Salmo-
I can't help but agree with the article you posted. The indians do hold all the cards when it comes right down to it. However, as history has proven, the US and state governments are not interested in really saving fish runs. History has also proven that neither side is willing to work cooperatively together to solve the problem. Our government spends most of their time fighting with, and then conceding to the indians, wasting time and resources(our money) with no benefit to the fish. At the same time, tribes continue to go after more and more "treaty rights", in essence to thumb their noses at the government because they know they are basically unstoppable. So, both sides continue to inflict greater and greater damage to all the species and stocks they both claim to want to protect. Is it fair that the tribes get a 50% split of the different creatures they harvest? Maybe, but who monitors that they stop at 50%? NO ONE. On the same note, why does the government allow such things as by catch, and gill netting when we have all these runs still declining? Hell, why do we allow commercial ocean fishing at all? All these fish are born in the river, and they all come back to the river. If we are going to continue to allow commercial fishing for salmon, why don't we do it in the rivers only, where we can REALLY monitor how many fish are caught? Patrol the high seas to keep Snake River chinook out of Taiwanese and Japanese fish markets. The Columbia River tribes agreed last year to go a 9" mesh on their nets instead of the 6" they use now,to allow more steelhead through. They were supposed to do this last year and they still haven't done it. Why? Because even if they agree to it, no one can make them do it. Thumbing their noses at us again! The salmon problem is much larger than just indian nets. But the indians are by no means "one with nature", or the protectors of natural resources that some on this BB continue to claim.

P.S. That article came out of a Seattle newspaper, imagine that! Newspapers and the articals they print are completely unbiased, well informed pieces of science. Right!!