Originally Posted By: IrishRogue
I thought the Puyallup supreme court rulings which came after Boldt were clear that the state could regulate tribal fisheries, if necessary for conservation, and if that regulation doesn't discriminate against the tribes.

Doesn't that clarify that ESA can diminish the treaty tribes rights if required by conservation?


But does this answer the question of allocating impacts? Say a treaty fishery requires 90 percent of the available impacts to access the 50 percent of the harvestable surplus they're entitled to. Wouldn't this satisfy both ESA and Boldt requirements? Maybe the ruling above only applies if a treaty fishery required more than 100 percent of available impacts to access their half.

I'm no lawyer and am still learning a lot of the details of Boldt and ESA, but it sure seems like (based on the way things have gone in the past) if this does go to court the tribes will win. We'll have an arrangement where the treaty side get to fish until they catch their half, then if there's any impacts remaining the non-treaty side gets to fish. Maybe I'm being too pessimistic...