Wisconsin Walleye War

Wisconsin Walleye War

Following a case beginning in 1983, civil unrest erupted in Wisconsin after the U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Crabb ruled on August 21, 1987 that six Ojibwe (Chippewa) tribal governments had the treaty right to regulate their members' hunting and fishing outside of the reservation boundaries, based on federal treaties of 1837 and 1842. Specifically, sports fishermen opposed their spearfishing walleye in spawning season. Through the walleye spawning seasons into 1991, protests grew against the Ojibwe exercising treaty rights, but actions on several fronts gradually led to more collaborative work between the tribes and sport fishermen. The state commission found that the tribes took such a small percentage of fish that it would not affect sportfishing. The tribes and sport fishermen began to work together to protect their common interest in the fishery and other natural resources, against environmental degradation due to mining.

The events were chronicled in at least two books, the film Lighting the Seventh Fire (1995), and in a Mother Jones 1991 article.