Menominee Appeal Hunting, Fishing Suit by Cary Segall

A successful project to restore sturgeon to the Menominee Indian Reservation offers hope that the fish may repopulate other places.

Threats to sturgeon populations in Europe have brought attention to the United States for its management techniques that preserve the species.

About 400 environmentalists are attending the International Symposium on Sturgeon this week at the Park Plaza Hotel in Oshkosh, to discuss problems and solutions affecting the species.

In 1993, residents of the Menominee Indian Reservation north of Shawano celebrated the return of the sturgeon to its lakes. The sturgeon has significance in the Menominee culture as the younger brother of the bear, said Ann Runstrom of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

"We've stocked more than 30,000 lake sturgeon in the reservation lakes" since 1994, Runstrom said. "All these sturgeon were hatched from Wolf River strains."

"It's been very exciting for me to see lake sturgeon restored to the Menominee culture," Runstrom said.

After the successful reintroduction of sturgeon, a 1994 Menominee Reservation Lake sturgeon Management Plan was developed. The plan outlines how to address the issues of habitat, law enforcement, disease control and public education and their connection to the propagation of the lake sturgeon.

"Wisconsin is fortunate that they have a lake sturgeon population where there are harvest opportunities," said Karl Scheidegger, a fisheries biologist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Wisconsin has a Sturgeon Management Assessment Team formed in 1997 to plan future management of the species. He shared details of the plan, including a call for the removal of dams as inhibitors to upstream movement of sturgeon. Little ever happens without popular support.

"A pro-active public that's ready to get involved and support programs is an absolute must," Scheidegger said.

One of the concerns for managing sturgeon is the potential for illegal harvests. "There's also the possibility of a black market, as I said, with the decline of European stocks abroad," Scheidegger said.

All the attention is for a fish species that has existed for 100 million years, may live individually up to 150 years old and is highly prized by the people of Wisconsin, he said.

Anti-treaty groups are now operating in Menominee ceded territory. In the spring of 1995, Stop Treaty Abuse (STA) leader Dean Crist spoke to the Twin Cities Rod & Gun Club in Neenah, and Protect Americans Rights & Resources (PARR) leader Larry Peterson held a public meeting in Oshkosh. Non-Indian sturgeon spearfishers and walleye sportfishing groups in Fond du Lac and Sheboygan are raising funds for a court case against the Menominee treaty suit, which was filed in January 1995.

Red Cliff Chippewa Walter Bresette, a Midwest Treaty Network (MTN) board member, said, "Dean Crist is trying to do on Lake Winnebago what he did on Northern lakes -- force counties to spend millions on law enforcement, cause violence and hatred, and all for nothing in the end. It's the choice of the people in that community whether to listen to an outsider with that kind of record."

The former president of the UW-Green Bay Intertribal Student Council, Chad Waukechon, said, "Sportfishing groups should worry less about the fear spread by Dean Crist, and worry more about the Exxon mine doing damage to the same Wolf River- Lake Winnebago system." Waukechon is an enrolled Bad River tribal member who was raised on the Menominee Reservation.

Federal District Court Judge Barbara Crabb ruled in 1991 that STA was motivated by racism in its anti-treaty protests against the Chippewa (Ojibwe), and issued an injunction against physical anti-Indian harassment by the group. In 1995, Crist lost an appeal in the Chicago Circuit Court. As part of the ruling, Crist was ordered to pay $270,000, mainly in court costs and legal fees. MTN board member Debra McNutt observed, "Just at the moment Crist needs to pay off his huge fine, he suddenly finds fertile new fundraising grounds in Menominee ceded territory." Crist has renamed his group the American Rights Fund (ARF).

Bresette pointed out that the Menominee have fought for years against many environmental threats to the waterway, and contrasted this record to Crist, who has said on camera that he would accept a donation if offered by Exxon. "Exxon's mining partner, Rio Algom, caused the disappearance of sturgeon in Ontario's Serpent River," said Bresette, "Native Americans and sportfishers should be uniting together to stop the real threats to our fish." Bresette said that a key reason that the Menominee are seeking off-reservation rights is that a Wolf River dam prevents the natural migration of sturgeon to the reservation. He added that the anti-mining movement does now offer a place for dialogue between Native nations and sportfishing groups.

