FISHERY CO-MANAGEMENT OPPORTUNITIES BETWEEN TRIBAL AND STATE AGENCIES: CONFLICT TO COLLABORATION

Over the past 40 years global recognition has occurred for indigenous groups to be represented and have input in how natural resources are managed. This has largely occurred because of how management decisions have consequences to indigenous groups that reach beyond natural resource issues but into cultural, spiritual, social and political elements including sovereignty, legitimacy, justice, equity and empowerment and using indigenous paradigms to meet indigenous needs. In the United States numerous legal agreements have been reached that pair state and tribal agencies into co-management. This project concerns a recent co-management agreement between the State of Michigan and five Native American tribes where each has specific rights and responsibilities for fishery management. Using interview data collected from state and tribal participants and quantitative data from respective fishery agency work plans this Dissertation explores the co-management relationship, how well it is functioning, differences and similarities in participant values, worldviews, and perspectives, priorities for fishery biological assessment and restoration priorities and what the hopes for their co-management relationship. We found there was little understanding between state and tribal participants regarding how they understood each other\u27s priorities for fishery management or the biological assessments and restoration activities they identified should occur. State and tribal participants viewed the fishery resource and the value of science in management differently through unique knowledge systems (Western scientific and indigenous). These knowledge systems likely accounted for the difference we found in how the agencies prioritized biological assessments and restoration activities. The state participants often described broad scale assessments and activities as a priority while tribal participants often described those that occurred near tribal reservations, benefit native species, and promoted treaty protected harvest rights. Participants identified barriers towards successful co-management and they stemmed from legal negotiations and a history of conflict that had hindered personal and professional relationships amongst the agencies. However, even with these barriers participants recognized the value of collaborating for fishery management and proposed how they believed an ideal relationship would and could function. We propose strategies that could assist the groups in realizing a successful co-management institution

Re-envisioning State and Tribal Collaboration in Fishery Assessment and Restoration

© 2016, American Fisheries Society. In 2007, the state of Michigan and five tribes entered into a consent decree that provides opportunity for collaborative fishery assessments and restoration activities. The struggles found in state and tribal cooperation are well known by many fisheries practitioners; less well known is the benefit, although described extensively in literature. To achieve this benefit, each participating culture must be granted an equitable and mutually beneficial role in the comanagement arrangement. To comprehend the range of perspectives and values for fishery assessment and restoration activities, we conducted semistructured interviews with state and tribal agency participants and evaluated work plan data. Similarities included focus on ecosystem sustainability and harvest opportunities; however, participants often assigned and described value differently through divergent western and indigenous knowledge systems. New areas for fostering cultural understanding, broader views, collaboration, and networking to develop shared priorities are proposed

Forging a new path for multi-cultural fishery management

In 2007, the state of Michigan and five tribes entered into a consent decree that provides for collaborative fishery management. The parties desire a productive co-management relationship and realize the need to understand perspectives towards fishery management. State and tribal participants were interviewed, with some tribal agency participants being non-tribal member employees. The findings revealed a lack of understanding between the groups for management priorities and a wide cultural distance between backgrounds in either the Indigenous and/or Western knowledge systems. State employees described their qualifications through Western education and individual learning while tribal member employees identified theirs as community experiences and relations with the natural world. The responsibility to manage was described through the public trust doctrine by state participants, whereas tribal participants described sacred responsibilities, and protecting treaty rights and culture. The purpose of fishery management as described by state participants was through sustainability of the resource and harvest while tribal participants spoke of balance within the Circle of Life concept and suggested the term ‘management’ was inappropriate. The tribal agency employees who were non-tribal members, used both knowledge types expressing scientific concepts while using Indigenous expressions learned partially through their normative presence in tribal communities. Opportunities exist for dismantling cultural distance, forming a collective identity, and sharing power, if state governance structures adapt to include Indigenous knowledge and practices. This may require restructuring governance arrangements to promote power sharing and the normative presence of cross-trained employees within the respective communities where structured learning exist and cultural sharing begins

Comparing size, movement, and habitat selection of wild and streamside-reared lake sturgeon

A streamside rearing facility (SRF) on the Big Manistee River, Michigan, was constructed for the purpose of rearing larval and age-0 lake sturgeon Acipenser fulvescens. Size, movement, and habitat selection were studied from 2007 to 2008 to determine whether there were differences between age-0 lake sturgeon reared in the streamside facility and natural cohorts. Lake sturgeon reared streamside showed no significant difference in length from their wild counterparts. Movement patterns were studied by attaching external radio transmitters to 17 age-0 streamside (198-250 mm total length) and 17 age-0 wild lake sturgeon (206-262 mm). The average weekly distances traveled by SRF fish ranged from 0.05-2.28 km (of 46 km surveyed) while wild fish traveled 0.04-2.81 km. In the river sections sampled, sand, pebble, and gravel comprised over 92.5% of the encountered substrates and Strauss index values indicated no differences in the presence of wild and SRF sturgeon over these substrates. Age-0 lake sturgeon were most often found in water 1.7mdeep with a velocity of 0.5 m/s, and no statistically significant differences were observed between wild and SRF sturgeon for either depth or velocity during the study years. By September, streamside-reared age-0 lake sturgeon attained a size similar to that of their wild cohorts and exhibited similar movement patterns and substrate association. © American Fisheries Society 2011

