Obsessed, I was saving that next question

Cedar R, First, this is not a personal attack. Just some comments to your post.

Non-tribal persons may think that the tribes are the "favored ones" but believe me the tribes do not share that feeling.

In a nut shell, tribal fishermen and non-tribal fishermen are to split the harvestable portion of the fish 50/50. If that system fails are the tribes at fault? Except for the Quinaults and Yakamas, WDFW decides who fishes and when. The tribes have a treaty right to catch their half with a net. Non-tribal fishers use nets and sport for salmon and sport for steelhead. Sure nets can't tell a wild from a hatchery but other management tools are used to target the right species such as web size, timing, and real-time catch sampling for hatchery composition. It is also true that with the large numbers of non-tribal fishermen that there is a significant mortality from sport fishermen. My point, neither method is perfect. Improved science and enforcement are the answer.

There are about 2000 Quinaults. I would say about 100 make some amount of money from fishing during the year. The rest pay income taxes. The fishermen do pay a tribal tax on their fish based income. There is a non-tribal casino in Aberdeen called Sydneys, it is not owned by the tribe or tribal members. Every game in the Quinault tribal casino is legal in Washington. Jacklighting is illegal for Quinaults both on and off the reservation. Unfortunately, both non-tribal and tribal fishers and hunters break the laws. Again, better enforcement is needed.

There is no punishment; there is only the legal document of the land deal (treaty) that was forced on the tribes. I wonder how much money the Government collects on property taxes in western Washington each year from land that was taken from the tribes?


[This message has been edited by potter (edited 08-23-2000).]