargeant Matthew Dobson says he found 382 empty dog food bags in one room after executing a search warrant at Hanger’s home in May. Dobson explains that Hanger eventually admitted feeding as many as fifteen bears a year. Each of those bags of Atta Boy dog food was fifty pounds and Dobson says Hanger admitted feeding a bag a day from April until mid-November.

One of those bears was a sow that Hanger allegedly named ‘Mrs. White’ as early as six years ago. During a recent visit, ‘Mrs. White’ had two cubs in tow. Investigators claim they saw two lactating sows at Hanger’s residence, suggesting that another generation of bears have already been habituated to taking handouts.

Dobson notes several bear and human encounters in the area in his report to prosecutors. There was at least one accident between a bear and vehicle in Tee Harbor and two near misses. One nearby resident reportedly essentially becoming trapped in the crawl space of his house after two curious bears approached. They were not aggressive toward the homeowner, though.

A Juneau man who beat a 2-year old girl so severely that she suffered brain damage will spend the next fifteen years in prison.

24-year old Nicholas W. Kokotovich was sentenced in Juneau Superior Court Wednesday afternoon on an assault charge. The sentence includes a total of 20-years with 5-years suspended. That’s the maximum allowed under a plea and sentence agreement he made with prosecutors, although the judge expressed a temptation to throw out the agreement and impose a harsher sentence.

Kokotovich was arrested in June, 2010. That was almost a month after he and the girl’s mother Adrienne Hosiner took little Reina Stone to Bartlett Regional Hospital. Stone suffered severe head and face injuries, and was medivacked to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

During Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, police investigators recounted stories from Kokotovich that Reina apparently suffered injuries by jumping off a couch and landing on an end table. That supposedly happened while he was caring for the girl while Hosiner was at work. Then, Kokotovich says the toddler suffered additional injuries the following day by falling off a bed during a diaper change. Later, he concocted a new story that Reina’s beating was retribution after Kokotovich’s supposed falling-out from a Portland drug dealing organization. Finally, he admitted that he left Reina alone for a few hours, bought and consumed a gram of cocaine, came home and “snapped” when Reina became defiant about laying down for a nap. He told investigators about using an open hand to hit her on the side of her head, kicking her in the back, and then punching her with a closed fist so hard in the head that she was likely thrown against nearby dresser.

Investigators played a recording of an emotionally-charged telephone conversation between Kokotovich and Hosiner; He admitting hitting the girl and she pleading for an explanation why he did it.

Much of Wednesday’s hearing was used to explain graphic photographs of Reina and the injuries she suffered. Among those testifying was Dr. Naomi Sugar of the University of Washington School of Medicine who also spends much of her time at Harborview and Seattle Children’s Hospital. She detailed Reina’s nearly two-week long stay in Harborview’s Intensive Care Unit. Part of Reina’s skull was temporarily removed to relieve brain swelling. That swelling led to a lack of oxygen on the right side of the brain — essentially a stroke — and she also suffered retinal damage and multiple bruises thoughout the body and head. Because of the injuries’ severity and her rapid deterioriation following the beating, Dr. Sugar says “emergency room care at Bartlett Regional Hospital saved her life.”

Juneau pediatrician Dr. Marna Schwartz says Reina has apparently lost her left-side vision in both eyes, has little balance, suffers from possible bowel and bladder dysfunction stemming from the assault, and her speech and language development has regressed to that of a typical two-year old — although it has improved over the last year.

Reina today, as a four-year old, has lost function on the left side of her body and cannot stand or walk. She requires the 24-hour attention and care of her foster parents in Juneau. But she can talk, play, and crawls – or scoots — around using her right leg and arm. Prosecutors Wednesday played a video of an energetic Reina playing with investigators at the Juneau Police Department station lobby on Tuesday. Dr. Schwartz says Reina is currently undergoing occupational, physical, and speech therapy.

Superior Court Judge Philip Pallenberg was clearly moved and upset at the end of the day-long hearing – saying he wasn’t sure to “Cry or get angry. Angry because someone did this to a two-year old; Cry because of what she’s lost.” Pallenberg mused that roughly at the time that Kokotovich would be eligible for parole for a typical assault sentence, Reina should be in middle school, playing sports, learning about the world, mingling with friends, and on first dates with a boyfriend. Instead, she’ll likely be in a wheelchair, going to therapy and special education classes.

Pallenberg said he couldn’t understand this”, saying it was unusual and inexplicable. Reina was “hit not just once,” said Pallenberg, but Kokotovich “had beat the crap out of this child.”

Reina was within a “hairsbreadth” from being killed and Pallenberg says attempted murder would fit the crime, though the charge probably wouldn’t stand up in court. He contemplated throwing out the plea agreement and imposing time-to-serve longer than 15years, but he was concerned that court proceedings would continue to drag on for months. He also imposed 5-years probation and set restitution to be determined later.

The last words during made Wednesday’s nearly seven-hour hearing was Pallenberg to Hosiner, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Master Gardener Ed Buyarski has some ideas for selecting and storing bulbs for eventual planting this fall.