OBSESSED,
you are right on the mark!
By the way? Are you a lawyer or did you sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night?

Neanderthal - The bycatch of ESA native springers are taken only in Indian nets. 40% of this spring's run, and a majority of next spring's expected bigger run, are adipose fin-clipped. Thus, sportfishers can carefully release the rare native ESA fish that they might catch and only keep the marked hatchery fish we paid for. IF THEY WOULD FAIRLY AND PROPERLY ALLOW US! For all those that talk of the apparent long shot to constitutionlly amend the portions of Treaties dealing with salmon & steelhead allocation, thus their position of just live with it, there is not the proper balance of recognition that the Treaties are not being fairly adheared to on behalf of sportfishermen. There are many examples but the most outrageous, that some posters keep ignoring, is that the Col. Tribes got 100% of springers deemed harvestable of the excess hatchery mainstem Col. springers this year and none for the sportfishers! How does that conform to these supposed air tight Treaties (50/50 "in common with")?? While you did give brief mention of this outright quantitative misjustice Obsessed, you gave much more weight to sportfisher plaintiveness and a perception of anti-Indian sentiment here. I don't sense anti-Indian sentiment. I sense anti-fairness sentiment here, as the topic asked (Fair or Not?)! - RT


[This message has been edited by Reel Truth (edited 06-05-2000).]

RT,
I understand the frustration with this situation. I am just the messenger. In my opinion the whole salmon recovery situation has turned into an ungodly mess. Anyway here is a link to what I found on this issue.
www.newsdata.com/enernet/fishletter/fishltr99.html#7

Thanks N.- Interesting and revealing article. Apparently the WDFW & ODFW have sued the NMFS and Col. Tribes over both this unfair Col. springer allocation and, according to an article in the Vancouver Columbian, over the Col. Tribes asking and likely to get all of the allocation of Fed. ESA Col. fall chinook! This is what will likely close sportfishermen off the Col. fall 'nook run! I certainly hope the suit is successful- no Boldt type judge would help! It's good to know that the states are going to bat for us at least. But what is going on here? This is outside Treaty power isn't it? The Col. Tribal Commission has a seemingly mysterious power over the NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service - Feds), who have power over the states. Did the Feds get hoodwinked into a pow wow pipesmoke of some scarystrength pyote with a hashpipe bongwater chaser before the decisive meetings or what?? Now there is some legitamate basis for anti-Indian sentiment (at least with the Col. Tribal Comm.)!!! - RT

[This message has been edited by Reel Truth (edited 06-06-2000).]

I don't see the tribes as the enemy on this, they didn't turn the Columbia River into an industrial machine at the expense of the salmon runs. In a perfect world all citizens would share equally in abundant salmon runs. How very far from that world we are! One part of this allocation problem I don't like is the private back room dealing that is going on between the tibes and the nmfs. They need to get in out into the open and tell us what is going on with press releases. One little window into all of this that I have found is the newsdata.com enernet/fishletter. Every sportsfisherman should get on their e-mail list. Another related article of interest on this subject- www.newsdata.com/enernet/fishletter/fishltr101.html#7