UPDATE: Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan Vetoes Ban on Spiked Fences; Effort was Designed to Save City Moose Chris Klint, Senior Digital Producer / KTUU - Channel 2 / October 30, 2014 Editors note: This story contains a graphic image of a moose impaled on a palisade fence. Mayor Dan Sullivan has vetoed an ordinance approved by the Anchorage Assembly last week that would ban new palisade fences in town, in an effort to prevent moose from being impaled on their spikes. Sullivan confirmed his veto of Jennifer Johnston’s ordinance, first reported by Assembly member Dick Traini, in a Wednesday statement. The incidence of moose being wounded or killed by palisade fencing is very, very low, Sullivan wrote. Contrast this with the cost of cutting off the spikes or pales or completely replacing fencing within the next five years and it is easy to see that the total financial impact far outweighs the benefit of saving a few moose. The measure narrowly passed on a 6-5 vote at the Assembly’s Oct. 21 meeting. Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist Jessy Coltrane testified before the Assembly that spiked fences occasionally kill moose when they try to step over them and become stuck. Others, however, said drivers hit and kill many more moose each year on local roads. Johnston said Wednesday afternoon that Sullivan stopped the measure due to confusion over language requiring homeowners to modify fences under 7 feet in height within the next five years. She said she thought the clause had been removed from the ordinance, allowing older fences to remain in place without modification, but it was still in place when the Assembly passed the measure into law. Coltrane declined to speak on camera Wednesday but Rick Sinnott, Coltrane’s predecessor as Fish and Game’s Anchorage-area biologist, said Fish and Game typically responds to two or three moose impaled on fences in the Anchorage area per year. Its a toll Sinnott, who spent much of his career protecting people from wildlife and vice versa in a city that bleeds into the wilderness, said steadily rose during his tenure. In addition to moose, other animals sometimes wounded themselves on the spikes but were able to struggle free, he said. “At first (there were) not that many -- we actually had more moose caught in chain-link fences,” Sinnott said. “It’s because there’s more fences, not because there’s more moose.” While many of the ungulates are dead by the time biologists arrive, Sinnott said in other cases biologists sometimes find the animals wounded. Some were shot, while others were freed from the fences to face an uncertain future due to their injuries. “Some of the time they’d live, but in most cases they would die of infection,” Sinnott said. “Most of the time they’d be eviscerated because it would be in the heart or the lungs.” According to Sullivan, one of the arguments against the palisade-fence ban is its limited scope relative to other means of protecting moose. “We could save a lot more moose by practicing safer driving habits on our roadways, at no cost to taxpayers and property owners,” Sullivan wrote. “Or, by not planting trees that are an attractive nuisance to moose -- trees that draw moose into roadways or actually make moose sick.” In Sinnotts view, moose killed on roads are a much larger problem -- but addressing it is also much more costly than Johnstons ordinance. He said most of Anchorages palisade fences are smaller installations, concentrated in residential neighborhoods like West Anchorage and the Hillside. It seems like it’s a simple fix; most people don’t have these fences yet, Sinnott said. Moose killed on roads is a much more complicated thing -- you can build fences along the Glenn Highway to keep them out of certain areas, but those cost millions of dollars. Sullivans statement on his veto also echoed opponents of the palisade-fence ban who criticized its expansion of government power. Despite calling on city designers to avoid including palisade fencing in future public buildings, Sullivan said the cost/benefit analysis does not warrant this level of government intrusion. Sinnott dismissed the government-overreach argument Wednesday, saying state authorities estimated the value of every living moose at more than $1,000 apiece. He also pointed out that city law bars the installation of barbed-wire fences between properties -- because they might harm humans who try to cross them. “I don’t think this is a huge overreach of government, where moose are essentially being tortured to death on these things,” Sinnott said. “You can have a different kind of fence or even the same kind of fence, a palisade fence, and it’s be just as attractive.” An eight-vote supermajority among the Assembly’s 11 members would be needed to override Sullivan’s veto. According to Johnston, it’s unlikely that the Assembly has the votes for an override. The body has had difficulty amassing that number, failing in August to defeat Sullivans veto of a measure replacing labor law AO37. That 7-4 vote put a suspended recall effort for AO37 back into play, and local voters will see a question asking whether the law should remain in effect on their state ballotsin Tuesday’s general election. In the meantime, Sinnott said Sullivan’s veto doesn’t account for moose behavior, which instinctively conditions them to jump over low obstacles. “They’re used to jumping over branches and maybe chain-link fences, which they can flop over, and when they jump over these they get impaled the first time and they die,” Sinnott said. “It’s something I’m afraid we’re going to see happening more often.” Channel 2s Adam Pinsker contributed information to this story.
Posted on: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 16:55:30 +0000
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