From one of your referenced stories - "This case represents a collaborative and coordinated effort between State and Tribal enforcement. On July 24, the Washington State Fish and Wildlife Police (WDFW) and the Tulalip Tribal Police concluded a joint and long term investigation involving large scale shellfish poaching and trafficking by serving a number of state and tribal arrest and search warrants."

What you seem to be confusing here are the actions of an Indian outlaw (whether or not he was a commissioner of anything) versus the management actions and ability of the tribe. In this case, as Deputy Chief Cenci indicated the tribe (the management entity) assisted in the investigation, issuance of search warrants and arrest. Specifically in this case we are not talking about shellfish, but finfish fisheries and how tribes monitor their catch. I worked in and around Indian country for 30 years and my experience is that in fisheries like the one this thread is about, tribal programs are much better than the State of Washington at monitoring. This is not meant to be an indictment of the State, but a simple comparison where tribal programs have an advantage because three things. First the fleet that they are monitoring is relatively small versus the State "fleet." That would be all of us. 2nd, the geographic area that they are responsible for monitoring is relatively small versus the area the State has to monitor, and third, the tribal staff, particularly in terminal areas, has relatively more dedicated staff than the State to do the monitoring.

For many of these fisheries, the tribal fleet is literally a couple of handfuls of fishers. The tribal staffs that I was familiar with knew every fisherman. They knew where they fished, when they fished, and when and where they landed their catch. If they didn't catch them on the river they knew where they lived and had no problem going to their house and sampling the catch. They routinely sampled (eyes and/or hands on) 80% + of the catch (many sometimes 100%). Compare that to the desired sampling level in most fisheries of 20% or the 30% voluntary return (no eyes or hand on) return of your shellfish CRC's. Again, this comment is not meant as an indictment, rather a comparison.

I will say again, that I do not know the effort that will be put in to monitor the specific fishery this thread was addressing, but I also know that anyone that simply assumes that the tribes, as a whole, are not capable of monitoring their fisheries, doesn't know what they are talking about.