Special Indian Hunting Rules OK’D: Proposal Would End Suit on Use of 1836 Treaty
By Tina Lam and Eric Sharp, Detroit Free Press
Sep. 26–Members of five Michigan Indian tribes stand to have special hunting and fishing rights enshrined in law under a federal court consent decree to be announced today.
Indians officially would be granted privileges nonnative Michiganders don’t have — such as killing up to five deer with a gun for a nearly four-month season, spearing game fish on open waters and netting fish on inland lakes.
While some Indians say the proposed decree reduces rights to hunt, fish and gather plants, people close to the negotiations still expect negative reaction from many hunters and anglers who can’t understand why Indians should have a special status for hunting and fishing.
One of the potentially most-controversial elements of the agreement would allow tribal members to use trap nets to catch fish on inland lakes for the first time — though they couldn’t sell them commercially. Property owners on some lakes, such as Walloon Lake near Petoskey, were party to the negotiations.
State officials are to announce the negotiated settlement reached in the court of U.S. District Judge Richard Enslen of Kalamazoo, which could put an end to a lawsuit and a sometimes bitter conflict that has raged since the early 1970s over tribal hunting and fishing rights, today in Lansing.
Dennis Muchmore, director of the Michigan United Conservation Clubs, couldn’t speak to details under a confidentiality arrangement among the parties, but he said it’s a good deal for all sides.
Although several tribes have signed off, the largest, the 29,000-member Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, is sending the agreement to all its members this week for a vote. It’s not clear what would happen if they reject it.
Some members said they oppose it because it takes away rights they long have enjoyed that are integral to their culture, such as the freedom to gather plants for medicine almost anywhere.
Tribes will not be able to hunt or gather on private land without permission.
The settlement will end a case that began in 1973 in federal court. In the 1970s, tempers over tribal gill nets on the Great Lakes flared, sometimes leading to gunshots and vandalism between tribal members and sport fishermen. Gill nets kill all fish that get caught in them.
In 1977, a federal judge upheld tribes’ rights to fish on the Great Lakes under an 1836 treaty, including with gill nets.
The new agreement, which covers inland lakes, streams and land in about a third of the state, recognizes limited tribal hunting and fishing rights on 4.5 million acres of public land and water but holds tribes to shorter seasons and smaller limits than some tribes adopted on their own.
In the past, tribes invoked treaty rights to avoid state rules and each tribe set its own rules, seasons, limits and weapons. The Sault tribe’s current deer season starts Aug. 1, about two months before the state’s archery season. Under the deal, tribes still could impose tougher rules on their own members to protect fish and game.
Indians would also be allowed two turkeys per season, compared with one for nonnatives, and will be allowed about twice the state’s daily bag limits for most small game species.
“These new rules are not that different than what we’ve had in place for quite some time,” said Jimmie Mitchell, director of natural resources for the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians based in Manistee. The tribe has approved the consent decree in the decades-old lawsuit.
Mitchell said plenty of misconceptions about how tribes actually hunt and fish arose in the negotiations.
“It’s about what we need, not what we want; it’s about subsistence, not greed,” he said.
Tom Shields, spokesman for the Bay Mills Indian Community, said that tribe’s council also approved the agreement and doesn’t consider the changes to be major.
Tony Grondin, 58, a hunter, fisher, gatherer and Sault St. Marie tribe member, opposes the agreement.
He agrees with a decision to keep gill nets out of inland lakes, but says the tribes themselves can and should make the decisions about what’s allowed. Grondin said tribes were managing animals and fish just fine before settlers arrived.
“The state isn’t doing such a great job of it now,” he said.
Another person familiar with the negotiations said non-Indians fail to understand the importance that many tribal members place on traditional hunting and gathering rights.
“No chairman or council member in his right mind would dare ignore these traditional activities,” he said.
In the 1836 treaty, the five tribes gave up 13.8 million acres in the northern Lower Peninsula and eastern half of the Upper Peninsula, about 37% of the state, and were promised they could continue to hunt, fish and gather on those lands as long as they were “not needed for settlement.”
The state contends all the lands were settled long ago, but tribes argued that much of the land remains open and unsettled. Attorneys for some tribes feared if they didn’t settle the case, they risked losing all rights to hunt and fish on the lands.
Contact TINA LAM at 313-222-6421 or tlam@freepress.com.
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