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Special session for Mille Lacs gets wary response from legislators Two lawmakers co-chairing a panel exploring problems with the Mille Lacs Lake fishery on Wednesday urged Minnesota wildlife officials to re-open the lake for walleye fishing
-- a long-shot idea that faced immediate pushback from the Department of Natural Resources and Native American bands that co-manage the lake.
State Rep. Tom Hackbarth, R-Cedar, and Sen. David Tomassoni, DFL-Chisholm, who co-chair the Legislative Working Group on Mille Lacs, said such a move would bring immediate economic relief to resorts and businesses hurt by Monday’s shutdown of walleye fishing by the state.
And, they insisted, re-opening the lake would avoid the need for a special session of the Legislature to provide financial relief. Gov. Mark Dayton has said he wants a special session in two weeks, but it’s unclear how much support the idea has in the Legislature. Over two days of meetings Tuesday and Wednesday, Hackbarth and Tomassoni have repeatedly criticized the idea.
As for re-opening walleye fishing on Mille Lacs, Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Landwehr responded that the agency would examine whether it was possible. But then he promptly called the idea "bad biology" that would imperil the walleye fishery’s future and also violate a court-approved agreement the state has with the Indian bands.
The head of an agency that represents the eight bands of Chippewa with treaty rights to the fish responded coolly to the idea as well.
"The tribes would certainly expect the governor and the DNR to be very honorable here," said Jim Zorn, executive administrator of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission. "We have an agreement that a federal court has approved. We expect that they will keep their word."
Walleye numbers have been falling on Mille Lacs for years, but only in the past few days has the situation reached a crisis drawing the scrutiny of the Legislature. On Monday, the state, for the first time ever on Mille Lacs, closed walleye fishing -- but not fishing for any other fish -- through Dec. 1 after DNR estimates showed the state had exceeded its share of the total walleye kill agreed to with the tribes before the fishing season began.
Zorn described the way Dayton and the DNR handled the closure as "an honorable approach that is so refreshing," a reference to a legacy of tensions between states and tribal interests throughout the Upper Midwest. On Mille Lacs, tensions over tribal walleye netting during the spring spawning period have simmered for years.
As the state was preparing to close the season, the Mille Lacs Band -- whose members live around Mille Lacs -- unilaterally decided to forego netting walleyes for subsistence food, saying netting would be limited to taking only enough fish for ceremonial needs.
Hackbarth and Tomassoni suggested the DNR approach the bands to see if an accommodation could be reached that would allow walleye fishing to return for at least some period, even if it meant each walleye hooked must be immediately released.
"We need to be working on this every day," Hackbarth said.
Landwehr promised his agency would discuss the issue with the bands, but noted that the walleye kill limit -- the one that has been exceeded by the state -- is based on what biologists from the state and tribes believe is a sustainable take. Even under a catch-and-release scenario, walleye die from the stress of being hooked, a phenomenon known as "hooking mortality" that is at its peak in the heat of the summer.
"I don’t believe there’s much there," Landwehr said. "Arguably, the problem we’ve got today is because we weren’t restrictive enough."
Tomassoni didn’t buy that. After the meeting, he dismissed DNR estimates of hooking mortality as "guesstimates" and said, "I don’t think re-opening it (walleye fishing) for the rest of the summer is going to do any more damage than has already been done."
Landwehr said the two days of meetings helped him hone the DNR’s response to the situation:
•Develop a short-term walleye stocking plan for the lake. All Mille Lacs walleye have been naturally hatched, and the DNR doesn’t believe stocking is necessary right now. But Landwehr said the DNR needs to be ready if the female egg-producing population falls too low.
•Work up a plan to build a $3.5-million research station and possible hatchery on the shores of the lake.
•Restructure DNR staffing to add manpower to Mille Lacs monitoring and research, and hire a fisheries biologist permanently assigned to Mille Lacs.
•Increase transparency of the state-tribal technical committee that meets -- currently in secret -- annually to negotiate the lake-wide kill limits, which help shape the fishing regulations, which vary annually. Landwehr said he envisions allowing two non-participating observers from the public.
•Begin immediate talks with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to consider shooting cormorants. The migratory birds are a potential threat to the lake’s fish population, although the DNR suspects the lone colony of 500 nesting pairs on federally protected Spirit Island isn’t currently big enough to be wreaking havoc.
•Explore other ideas, ranging from prohibiting the trapping of baitfish for commercial purposes, reducing the burgeoning northern pike population, tweaking the way the agency surveys anglers to estimate the number of walleyes caught, and brainstorming new types of events to attract people to the lake.
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Topic: Mille Lacs tug of war! (Read 1721 times)
