FORKS — The shooting of an elk by a Lower Elwha Klallam hunter last week has the state Department of Fish and Wildlife and the tribe at odds over the extent of its traditional hunting grounds.
Fish and Wildlife Officer Brian Fairbanks said that 31-year-old tribal member Levi Charles appears to have been poaching when he killed the elk Tuesday in a field near Gaydeski Road five miles north of Forks.
Fairbanks said the hunter was outside of what the state considers to be the tribe’s “ceded area,” or traditional hunting grounds, and because the field was clearly privately owned.
The state’s elk hunting season doesn’t begin until Nov. 7, but Fairbanks said that is not an issue since the man was hunting within the tribe’s own season and had all the necessary licenses and permits.
On Monday, he plans to send his report to the Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, which would determine whether any charges should be filed.
Lower Elwha Klallam tribal Chairwoman Frances Charles said it would be wrong if the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office agrees with the state that the hunter was not in the tribe’s ceded area.
Fish and Wildlife Sgt. Phillip Henry, who oversees the Olympic Peninsula for the state, said that the tribe’s ceded area is restricted to the watershed of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Hood Canal.
Tribal hunting area
But Frances Charles said that the tribe has the treaty right to hunt on the Peninsula as far south as the Hamma Hamma River and as far west as the Hoko River.
That would include land that overlaps with the Quileute tribe’s ceded area, said Frances Charles, who called Levi Charles a “distant relative.”
“These are areas where we have hunted in previous years as well,” she said, adding that she hadn’t heard of an issue with Fish and Wildlife before.
Even if the hunter was found to have been in the tribe’s ceded area, he could still be charged with poaching since the field was not “open and unclaimed land,” Fairbanks said.
Tribes are allowed to hunt in their ceded area only on open and unclaimed land, which is defined as land that is not clearly privately owned and public land, Olympic National Park excluded.
The field was mowed recently, which would have shown the hunter that it is in private use, Fairbanks said.
Differ on ‘ceded lands’
But a conviction on that alone may still leave the issue of whether the Lower Elwha Klallam’s ceded lands extend beyond the Strait and Hood Canal watersheds unresolved between the tribe and the state.
“The tribe has its idea where those ceded lands lie,” Fairbanks said, “the state has its idea where the ceded area lies.
“In our minds there is no gray area.
“Their interpretation and our interpretation is not the same.”
The 1855 Treaty of Point No Point provides the Klallam and S’Klallam tribes with the right to hunt on their traditional hunting grounds, but doesn’t set boundaries.
If charges are filed against the hunter on the basis that he was out of the Lower Elwha Klallam’s ceded area, Frances Charles said the tribe would talk with Fish and Wildlife officers to settle any dispute over its traditional hunting grounds.
“Well, we will definitely sit down with the state if they try to justify it that way,” she said.
Fairbanks said he typically investigates about a dozen poaching reports annually, with maybe one or two of them involving a tribal member.
Frances Charles said the Lower Elwha Klallam and Quileute tribes are not at odds over the boundaries of their ceded areas.
Quileute tribal members could not be reached for comment.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