Lake sturgeon spawning habitat in the Big Manistee River, Michigan

Spawning sites of lake sturgeon Acipenser fulvescens were verified using egg collection mats in the Big Manistee River in northwestern lower Michigan. Photographs taken by a fixed-position underwater video camera were used to characterize the substrate at egg mat locations. A total of 3,913 lake sturgeon eggs were captured at two discrete spawning locations in 2003 and 2004. Spawning locations consisted of 34-44% cobble and 0.04-8% sand, and nonspawning locations consisted of 2-43% cobble and 0.16-7% sand. Shannon diversity indices describing substrate heterogeneity at spawning locations were statistically higher than those for nonspawning locations in 2003 (P = 0.002). Four spawning events (one in 2003 and three in 2004) were documented at water temperatures ranging from 11.1°C to 14.8°C and egg incubation periods ranging from 6 to 10 d. Depth at spawning sites was 1.5-3.0 m, average water velocity was 0.34-1.32 m/s, and near-substrate water velocity was 0.08-1.26 m/s. The topography of the Big Manistee River channel appears to have been altered by manipulated river flows, resulting in the development of barchans (ridges or shelves along the river bottom) in the region utilized for spawning. This study is the first to document lake sturgeon spawning success in the Big Manistee River and identify the specific characteristics of spawning bed material used as well as the presence of barchans that may produce eddies or turbulent irregular flows that affect egg dispersal and survival. © Copyright by the American Fisheries Society 2008

Rating the Potential Suitability of Habitat in Michigan Stream Reaches for Arctic Grayling

Present-day environments and anticipated future conditions often pose a significant challenge to efforts to reintroduce extirpated species, highlighting the need for collaborative, thorough approaches to reintroductions. Such is the case in Michigan, where numerous partners are working to reintroduce Arctic Grayling Thymallus arcticus with hopes of reestablishing self-sustaining populations. With . 47,000 km of coldwater stream habitat in the state and limited numbers of eggs for reintroductions, a prioritization framework was needed to provide a standardized, fine-scale method for rating suitability of streams for reintroductions. Through facilitated discussions with stakeholders and experts, we developed an overall prioritization framework for rating Michigan streams with components evaluating a reach’s thermal, instream habitat, biological, and connectivity characteristics. Within the context of this broader framework, we developed the habitat rating component for assessing suitability of instream conditions for egg, fry, juvenile, and adult life stages of Arctic Grayling. Life-stage-specific habitat metrics and scoring criteria from this effort were used to rate habitat conditions for 45 reaches in tributaries of Michigan’s Manistee River, enabling identification of reaches likely having instream habitat most suitable for Arctic Grayling. Numbers of reaches meeting or exceeding 60%, 70%, and 80% of the maximum score for overall habitat suitability were 31, 8, and 1. Upon completion of the fish assemblage and connectivity components, the prioritization framework and habitat rating process described here will be used for comparing suitability among streams throughout the historical range of Arctic Grayling in Michigan and guiding reintroduction efforts. Though it will take considerable time before instream habitat suitability criteria can be evaluated for all life-stages of Arctic Grayling in Michigan, the collaborative stream prioritization framework developed for Arctic Grayling reintroduction can be readily adapted to reintroduction efforts for other species elsewhere

Abiotic habitat assessment for arctic grayling in a portion of the big Manistee river, Michigan

© American Fisheries Society 2017. Arctic Grayling Thymallus arcticus were once the dominant salmonid in the Big Manistee River, Michigan, but were extirpated from the watershed around 1900 and from the state of Michigan by 1936, likely due to overfishing, biotic interactions with introduced fish species, and habitat loss occurring largely around the turn of the 20th century. An interest in reestablishing native species by the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians led to an assessment of environmental conditions in a portion of the watershed encompassing 21 km of the Big Manistee River to determine whether suitable Arctic Grayling habitat remains. During summer in 2011–2013, abiotic habitat metrics, including water characteristics, substrate composition, channel profile, channel geomorphic unit, and stream velocity, were assessed across eight tributaries within the watershed. To assess whether abiotic conditions in these tributaries might support Arctic Grayling, the environmental conditions were compared to literature values from rivers where current or historical Arctic Grayling populations have been reported. This comparison, in conjunction with an assessment using a habitat suitability index for Arctic Grayling, indicated that important abiotic conditions were within ranges consistent with those associated with current and past populations of Arctic Grayling in North America. The results of this study will guide potential future reintroductions and indicate that suitable Arctic Grayling habitat does exist in portions of the Big Manistee Rive