"Did you just say, 'Utes'?"
Posted on 03/26/2007 8:37:07 AM PDT by george76
The Southern Ute Tribe is close to re-establishing hunting rights for its 1,300 members on 3.7 million acres in western Colorado - in accordance with an 1874 federal treaty.
The tribe and the Colorado Division of Wildlife are discussing an agreement that would determine when tribal members could hunt game in parts of nine counties and four national forests, an area defined under the 1874 Brunot Treaty...
The agreement included a provision allowing the tribes to hunt in the area "as long as the grass grew."
Since then, the tribes' two reservations have shrunk by many more millions of acres to a current combined holding of roughly 1 million acres. But the tribes never exercised their Brunot hunting rights until the 1970s, when the Ute Mountain Utes, now with roughly 2,000 members, began to hunt deer and elk, mostly during regular state-run hunting seasons but with tribal licenses, said DOW assistant regional manager Tony Gurzick. The tribe generally allows each member one buck, one doe, one bull and one cow, unless a member can make a case for additional kills.
But the Southern Utes, with their own large deer and elk herds on their reservation, instead negotiated with federal wildlife managers in the 1970s to obtain training in wildlife management. The tribe agreed to forgo hunting in the Brunot area for the time.
However, last fall, Southern Ute leaders revisited the issue with the Colorado Wildlife Commission, reasserting their historic rights.
The tribe likely will issue most licenses for hunts during the state's traditional seasons, Gurzick said, but some year-round hunting will be allowed, as it is for the Ute Mountain Utes.
(Excerpt) Read more at denverpost.com ...
Tribes from Alaska to Maine may have similar situations ?
Not just casinos.
While I understand they want to hunt, and would love to go hunting myself, I agree with a poster on the above thread who said that it was probably time to disband the tribes. This country-within-a-country thing strikes me as odd, not to mention the waste of time the gov't takes to bargain / deal with them (of course, everything the gov't does is a waste of time =) ).
.
I saw the biggest elk-elkzilla- while working on the Southern Ute reservation.
We were seven miles from the main highway and it took over an hour to drive to the location, then we discovered a long cut than cut the time in half.
There are some big elk there.
The ute's feed themselves well by hunting and by other ventures.
Perhaps I should rephrase. It's time for the US gov't to stop recognizing the tribes as sovreignties to be dealth with.
That has been tried but the nations and their reservations will likely be here for a long time yet.
The government has already tried to dissolve the tribes twice, beginning in 1887 and again in 1953. Both efforts failed miserably and ended up costing taxpayers millions (if not billions of $$$$$) in legal fees. Like it or not, the Indians have the treaties on their side, and it was the government that put the "perpetuity" language into them, and we all now have to live with it.
This would be a good thing wouldn't it? The tribe could use hunting to manage the herds, while making money on permit sales, and the hotels, restaurants, sporting goods, etc., businesses to support the hunts.
It did said it was their land, therefore it is their wildlife. No problem, move on.
Yes.
I think it would be good.
True, the dow are trying to establish authority over a tribes hunting, but all prior court decisions are against them, so it is mainly bluff and an attempt to get an advantage by agreement.
Well said.
I could never understand why many people are so quick to destroy A.I.'s in our own land but will bend over backwards for foreign nations.
I would be careful about the call renegotiating treaties and rights of American Indians, there are many that would like to "renegotiate" your rights as well...
I hope that the Utes win.
The DOW is the problem.
IMO
Why?
The BLM and the Forest Service have too much land already.
The Americans Indians would do a better job of management than the government politicans in DC...
Plus all of the many other reasons.
"Did you just say, 'Utes'?"
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