Mille Lacs Fishery Input Group Resolution

We, the Mille Lacs Fishery Input Group, formally request that the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources draw on Minnesota’s legal and political resources, and use its authority as primary manager of Minnesota’s natural resources (including the Mille Lacs fishery,) to respond to the massive gillnetting of Mille Lacs walleyes and pike, the only such spawning-time gill-net fishery in the United States.

‘Business as usual’ is unacceptable.

Examples of compelling reasons and serious concerns:

Major Conservation Issues
• Enormous selective gill-net harvests of male walleyes
• Discriminatory impacts on walleye subgroups that home to the same spawning areas
• Massive by-catch and kill of northern pike by walleye gill-netters

Lack of Transparency
• Minnesota DNR Fisheries managers and Enforcement personnel know little about who’s doing what, where, and when during weeks of intense spring gillnetting around Mille Lacs.
• Mille Lacs-related treaty fisheries co-management by Minnesota DNR, eight tribal DNRs, and the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) escapes public information and media scrutiny.
• Minnesota DNR leadership’s viewpoints and policy plans regarding tribal-related resource-management issues at Mille Lacs are unknown.

High Costs
• Big dollar costs to taxpayers for treaty fisheries management (state and tribal agencies) and related costs.
• Dollar costs and public-relations costs to the fishing community because of Mille Lacs’ image as a gill-netted lake, and because “Mille Lacs is always an issue.”
• Public anger and distrust because of unequal harvest rights, and because gill-netting of spawning walleyes confronts the conservation values of most citizens and resource managers.

Disproportionate Allocation of Mille Lacs Fish
• Under treaty fisheries management, the state-tribal allocations of Mille Lacs fish are weighted heavily against the state.
• Present state-tribal 50-50 splits of Mille Lacs pike and perch allocations bring fears about possible future 50-50 walleye allocations and their impacts on anglers and managers.

Who is in charge, here? Here's what the Supreme Court says:

Indeed, the Court retreats from its assertion that the 1837 Treaty gave the Chippewa an unlimited right to hunt, fish, and gather free from regulation when it states: "We have repeatedly reaffirmed state authority to impose reasonable and necessary nondiscriminatory regulations on Indian hunting, fishing, and gathering rights in the interest of conservation." Ante, at 205. If the 1837 Treaty gives the Chippewa a right to be free from state regulation, why may Minnesota impose any regulations, reasonable and necessary or otherwise? The Court's answer to that question is that our prior decisions have established that Indians never have "`absolute freedom,' "ante, at 204, from state regulation, no matter what a treaty might say; rather, Indians' hunting, fishing, and gathering activities are limited by those state regulations which are necessary for ensuring the conservation of natural resources.

To be sure, Indians do not have absolute freedom from state regulation of their off-reservation activities. Indeed, the general rule is that the off-reservation activities of Indians are subject to a State's nondiscriminatory laws, absent express federal law to the contrary. See, e. g., Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife v. Klamath Tribe, 473 U. S. 753, 765, n. 16 (1985); New Mexico v. Mescalero Apache Tribe, 462 U. S. 324, 335, n. 18 (1983). The majority, however, overlooks the fact that the scope of a State's regulatory authority depends upon the language of the treaty in question. At aminimum, States may issue and enforce those regulations of Indians' off-reservation usufructuary activities that are necessary in the interest of conservation. 

So, WTF, Input Group? Are we just going to let this go........................?