Originally Posted By: OncyT
Sorry but if the tribes are going to be held accountable for the actions of a tribal outlaw (I don't give a [Bleeeeep!] who he might be), then the state should also be held accountable for the actions of non-treaty outlaws, don't you think? And I will say again that the tribe participated in the investigation and arrest of this particular individual. I'm having a hard time seeing that as an indictment of the tribe. And yeah, I'll put 30 years of on the spot observation up against a couple of news articles or a 2015 return of CRC's no matter what the percentage. Oh and also a part of the public record is the reason for initiating the $10 penalty for failing to return your CRC. Looks like at the beginning ~ 2/3 of your licensed crab fishers were outlaws. Now you've got that portion of those breaking the law down to about 1/2. Good going!

WDFW NEWS RELEASE
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
600 Capitol Way North, Olympia, WA 98501-1091
http://wdfw.wa.gov/

September 8, 2008
Contact: Susan Yeager, (360) 902-2267

Commission approves penalty for
failure to report crab catch

OLYMPIA - A $10 penalty for failing to comply with Puget Sound crab catch-reporting requirements was approved by the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission during a meeting here Sept. 5-6.

The citizens commission, which sets policy for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), approved the department's proposal to begin enforcing the fine starting next year with catch reports due after the 2009 crab season.

Sport crabbers in Puget Sound are required to record their Dungeness crab catch on separate catch record cards - one for the summer season and one for the fall/winter season. People have the option of reporting that harvest information on the Internet or by mailing in their catch cards.

Under the new rules, crabbers who fail to report their catch will be required to pay $10 before a license vendor will issue a new catch record card for the following Puget Sound crab season. [/i]According to WDFW, less than a third of the 200,000 people licensed to fish for Dungeness crab in Puget Sound reported their catch as required.[i]

Also a part of the public record of any sport catch estimate reports for salmon is that only 25% of the CRC's are even being sampled. I don't know and really don't care how many are actually returned.





When 1/3 of recreational crabbers each year are first timers and there is no net growth in crabbers from year to year (meaning roughly 1/3 drop out each year) and of CRCs returned over 50% have one (1) or less successful crabbing outings it is not surprising that there is a less than 100% reporting rate.

Failure to return a crab CRC is simply not comparable to the tribal resource manager participating in the poaching of thousands of pounds of crab.

Yes, there are bad actors in both camps but on the State side the issuance of violations and ability to track the judicial process is far more transparent than with tribal violations. I will further opine that our (NT) courts need to take large scale commercial poaching violations far more seriously than they seem to do.


Edited by Larry B (05/16/16 12:44 PM)
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Remember to immediately record your catch or you may become the catch!

It's the person who has done nothing who is sure nothing can be done. (Ewing)