The Seattle Times
Do Indians have the same distaste for game protectors that some whites have?
"Worse," says Howard Stewart of Omak, Okanogan County, one of four tribal game protectors last season on the Colville Indian Reservation.
After Stewart took the tribal job last spring, his Indian friends stopped calling to visit, except on business. Four times in his work, he says he received threats that he would be shot.
"I considered the threats just talk," Stewart said. "I didn't pay any attention to them."
Stewart and the other game protectors, incidentally, are working on different jobs at present. "The protectors are laid off in winter.
Indians from the Colville Reservation may hunt and fish on any reservation in the United States where local Indian authorities give permission, simply upon exhibiting the "blue card" issued by the Department of the Interior.
The matter of permission from local Indians is the important thing and has given rise to a sort of reciprocal trade agreement among the Colville and a few other reservations. These are the Spokane; Turtle Mountain, in North Dakota; Flathead, in Montana; and Umatilla, in Oregon.
AT FIRST SIGHT it might seem a reservation game protector wouldn't have much to do. For members of the Colville Tribes hunting on the reservation, there are no closed seasons, no closed areas and no bag limits. Deer of either sex may be shot with any caliber of firearm.
Indians may hunt at will the year around on the reservation, so long as they do not waste the meat. One of Stewart's neighbors in East Omak shot six deer last year. Stewart tells of another reservation family which, last winter, had 30 frozen deer carcasses on its premises.
Why does the Tribal Council employ game protectors when lavish killing is allowed?
There are several reservation hunting regulations which require enforcement and often are infringed.
For example, it is illegal to "shine" deer — hunt them by night, using a light to attract them. There also is poaching by white men or by Indians from other areas which do not exchange hunting privileges with the Colvilles.
It is illegal for an Indian to take a white man hunting on the reservation. Violators of this provision, when apprehended, are taken promptly to court, the white man into a state court, the Indian partner into tribal court. A $250 fine may be assessed on conviction.
Also frowned upon is a practice most prevalent in the economic stress of last winter, of shooting a deer, cutting off the hindquarters and selling them for $5.
WHITE MEN MAY hunt on the reservation only in season for the non-native game birds, migratory birds and rabbits. For this privilege they buy a $2 license. Bear-hunting by whites also was allowed this year on a $6 special permit, because of the recent increase in the number of these animals.
White permit-holders also may fish on the reservation excepting at Owhi Lake, a brood-stock lake which is open to local Indians only.
It is also up to Stewart to help enforce the regulation calling for a permit to remove venison from the reservation, such as taking it to a home off the reservation, or to a locker plant.
What is the effect on game of such comparatively unrestricted hunting? Are the reservation deer herds kept at a low level?
Stewart doesn't think so. For one thing, the reservation country, with its varied elevations from 1,000 to 7,000 feet, its varied slopes and vegetation zones, is enormously productive of deer fodder.
For another thing, as a management method, a steady year-round kill of deer yields more venison to the acre of range than will a concentrated killing of two or three weeks in the fall.
WITH THE APPRECIATIVE accents of a man who enjoys a good venison steak himself, Stewart will tell you that reservation deer are better to eat than those from elsewhere. The steady kill means that bucks ordinarily do not live to become old and tough. The average age of the reservation deer is less than those outside the boundary.
The unrestricted hunting would not work for white men, Stewart says. Whites, he maintains, would clean the area out in a few seasons.
The Indian, however, is a pot-hunter, rather than a sportsman. He kills more from need of the meat than for fun. He also is a road-hunter. If, while driving through the reservation, he sees deer along the road, he will shoot.
Few Indians, however, will hunt where success will mean having to drag or carry a carcass a mile or two to a road. Nor will most Indians take in a pack string or a jeep to a remote area. They leave such antics to the white man.
On the Colville Reservation, Stewart said, this means that there are roadless areas where deer herds relatively are undisturbed and serve as breeding reservoirs from which the animals wander out to be harvested in more accessible areas.
Stewart, who is one-eighth Indian, is a native of Omak and was reared by an aunt, Mrs. J.L. Smith. A 1954 graduate of Omak High School, where he filled a line spot on the football team, he attended Wessington Springs College, in South Dakota, two years. It was there he met his wife, an Iowa girl who has no Indian blood. They have one son, Ronald Dean, 1 year old.
Stewart studied for the ministry and for a time was pastor of a church in North Dakota. The lure of the native Northwest and lifelong love of the out-of-doors proved too strong, however, and he returned to the Okanogan.
Besides checking on poaching, waste, and fishing on the reservation, the tribal game protectors carry on predator control, trapping or shooting bobcats, bears, cougars, skunks, and porcupines.
In addition to Stewart, the reservation force last season included Elmer McGinnins, Nespelem, Dan Bush at Keller, and Roy Seyler at Inchelium.
Although the work is seasonal, Stewart believes eventually protectors can be employed year around, adding winter predator-trapping to their other duties.
AS A LAW OFFICER, Stewart says he finds one thing a bit disheartening about the work. All too often, when he has made an arrest and wrapped up the case against the defendant, his work will come to nothing because "Oh, that's poor old Uncle Charlie" or "That's so and so's cousin Tom."
Nevertheless, it is a fascinating job, Stewart said. Roving the country from the Columbia to Omak mountain and from the Okanogan to the Disautel summit, there is always something new to see.
"When you start out on this job," Stewart said with a chuckle, "You'll never know what or whom you'll meet during the day or whom you'll catch."
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