Last summer, the US Army Corps published a report titled “Treaty Rights and Subsistence Fishing in the U.S. Waters of the Great Lakes, Upper Mississippi River, and Ohio River Basins.” It’s well worth a read, especially for those tribes that did not respond to the Corps’ efforts to contact them. The authors wrote whatever they found online in  such cases, and we wonder how accurate those descriptions are.

For example, Menominee Tribe is listed as a non-treaty tribe. For all we know, this may be accurate. But this 1968 Supreme Court case suggests that it is not accurate.

An excerpt from the report:

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), in consultation with other state and federal agencies and Native American tribes, is conducting the Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study (GLMRIS) pursuant to the Section 3061(d) of the Water Resources Development Act of 2007. GLMRIS will explore options and technologies, collectively known as aquatic nuisance species (ANS) controls that could be applied to prevent ANS transfer between the Great Lakes, Mississippi River, and Ohio River Basins through aquatic pathways. As defined in the Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act of 1990, 16 U.S.C. § 4702(1), ANS are nonindigenous species that threaten the diversity or abundance of native species; or the ecological stability of infested waters; or commercial, agricultural, aquacultural, or recreational activities that depend on such waters. In support of GLMRIS, the USACE GLMRIS Fisheries Economics Team is conducting baseline studies of fisheries in the Great Lakes, Mississippi River, and Ohio River Basins. This study focuses on a unique sector of the fisheries — the subsistence fishery undertaken by Native American tribes under treaty rights.