Turtle Talk

Recently I wrote a post discussing the balanced and progressive nature of media coverage of the 2007 Consent Decree. I remain impressed by this balanced coverage. It appears that the issue is far less contentious than when the Great Lakes portions of these treaty negotiations were being hashed out in 1985 (and even 2000). I have heard several people voice this opinion recently, and I agree with the general assessment.

However, I know that this issue is complex and that there are a myriad of opinions about the new Consent Decree. I have been wanting to hear what the general public is saying about this issue, so I started exploring hunting and fishing-oriented discussion forums. Here is a little bit of what is out there. I cut-and-pasted posts verbatim. Admittedly, without the context of entire threads this can be misleading (especially since the posts come from a few different threads); however, this sample gives you a general flavor of what is being discussed. These posts all came from one popular site, Michigan-Sportsman.com

THE GOOD:

“Quite a few tribes in the Lake States already do run their own hatcheries and stock fish.”

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“the tribe up here has been stocking steelheads, coster brooktrout ,lake trout and they want to start with salmon soon from what i hear.”

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Just FYI, the Tribes dump a lot of salmon into the water every year.

 

THE BAD: 

“Isn’t the treay invalid if tribal members live in the ceded land? The whole point was to have them move away.
I don’t think I want any more of my money supporting state lands in hte tribal areas.”

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“Wow!, wish I was an Indian getting all the extra, plus living off the tax base:lol”

THE UGLY:

“Total BS,another issue of kiss the minority azs or else,never anything equal,
It should be the same across the board for EVERYONE,youths included,young,old,black or white”

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“Maybe if everyone just starts making calls to the RAP line it will help. How am I to know if that person is legal under tribal laws? Will they be wearing a feather in their head?”

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“Didn’t you hear the indians will receive the whiteman’s first born and a residential lot fee for your home along with accessing a road tax fee because your driving over their unknown cementery.”

THE RATIONAL: 

“Come on guys the racial stereotyping and bashing of the native Americans has to be stopped or I’ll start closing all threads like this as soon as they open. There is room for open discussion on such matters but it must be done in a respectful way.”