Indian Country

by Nick Vander Puy
Reserve, Wisconsin (IndianCountryTV)

 Jim Zorn is executive director of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission in Odanah, Wisconsin on the Bad River Chippewa reserve. 

GLIFWC's mission is to insure significant off-reservation harvests in the ceded territory for it's eleven Ojibwe member tribes in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

During the fight over Ojibwe treaty rights twenty-five years ago it was easy for anti-treaty forces to scapegoat  the tribes for depleting the fish stocks. But Zorn reveals even before treaty rights hit the front burner the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources was contemplating management tactics to reduce the sport fishing harvest.

Today, both tribal and state biologists declare fish populations in the ceded territory are stable.

"We finally figured out what unites us  and that is concern for the health of the fish and water."

 On The Net: Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission