Am I the only one that thinks the tribes will continue to harvest everything to extinction only to force our government to buy back their harvesting rights one place at a time for excessive prices???????

Back in the second Supreme Court review of Boldt the court held that the Tribes were entitled to 50% of the harvestable or a moderate living, whichever was LESS.

State stakeholders implored at least WDF to take this to court to determine what was meant by "moderate living" as they felt that the harvests then met that standard. The State would not take them to court.

One might conclude that the State felt Tribal catch at that time was not up to the moderate living standard so I can see a suit that says "you (state) are trying to destroy our fishing economy as you even admitted that in the best years it wasn't a moderate living and now you've made it worse".

Another perspective might be that individual tribes would be determined to actually have exceeded a moderate income (as compared to their non-tribal neighbors) and see a reduction or elimination of those rights. At the least it would be interesting to actually have a court mandated window into tribal finances.

It might. But since the state would not pursue it one might assume that even the wealthiest fishermen were not making a moderate living.

Here is a scenario.


They net the Clearwater.
The fish are crappy to eat.
The market for them sucks.
Regardless of this and the fact the river is full of native fish they rape it anyway.


The only way to stop the destruction of yet another run would be for the tribe to sell their rights back to the government.

Sounds extremely profitable to me.

What about the Indians fishing the salt, They make far more than most people. Between the gooey duck,urchin,crabing,halibut,bottom fish and salmon they are making serious coin.

Buying tribal rights, even for an absurd amount, would be a great purchase. The long term benefit would outway any dollar amount paid. The problem, at least around here, is that the tribes aren't willing to do it.

I think a buy back is a great solution! Actually, the Feds might even allocate some monies. But it would have to be across the board, Tribal not individual.

The State did have a buy back program in the past for non-tribal commercials. But after spending A LOT of money to buy back licenses. The lobbyist got involved and the state not only stopped, they actually sold more licenses then they bought back and for less money!

The entire system needs a MAJOR OVERHAUL!

The commercial buyback was a joke as the allotment of fish stayed the eame.

They buyback was, as I recall, intended to keep the Cowboy fleet profitable. There were way too many boats competing for the fish. The idea was that fewer boats would be left, catch would stay the same, but they would individually be more profitable.

What the tribes and sporties don't seem to really understand is that they numbers are growing. In some parts of BC, the First Nations represent the fast growing segment of the population. Regardless of source (wild or hatchery) there is an upper limit to what can be killed. Send out more people, catch fewer.

The Cowboy commercial fleet is capped; it can only shrink as licenses are retired. Of the 3 groups, it is the one with the most sustainable business model.

Don't kid yourself. If a buyout were to occur today, you can bet they would claim it back in the future. With the Courts, Congress, and most of the public on their side it would happen.

I've chewed on this "Public perception" piece for some time. Like when the netting was going on inside the fish ladder at the locks and tourists were taking pictures of the Nobel Native fishing as he has for thousands of years!

In this day of everybody having a camera, and multi-media why can't we start a "Here's the Real Deal" campaign? I know someone here has the talent to create a website, and with thousands of guys in the field to take and post pictures and stories there would be lots of things the "Public" can take a look at. The abandoned nets, the dumped fish, heck, might even get a shot of some native fish dead in nets! We have Facebook, Instagram, twitter (Hell it works in politics). Why not???

The tribes always run back to this "Champions of Conservation" anytime they start the BS. It's time we tell the real story.

This fact is all too true and troublesome. The tribal commercial fleets are exploding with no cap on the number of "licenses" available. Available days are getting shorter, and success in monitoring is getting worse (if that's even possible). The Tulalip tribe for instance is discussing a marina expansion needed to accomadate the rapidly growing fleet. It's hard to believe MORE commercial rights would be pouring in to a dwindling resource but the proof is in the puddin. Things are at a tipping point from almost every perspective you view.

In some ways the situation in BC is worse because most of the rights there are for subsistence. So, each and every member is "entitled" to fish for subsistence. Here, not every member may wish to fish.

Subsistence is a non issue. If the tribal fisheries were subsistence only we wouldn't even be having this conversation because none of them would even be fishing...

As a friend of a powerful tribal leader in the PNW, I feel it is worth mentioning that tribes have been aware of this problem for decades. Tribal elders have been trying to teach the youth that commercial fishing is not a good living for a long time.

With all the Indian generalizations I read online, I feel it is important to remember that this is still tragedy of the masses just like with us non tribes. Those within the tribes trying to make change often do so at their own peril.

Jason Breeezy, I'm calling BS on that. So the elders say, "Do as I say, Not as I do" and the youth believe that, as the elders launch their crab boat to get 1000 crab, or string nets to sell to out-of-state interests while their sacred Orcas starve? Maybe the legendary totem poles should have skinny orcas on them to show the results of their fishing practices ("their"= ANY Puget nets, Cowboys included)
Gimme a break.

Man's greed wont turn off.

The only way to have change is to have the runs become sooo bleak that it is no longer profitable to rape the resource or to outlaw raping the resource.

The second option only works if enforcement is adequate.

It would be very interesting if we could find out, for both treaty and non-treaty commercials exactly how many are REALLY relying on fishing as a means of lively hood as opposed to a supplemental income?

Is there any way possible?

We had this argument occasionally at work. The fish don't give a flying **ck how they die at the hands of man. Dams, development, nets, hooks; they end up dead.

We (the Royal We) are killing too many and it needs to stop. As long as we keep killing them, the runs degrade.

You must have seen Port Susan recently.