The Snoqualmie Indian Tribe is
looking to re-establish their hunting and fishing rights. This is not something
that will happen overnight but with a strategic plan in place can make the
process faster and easier. To do this the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe would like to
encourage its hunters and those interested in hunting to apply for and receive a
Master Hunter Certification. Here is a link to the WDFW Master Hunter Program
http://wdfw.wa.gov/hunting/masterhunter
Below is a quick introduction to
the hunting and fishing rights of the Snoqualmie Peoples, if you would like to
learn more.
Hunting and Fishing Rights
Hunting and fishing rights are some of the special
rights Native Americans enjoy as a result of the treaties signed between their
tribes and the federal government. Historically, hunting and fishing were
critically important to Native American tribes. Fish and wildlife were a primary
source of food and trade goods, and tribes based their own seasonal movements on
their migrations. In addition, fish and wildlife played a central role in the
spiritual and cultural framework of Native American life. As the Supreme Court
noted, access to fish and wildlife was "not much less necessary to the existence
of the Indians than the atmosphere they breathed" (United States v. Winans).
When Native American tribes signed treaties
consenting to give up their lands, the treaties often explicitly guaranteed
hunting and fishing rights. When the treaties created reservations, they usually
gave tribe members the right to hunt and fish on reservation lands. In many
cases treaties guaranteed Native Americans the continued freedom to hunt and
fish in their traditional hunting and fishing locations, even if those areas
were outside the reservations. Even when hunting and fishing rights were not
specifically mentioned in treaties, the reserved rights doctrine holds that
tribes retain any rights, including the right to hunt and fish, that are not
explicitly abrogated by treaty or statute.
Controversy and protest have surrounded Native
American hunting and fishing rights, as state governments and non-Indian hunters
and fishers have fought to make Native Americans subject to state hunting and
fishing regulations. The rights of tribal members to hunt and fish on their own
reservations have rarely been questioned, because states generally lack the
power to regulate activities on Indian reservations. Tribes themselves have the
right to regulate hunting and fishing on their reservations, whether or not they
choose to do so. Protests have arisen, however, over the rights of Native
Americans to hunt and fish off their reservations. Such rights can be acquired
in one of two ways. In some instances Congress has reduced the size of a tribe's
reservation, or terminated it completely, without removing the tribe's hunting
and fishing rights on that land. In other cases treaties have specifically
guaranteed tribes the right to hunt and fish in locations off the reservations.
In the Pacific Northwest, for example, treaty provisions commonly guaranteed the
right of tribes to fish "at all usual and accustomed grounds and stations," both
on and off their reservations. Tribes in the Great Lakes area also reserved
their off-reservation fishing rights in the treaties they signed.
These off-reservation rights have led to intense
opposition and protests from both non-Indian hunters and fishers and state
wildlife agencies. Non-Indian hunters and fishers resent the fact that Indians
are not subject to the same state regulations and limits imposed on them. State
agencies have protested the fact that legitimate conservation goals are
compromised when Indians can hunt and fish without having to follow state
wildlife regulations. The Supreme Court, however, has consistently upheld the
off-reservation hunting and fishing rights of Native Americans. In the 1905 case
United States v. Winans, the Court ruled that treaty language
guaranteeing a tribe the right to "tak[e] fish at all usual and accustomed
places" indeed guaranteed access to those usual and accustomed places, even if
they were now on privately owned land.
The most intense opposition to Native American
off-reservation hunting and fishing rights has occurred in the Pacific
Northwest, where tribal members have fought to defend their right to fish in
their traditional locations, unhindered by state regulations. In a series of
cases involving the state of Washington and local Native American tribes, the
federal courts ruled on aspects of the extent and limits of tribal fishing
rights. In a 1942 case, Tulee v. Washington, 315 U.S. 681, 62 S. Ct. 862,
86 L. Ed. 1115, the Court ruled that tribal members could not be forced to
purchase fishing licenses because the treaties their ancestors had signed
already reserved the right to fish in the "usual and accustomed places."
This case was followed by a series of cases
involving the Puyallup Indian tribe that became known as Puyallup I, Puyallup
II, and Puyallup III. In the first of these cases, the Court ruled
that the state of Washington has the right, in the interest of conservation, to
regulate tribal fishing activities, as long as "the regulation meets appropriate
standards and does not discriminate against the Indians" (Puyallup Tribe v.
Department of Game, 391 U.S. 392, 88 S. Ct. 1725, 20 L. Ed. 2d 689 [1968]).
In the second case, the Court ruled that the state's prohibition on net fishing
for steelhead trout was discriminatory because its effect was to reserve the
entire harvestable run of steelhead to non-Indian sports fishers (Department
of Game v. Puyallup Tribe, 414 U.S. 44, 94 S. Ct. 330, 38 L. Ed. 2d 254
[1973]). In its ruling the Court declared that the steelhead "must in some
manner be fairly apportioned between Indian net fishing and non-Indian sports
fishing." Finally, in Puyallup III, the Court ruled that the fish caught
by tribal members on their reservation could indeed be counted against the
Indian share of the fish (Puyallup Tribe v. Department of Game, 429 U.S.
976, 97 S. Ct. 483, 50 L. Ed. 2d 583 [1976]).
This notion of a fair apportionment of fish was
clarified by United States v. Washington, 384 F. Supp. 312 (W.D. Wash.
1974), in which the court determined that treaty language guaranteeing tribes
the right to take fish "in common with all citizens of the Territory" guaranteed
the Indians not just the right to fish but the right to a certain percentage of
the harvestable run, up to 50 percent. This decision set off a firestorm of
controversy throughout the Pacific Northwest. Hundreds of legal disputes erupted
over the allocation of individual runs of salmon and steelhead, and both state
and non-Indian fishing interests attacked the decision. The Supreme Court
ultimately upheld the decision in a collateral case, Washington v. Washington
State Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Ass'n 443 U.S. 658, 99 S. Ct.
3055, 61 L. Ed. 2d 823 (1979). In this case the Court upheld the district
court's ruling and went on to clarify the details of how the fish should be
apportioned. Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the
treaties guaranteed the tribes "so much as, but no more than, is necessary to
provide the Indians with a livelihood— that is to say a moderate living." A
"fair apportionment," he said, would be 50 percent of the fish, emphasizing that
50 percent was the maximum, but not the minimum, amount of fish to which the
Indians were entitled.