Just as perennial as the salmon runs that ascend the rivers to central Idaho is the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes' desire to hold ceremonial, subsistence spearfishing on the mountain streams.
And once again, the Sho-Bans have run up against the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, and now the Nez Perce Tribe, over pursuing the beleaguered runs.For yet another year, Sho-Ban fishermen were cited by the state during a conservation closure last month. Time will tell if more standoffs will take place this summer.
A group of Sho-Ban leaders and attorneys were turned away Friday in their call for tribal fishing for hatchery spring chinook either in the Rapid River area near Riggins or the Clearwater River drainage to the north.
"We're back to point one," said a frustrated Marvin Osborne of the Fort Hall Tribal Business Council.
The friction between the state and the Sho-Bans is a direct result of the low numbers of returning salmon. The wild Snake River sockeye is an endangered species, and the wild chinook of Idaho are threatened.
Federal dams from Idaho to the mouth of the Columbia River, Indians in Oregon and Washington, and ocean fishing all take their toll. The Sho-Bans are always called upon to sacrifice a ritual central to their way of life, while others don't, they say.
"The Shoshone-Bannocks are at the end of the stem. We request they not open a fishing season, and ultimately the tribes have gone along. We have not addressed the needs of the Sho-Bans," said Fish and Game Commissioner Lou Racine of Pocatello.
Still, the commission on Friday reopened a spring chinook season on the Clearwater River for sportfishermen to take 392 hatchery fish, after holding an earlier season on the Little Salmon River near Riggins. The Nez Perce also went fishing in the nearby Rapid River, closed their season, and have indicated they may reopen it on the Clearwater.
Sho-Ban representatives asked the game commission to be allowed to harvest 200 of the 392. The state panel declined, saying it would anger sportsmen, and the tribal spearfishermen couldn't differentiate between a hatchery chinook and a wild fish before killing it.
Since the migratory fish runs fell to a low ebb in the 1970s, confrontations between Sho-Ban fishermen and conservation agents have been almost an annual rite.
In 1988, salmon were taken on the South Fork of the Salmon River over the loud outcry of fish advocates. Tribal members were blasted for spearing trophy steelhead in the East Fork of the Salmon River near Clayton in 1990.
Last year, Nathan Small of Fort Hall was cited for illegal fishing the South Fork of the Salmon. His case still has not gone to trial, but the state has indicated it will not drop the matter.
Small had perhaps the most plaintive comments Friday, saying the Sho-Bans are "hunting" for salmon with their spears, rather than fishing. They spend days looking for a fish, but the general public condemns them for a wholesale destruction of the remaining populations, he said.
Attorney General Larry EchoHawk, a former attorney for the Sho-Bans, said case law recognizes the tribes as sovereign nations. He asked them to open up communication lines with the Nez Perce and the state to avoid angry discussions about salmon allotments as the recovery effort gets under way.
The Fort Hall contingent said they want to talk tribe-to-tribe with the Nez Perce. But there is also the feeling the Nez Perce have struck a deal with the state on fishing, while they are left out of the equation.
Sho-Bans said that as a separate nation with longstanding treaties from the United States, they are not obliged to observe state conservation closures or fishing boundaries. Their attorneys also said the federal government has refused to enter into any dispute with the Nez Perce.