Fishing in a Sea of Court Orders : Puget Sound Salmon Management 10 Years after the Boldt Decision •

The United States obtained title to nearly all of western Washington from the Indians in the mid-1850's in exchange for a small amount of money and the promise that the Indians would be able to go on fishing for salmon as they always had "in common with all citizens .... "This promise presented no difficulty as long as people were scarce and fish were abundant, but the situation changed in this century and harvestable fish had to be allocated between Indians and non-Indians. Jndge George Boidt of the federal district conrt divided the fish evenly in 1974, and since then a unique fishery management system has evolved under court supervision. The goals of this system are to maintain the salmon runs and divide the harvests evenly. These objectives are achieved by a number of court orders that reqnire the State of Washington and 21 Indian tribes to agree on methods for estimating run sizes and setting escapement goals. The total harvestable number from each run is then determined as the excess (if any) of run size over escapement goal, and each side is left to take its half however it chooses. If any matter is disputed, either before or during the season, the parties can take it to the Fisheries Advisory Board, a body established by the court to consider technical and management questions. Most disputes are settled there either by the parties themselves or by the court's Technical Advisor who chairs the meetings, although either party has the right to take any dispute to court after a Board hearing. At present (10 years after the original district court decision), Puget Sound salmon management is a success overall, at least in the author's opinion. Some problems remain but the prospects for solving them are better than for most other fisheries. The Boldt decision of 1974 established the principle that Indian tribes were entitled by treaty to a fair chance to catch a fair share (eventually set at half) of the annual harvest of salmon and steelhead (Salmo gairdneri) runs to Puget Sound, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean in the State of Washington. The ruling marked the end of a long legal struggle by the tribes and the federal government • Contribution Number 662, School of Fisheries, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195. The Unit is sponsored by the University of Washington, the Washington Department of Game, the Washington Department of Fisheries, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. for state recognition of Indian fishing rights. It also marked the beginning of a long, joint effort by state and tribal fishery managers, mediated by the court, to put the principle of equal sharing into practice in managing a multitude of interacting fisheries on overlapping runs. The parties have negotiated procedures for handling various management issues over the years, and these agreed procedures have been adopted as court orders. In this fashion, a set of rules has accumulated that by now provides detailed guidance not only on the goals and objectives of management but also on the data to be collected and the quantities to be estimated in deciding on regulations. It is these detailed rules