SNRAS grad picked for subsistence post

Craig Fleener, who earned a bachelor of science degree in natural resources management from UAF in 1999, has been named the new director for the state Division of Subsistence. Fleener, 41, was raised in Fort Yukon and has served on the Alaska Board of Game for the past eight months. He is former director of the the Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments and has worked as an environmental manager, project coordinator, wildlife biologist, and natural resources director. He has served in the military for more than 21 years and is an intelligence officer in the Alaska Air National Guard. Fleener replaces Elizabeth Andrews who retired in July. As director of the Division of Subsistence, Fleener will oversee a staff of 37 who conduct research about customary and traditional uses of fish and wildlife in Alaska. The research is used by state and federal managers when they set hunting and fishing policy. For his senior thesis at UAF, Fleener researched the reintroduction of wood bison. He continued with graduate studies in resources and the environment (wildlife emphasis) at the University of Calgary in Alberta. His goals in the new job are to create networks and continue the good working relationships with other agencies and divisions such as the National Park Service and US Fish and Wildlife Service. He also intends to maintain and elevate the division's research profile.

Read the Oct. 15, 2008 Fairbanks Daily News-Miner article, "Fort Yukon man to lead Division of Subsistence."

For more on Fleener's work with wood bison in Alaska, see also "Biologist hopes to restore the wood bison," by Melissa DeVaughn, Anchorage Daily News,March 6, 2005,

and the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner article by Stefan Milkowski, "Stevens Village farm part of effort to reintroduce buffalo herds to Alaska,", archived at the website of the Intertribal Bison Cooperative website.