Posted by: Anonymous
treaty fishery question - 01/19/03 01:54 AM
"if" we were to start an inititive to ban non-treaty commercial gill netting and purse seine fishing for salmon from washington waters and it passed could the tribes continue to gillnet fish since they would not be "in-common" with the people of the state anymore ? , other than the sportfishers, could that be why they didnt support I-696 ?
Posted by: JimB
Re: treaty fishery question - 01/19/03 03:56 AM
Yep, thats right...they would continue on but they would certainly be the "bad guys" reverse pressure might work.
Jim
Posted by: Todd
Re: treaty fishery question - 01/19/03 04:46 PM
No.
Treaty tribes hold fishing rights independent of non-treaty fishing. They'd still harvest their half, and there may be some issues of foregone opportunity with some salmon runs, Not really an issue with steelhead runs.
I think they didn't support I-696 because they were afraid that hatchery production, habitat protection, etc., would go down because the state wouldn't have non-treaty commercial fishermen to subsidize and hand-hold anymore.
The treaty fishers may have actually ended up with less fish in the long run. In these situations, what's good for the tribes is good for the non-treaty commercial fishers.
We pretty much get screwed either way.
Fish on...
Todd.