Peninsula Daily News and news sources
SEATTLE — The fishing grounds of the Quileute and Quinault tribes extend as far into the Pacific Ocean as their ancestors typically trawled for marine life, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez of the Western District of Washington in Seattle set the Quinault Nation’s western boundary at 30 miles offshore based on its customary harvest travels in 1855 and the Quileute tribe’s boundary at 40 miles in his ruling issued last Thursday.
The case pitted the two tribes against the Makah tribe.
The Makah tribe filed in 2009 a request that the court determine the usual and accustomed fishing ground of the Quileute and Quinault, claiming the tribes were fishing beyond their boundaries and taking the Makah’s catch, according to the Courthouse News Service, based in Pasadena, Calif.
Requests for comment from Makah tribal officials were not answered.
“We make every effort to avoid intertribal conflicts such as this, and that was certainly the case here, but the Makah tribe, joined by the state of Washington, brought this lawsuit to limit the Quinault Nation’s treaty ocean fishing, so Quinault was forced to defend its treaty rights,” said Fawn Sharp, Quinault Nation president.
“We are very fortunate to have federal court to resort to in those rare instances when we need it.”
Quileute Chairwoman Naomi Jacobson said the Quileute celebrated the ruling.
“We are pleased to know that the court recognizes our inherent rights in accordance to the promises made in the Treaty of Olympia,” she said.
“Not only does this ruling reassure our fishing rights but allows us to continue in monitoring and maintaining our resources for generations to come.”
The case stems from a 1974 injunction by U.S. District Judge George Hugo Bolt in U.S. v. Washington, which affirmed certain tribal fishing rights the state had been denying.
Martinez advanced the case to trial in February, first denying requests for summary judgment by the Quileute and Quinault.
Martinez ruled that the tribes could not use laches — an unreasonable delay by the Makah to bring the case to court — as a reason for summary judgment because the Makah had been trying to negotiate an end to the dispute for years, Courthouse News Service said.
After a 23-day trial, Martinez issued his 83-page ruling July 9.
He said that 160 years of treaties between the tribes of coastal Washington state and the U.S. government make clear the intention has always been that the boundaries of the tribes’ fishing grounds extend as far as their “usual and accustomed” routes took them.
As for the extent of the tribes’ usual and accustomed fishing grounds, Martinez said previous rulings have rejected the Makah’s claim that its boundaries should extend 100 miles offshore.
While the tribe may have occasionally ventured out that far by the 1900s, they customarily only traveled 40 miles offshore when the Treaty of Olympia was signed in 1855, he said in the ruling.
He directed both tribes to file longitudinal coordinates based on the boundaries he set within 10 days and offered the Makah and Washington state the opportunity to respond to the coordinates.
“Winning this case will not only help secure our long-held ocean fishing heritage for our fishermen, it will also help us continue to manage ocean fish stocks properly,” Sharp said.
“We will work with the Makah Nation, as well as other tribes and other governments, to help assure that there are healthy stocks of salmon and other species in the ocean environment for many generations to come.”
Quileute attorneys Lauren King and John Tondini hailed the ruling.
“This is a significant decision in affirming the respect that should be shown for the treaty rights of all native people,” the attorneys said.
