Little Bay de Noc Fishing Reports

I'm sure by now you have read the unfair and one-sided news articles circulated in the daily press about the Sault Tribe subsistence and commercial fisherman and the alleged fishing activity in Little Bay de Noc. The five tribal members have been harassed and watched by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment. The MDNRE has ticketed these individuals but failed to ticket, prosecute, or harass the non-Natives John Halvorson, or the Big Bay de Noc Fisheries (Hermes). Don't you think there's something wrong with this picture? The MDNRE had little to no hard evidence to prosecute the five tribal members. The tribe has paid over $20,000 to hire a special prosecutor to go after our tribal members. From what we were shown, there is no evidence to prosecute the individuals in tribal court. In fact, our tribal court ordered the three individuals to pay fines, restitution and court costs in the amount of almost $30,000, and permanently revoked their tribal subsistence fishing licenses. How can the court charge subsistence fishermen with commercial fishing code violations? They will have an appeal hearing. The other two commercial fishermen had their fishing license suspended by tribal court. This also makes no sense. They have fished their whole lives and so the court takes their livelihood and means of making a living and providing for their families from them. How does the court expect them to pay the $67,000 in fines to the tribal court, when they take and suspend their licenses, which they need to be able to fish? This is another case that for $100 late fishing license fee, these fishermen were charged $67,000. I have no faith in our tribal court system or judges after seeing the way these two cases were handled. The sports fisherman group and the MDNRE are pushing to stop our members from exercising their treaty fishing rights in the Little Bay De Noc waters. The sporties want the waters for their use only. The tribe signed away the waters again in the 2000 Consent Decree so commercial fisherman can't fish in Little Bay de Noc waters until 2020. What the papers don't print is that our tribe plants fish in Little Bay de Noc, and the small amounts taken by the subsistence fisherman is not going to decrease the number of fish in those waters. Tom Miller motioned and I seconded at the Oct. 26 meeting in St. Ignace to drop the charges, tickets, fines and restitution for the five individuals and to reinstate their fishing licenses. Unfortunately, the majority of the tribal board did not support it and voted it down. Tom Miller and myself have been bringing up this issue weekly, about the unfair treatment of our tribal members to the tribal board. The board needs to take action and if the state does not ticket and prosecute the non-Native individuals, then the charges, tickets, fines and restitution should be waived on the five tribal members.