OCR Text |
Show UTAH FISH AND GAME ORDINANCE WILL BENEFIT INDIAN HUNTING I In accordance with the recently re-cently announced policy of Secretary Sec-retary of the Interior Oscar L. Chapman to encourage the conservation con-servation of fish and game upon Indian reservations, the U&O Tribal Business Committee in its September 21st meeting authorized auth-orized the drafting of a fish and game ordinance which proposes, pro-poses, among' other conservation conserva-tion , measures, to license all persons with exception of enrolled en-rolled Ute Indians for hunting and fishing on the bulk of the one million acre Uintah and Ouray Reservation. The license will be in addition to the regular regu-lar state license for hunting and fishing. The Department of the Interior's Inter-ior's new ruling was related to the Utah Fish and Game Department De-partment at a meeting held in the Department's offices Sept. 28, 1950 by John S. Boyden, attorney at-torney for the Utes. The new dictum will have a greater effect on fishermen of the state than it will have on hunters. Roughly 66 miles of Utah's best fishing streams will be denied the white man unless he digs up another license. The waters to come under the red mans supervision will include the Uintah, Whiterocks, Yellowstone, Yellow-stone, Rock Creek, Lake Fork all beautiful streams. Cedarview and Twin Posts reservoirs are also on Indian lands. Just how the fishing will hold up in these waters remains re-mains to be seen. It is very doubtful that Utah sportsmen will permit fish from their hatcheries to be planted in Indian In-dian territory. The Indian service ser-vice argues that one of the two fish hatcheries at Springville belongs to the federal government, govern-ment, and that a fish supply is guaranteed from that source. What they don't seem to realize re-alize is that the federal hatchery raises only about two million fish each year, 50,000 of which are legal size. This hatchery must serve all Utah and Nevada. Ne-vada. In Utah alone, 8,500,000 acres of forest lands have a claim on the federal fish. The number of fish planted will be few in comparison to what has been planted previously. The one big effect that this new ruling will have on fishing waters in the Indian territory is that fishing pressure Will be reduced. The Indian population popula-tion is only about 1500, and it is believed that a much smaller percentage of the Indian population popu-lation fishes than is true with the whites. The effect on hunts for big game and waterfowl will not be as great as the change in the ' ; fishing, but there are many miles along the Green River now used by white men in the hunt for ducks and geese. Here again our style will be cramped. The deer harvest by white man on Indian Jands in the past has been very small, as not a great many white men haye hunted on Indian lands, Because a great deal of the Indian lands are in scattered sectiensingle fprties here and there it will npt only make it very difficult to determine where the Indians and the white have jurisdiction, but 1 1 will cause a large problem in 1 . administration which will be difficult to settle without eltl , I orate and expensive programs of land posting. Problems have already begun I to fhow up in the handling of I big game since the new anr ' nouncement by the Department 1 of the Interior. In the area of Tabiona and Hanna the cultivate ed lands of white man joins onto the forest lands owned by the Indians. Deer that bed down 1 on the Indian lands in the day time are grazing on the fields of white men at night. The property proper-ty owners have complained to the State Fish and Game Department. De-partment. The Department in itum asked the Indians if they would be willing to pay for the damage the deer were making in the white man's fields, The answer was "No." The only other solution left to the Game Department is either to pay all damages done I 1 by the deer ranging on Indian lands, or protect the white ' man's property by removing the deer when they cause damage to the cultivated fields. |