Menominee Appeal Hunting, Fishing Suit

by Cary Segall
Wisconsin State Journal, Sept. 18, 1996

The Menominee Indians on Tuesday lost their lawsuit seeking the right to hunt, fish and gather on much of the public land of eastern and central Wisconsin. U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled (yesterday) that the Indians gave up those rights in treaties signed with the United States in 1831 and 1848. The Menominee had claimed in a lawsuit in January 1995 that they had given up their land in the treaties, but not the right to use it for hunting, fishing and gathering. Crabb, though, said the treaties were not ambiguous and it was clear the Indians had given up all their rights to use the land. ''No matter how bad the deal,'' Crabb wrote, ''it is not within the court's province to rewrite it.''

Gov. Tommy Thompson and Attorney General James Doyle praised the decision, which preserved the state's right to regulate the Menominee's use of nearly 10 million acres of state land. ''I applaud Judge Crabb's dismissal of this lawsuit, which we believed went beyond the bounds of fairness and the rights of the people of this state,'' Thompson said in a press release. ''This a very significant victory for the state of Wisconsin,'' said Doyle. ''We are pleased that Judge Crabb accepted the language of the treaty to mean what it says.''

Menominee Tribal Chairman John Teller said the Tribal Legislature will review the opinion and ''will be exploring all legal options.'' The tribe's lawyers didn't return calls to ask if they would appeal the decision to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. (UPDATE: They will.)

Crabb threw out the lawsuit before trial after reconsidering a decision last February in which she said the Menominee had made enough factual claims to pursue the case. The tribe had claimed an 1831 treaty gave them the right to use public land and to fish in Green Bay. They also said they never had given up their aboriginal rights to fish in Lakes Michigan and Winnebago and in part of the Wisconsin River.

The treaty, referring to land east of the Fox River, gave the Menominee the right ''to hunt and fish on the lands they have now ceded to the United States until it be surveyed and offered for sale by the president; they conducting themselves peaceably and orderly.'' The treaty also said the tribe could use land on the west side of the Fox River ''for a hunting ground until the president of the United States shall deem it expedient to extinguish their title.''

The tribe's lawyers argued that the Indians understood that language to mean the tribe could continue to use public lands as long as they behaved. The tribe's understanding was important becaue the U.S. Supreme Court has said that amibiguous treaties must be resolved as the Indians understood them

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals relied on that rule in 1983 when it ruled the Chippewa had the right to spearfish in northern Wisconsin lakes. The Chippewa had signed a treaty that gave the tribe ''the privilege of hunting, fishing and gathering in the territory ceded during the pleasure of the president of the United States.'' The court said the tribe understood that language to mean their rights were guaranteed unless they misbehaved by harassing white settlers.

But Crabb noted the Chippewa treaty didn't have specific language like that of the Memoninee's, which cut off the tribe's right to use the land when it was surveyed, offered for sale or extinguished by the president. The tribe's lawyers argued that the Indians didn't understand such conditions, but Crabb noted that the treaty had been read to them and they had claimed to understand it. And even if they hadn't, she said, the language was clear. ''The Menominee's asserted inability to understand the concept 'surveyed and offered for sale by the president' might be relevant to the Menominee's understanding of the treaty,'' Crabb wrote, ''but it does not give the Menominee free license to invent an interpretation of the treaty that benefits them today.''

Crabb also said the treaty gave the president the right to take land west of the Fox River even though tribal leaders in 1836 were surprised by such a result and said they had been assured in 1831 that the tribe would retain the land. ''Even if the United States misled the Menominee on this point, this court cannot look beyond the clear treaty language and rewrite a treaty,'' Crabb wrote. ''Even treaties that are the product of bribery, fraud or duress are valid and must be enforced.''

And Crabb said the Menominee gave up their remanining rights in the land and waters of Wisconsin in 1848 when they agreed to trade their land for money and land in Minnesota. The Menominee didn't move, though, and in an 1854 treaty traded the Minnesota land for the Wisconsin land that became their reservation. But Crabb said the Indians failure to move didn't change the other terms of the treaty. And she said that by giving up their state land, they also gave up the right to unregulated use of state waters. ''Given the purposes of the 1848 treaty,'' Crabb wrote, ''neither the government nor the Menominee could have contemplated that they would have the right to return from Minnesota to use Wisconsin waters as they pleased.''

Menominee Nation - Wolf River watershed satellite photo

MENOMINEE web site: http://www.menominee.com/nomining/home.html
(Site may also be reached from the Links Page.)

The Menominee Forest-Based Sustainable Development Tradition http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/menominee/
The Menominee People have long recognized the need for balance between environment, community and economy both in the short term and for future generations. Menominee culture and tradition teaches never to take more resources than are produced within natural cycles so that all life can be sustained. These traditional beliefs are the foundation of the management practices and principles of today’s Menominee Tribal Enterprises (MTE) operations.

The Menominee Clans Story http://library.uwsp.edu/MenomineeClans/