Judge Rules Treaty Allows Yakamas To Hunt Out Of Season Fate Of Ex-Tribal Police Officer Hinges On Preservation Issue

A former tribal police chief who killed two elk off reservation had a right to hunt out of season under a 141-year-old treaty, a judge ruled Wednesday.

But the fate of former Yakama Nation police chief Joseph Young still hinges on whether prosecutors can prove a need to regulate hunting to preserve animal populations.

The case is seen as a test of whether century-old treaties give some Indians the right to hunt out of season and off their reservations.

Young is charged with four gross misdemeanors for shooting the bull elk last winter: hunting elk during a closed season, killing elk in excess of bag limit, hunting without a license and hunting without an elk tag. Each count is punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

“There’s no question Mr. Young was hunting on ceded lands under full benefit of the treaty,” Yakima County Superior Court Judge James Gavin said.

Gavin ruled that case law cited by Prosecutor Jeff Sullivan did not apply in this case, because of wording differences between the Yakamas’ treaty and the treaties with different tribes in the other cases.

Gavin said the treaty negotiated with the Yakama Nation in 1855 guaranteed that the tribe’s hunting rights were perpetual, and did not disappear when the state joined the union in 1889.

After Gavin’s ruling, Sullivan called conservation officials to the stand to try to prove the state had the right to ban hunting - even by Indians - on grounds it was necessary to preserve the elk herd.

Roger McKeel, a state Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist, testified that the killing of the two bull elk last January was unlikely to have damaged the viability of the Yakima herd, which numbers about 13,000. But McKeel said that since his agency cannot control tribal members’ hunting, it is hard to predict what kind of effect they are having.

Bill Bradley, director of the tribe’s wildlife program, said tribal members are allowed to hunt year-round on the reservation with no limit to how many elk they kill. Despite the lack of rules regarding hunting, the elk herd living on the Yakama reservation has tripled in the past 12 years, he said.

“It’s one of the healthiest herds in the west, no doubt about it,” Bradley said.

Sullivan asked why tribal members need to hunt off the reservation if there is a large elk population there.

“People frequently ask that. It shows a lack of understanding of the Indian people and their culture,” Bradley said. “There is so much culturalism involved in food gathering (for the Indians). … They go to where their families traditionally came from.

“There are two families that hunt near Ellensburg, and that’s the only place they will hunt,” he said.

Both Young and Sullivan have said they will appeal if Gavin’s final ruling goes against them.

Sullivan said he wants a final ruling on the recurring issue of treaty rights regarding hunting.

If Gavin had ruled the treaty was not applicable, Young would have been convicted, Sullivan said. Since Sullivan lost on the treaty-rights issue, he must seek to have Young convicted on conservancy grounds.

But Young, 54, of White Swan, contends the Treaty of 1855 - in which the tribe ceded some 10 million acres of land to the U.S. government - gives Yakama Indians hunting privileges on “unclaimed land,” including the federal forest land where the elk were killed.

Defense lawyer Jack Fiander said he interprets the treaty language to mean Yakama Indians can hunt freely on off-reservation land that is not “claimed by settlers.”