## Facts

- Alaska created the Guide Licensing and Control Board (Board) to regulate big-game guides and protect fish and game management through licensing and related regulation.
- The Board established “exclusive guide areas” (EGAs), under which one designated guide held the exclusive right to professionally guide hunts in a defined geographic area; other licensed guides could not guide there, though recreational hunting remained allowed.
- Kenneth D. Owsichek, a licensed big-game guide, applied to be the designated guide for two EGAs.
- The Board denied Owsichek’s applications based on an implementing requirement that the applicant show contracted guiding activity in the area for at least two of the prior five years.
- Owsichek sued, seeking a declaration that the EGA statutes and system were unconstitutional and seeking damages for alleged lost guiding income.
- Lower court proceedings upheld the statutes and the EGA system; Owsichek appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether statutes authorizing EGAs, which confer exclusive professional guiding rights in public hunting areas, violate article VIII, section 3 of the Alaska Constitution (common-use clause).
2. Whether the EGA system constitutes an impermissible special privilege or monopoly over public natural resources.
3. If the EGA scheme is unconstitutional, what relief is available, including whether Owsichek may recover damages for alleged economic loss.

## Decision

- The Alaska Supreme Court reversed the judgment upholding the EGA scheme.
- The court held the EGA statutory authorization, as implemented, violated article VIII, section 3 because it granted exclusive commercial guiding privileges in public resource areas.
- The court invalidated the EGA system and remanded for further proceedings consistent with the constitutional ruling, including consideration of appropriate relief.

## Legal Principles

- Article VIII, section 3 reserves fish and wildlife for common use and bars state-created monopoly-like control over public natural resources.
- The state may regulate access and user qualifications (e.g., competence and conservation measures), but may not assign exclusive, territory-based commercial franchises over use of public resources absent a constitutionally compatible justification.
- A regulatory program that excludes all other qualified licensees from a geographic area to confer exclusive commercial opportunity on one private actor conflicts with the common-use guarantee, even if recreational public use remains available.

## Conclusion

The court held that Alaska’s common-use clause prohibits the state from granting exclusive professional guiding territories in public hunting areas, invalidated the exclusive guide area scheme, and remanded for further proceedings on remedies.


Owsichek v. State, Guide Licensing & Control Bd., 763 P.2d 488 (Alaska 1988)