far north as Washington and as far south as Monterey Bay, California. The data from 1915 to 1928 established conclusively that the ocean catch did have a very material bearing upon the Klamath fishery. In 1915, 5.3 million pounds of salmon were harvested from California rivers while 5.5 million were taken from the ocean. By 1928 the gap between the two had widened to catches of 1 million pounds from California rivers to 3.4 million pounds from the ocean.

From 1929 to 1978 there is little reliable scientific data available on the extent of the depletion of the Klamath River salmon fishery. Even so it has been during this period that the Indian fishermen were given an unfair burden by the public as being principally to blame for the depletion of the Klamath fishery. Unlike the nonIndian fishermen who are far out at sea in making their catches, the Indian fishermen were in-shore, and, of course, highly visible to the public. Upon seeing nets in use in the river, the public erroneously assumed that the Indian fishermen were responsible for the salmon depletion and that they had no regard for conservation or fishery enhancement. These erroneous assumptions have been negated by a recently published report this year by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This report cites data from the California Department of Fish and Game, which in 1967 estimated the production of chinook salmon at 500,000 of which 350,000 were harvested; and that 88 percent of this harvest was taken by ocean fishermen, 8 percent by sports fishermen on the Klamath River and only 4 percent by Indian net fishing in the river. Unfortunately for the Indian fishermen this 1967 data was not made available to the public in order to dispel the public's erroneous assumptions.

Moreover no effort was made to place the responsibility for the Klamath River fishery depletion where it properly belongs, and this is the failure of responsible Federal and State agencies to take corrective and timely measures following the findings by Standford in 1930.

Neither is any reponsponsibility assigned to the fleet operations of foreign fishing and cannery ships, which have taken thousands of salmon from as close as three miles from the mouth of the Klamath River. Neither has criticism been leveled at the U.S. Coast Guard for their lack of diligent patrol of foreign fishermen. In fact Indian fishermen state that they have had to make reports to nearby U.S. Coast Guard patrol vessels, which were not on patrol, that violations were being committed by foreign fishermen. Unfortunately the Coast Guard was unable to timely respond to apprehend the foreign fishermen.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the commercial net fishing in the lower Klamath River has intensified since 1975. In 1977 Fish and Wildlife reported that 20,300 Klamath River salmon were marketed in Oregon. In 1978 this was reduced because of the moratorium to 44,311 pounds or approximately 3,460 salmon. Because there is no comparative data on the numbers of salmon taken from the ocean, no conclusion can be made from this data as to depletion of the salmon if any, or its causes. However, it would only be fair to the Indian fishermen to say that this is further evidence that they have been blamed unfairly.

In reviewing the works of several highly respected Anthroplogists on the various riverine Tribes of Northern California, it is evident that before the advent of the white men, these Tribes lived in relative freedom from want of the basic necessities of food and shelter. In fact theirs can be described as a society of affluence. They had an effective monetary system based upon the dentalia shells. They carried on rather extensive trade and commerce with other tribes up and down the Pacific coast. They practiced conservation of their natural resources as a vital need to their survival. The salmon was an integral part of their religious tradition, with special rites and ceremonies being conducted for the renewal of the species at the start of each new salmon run.

With respect to the economic status of the Klamath River Indian fishermen and their families, and the work provided these people at the turn of the century and shortly thereafter, your attention is invited to Exhibit No. 1, Interview of Mrs. Geneva Mattz on May 16, 1979.

The failure of the Indian fishermen to take action in a program of fishery enhancement following publication of the 1930 Stanford University report and particularly after the advent of Community Action Programs in the 1960's is not so much due to their negligence as it is the failure of past Secretaries of the Interior and Commerce and their subordinate agencies to act on their behalf. Surely the Bureau of Indian Affairs, as the principal trustee, was not unaware of the salmon depletion problem. Moreover, BIA was aware that the Yuroks, who were without a recognized governmental entity, did not meet this basic qualification of the various community action funding agencies. However as the Trustee, BIA could have filed the applications for the fishery enhancement grants on their behalf, and administered the programs. Unfortunately this is only sad rhetoric upon what might have been.

Added to the items of neglect above are the following:

1. The Klamath River Indian fishermen have legally recognized civil and aboriginal rights of commercial fishing on the Klamath River being wrongfully denied them by the Secretary of the Interior and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

2. The Secretary of the Commerce's approval of commercial fishing off shore for salmon for principally non-Indian beneficiaries and the Secretary of the Interior's ban on commercial fishing by Indians on the Klamath River combine to constitute acts of discrimination and bias against the Klamath River Indian fishermen in violation of the Affirmative Action laws and regulations of the United States government in that the salmon now being caught in the ocean are from the very same schools of salmon which in a matter of days or weeks will be returning to the Klamath River to spawn to renew the life cycle of the species. These separate actions by the Secretaries of Commerce and Interior create an anomoly of fishery operations, which are indefensible. The basic disparity between the regulations of Commerce and Interior is that of locale of the place of fishing and its consequent adverse impact upon Indian fishermen. All that is needed to rectify this discriminatory situation is a reduction in the offshore fishing season by the Secretary of the Commerce and the setting of an equitable season for Indian fishermen to fish commercially in the Klamath River.

3. It can be concluded that the State and Federal governmental agencies having responsibility over fisheries did not timely act on the 1930 report of Stanford University for an unknown number of years or having acted did not at a later date follow through in an effort to assure that corrective measures were sufficient. In 1974 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service expanded their then fisheries enhancement program and in 1976 initiated an Interim Action Program to define problems and develop methodologies to resolve them. Whatever actions which were taken following the 1930 report were simply inadequate and neglectful of a very vital national resource. This includes the failure to construct adequate facilities, conduct stream clearance work, rehabilitate spawning beds in order to spawn an adequate number of salmon fry to further replenish and restore this famed fishery to its former grandeur.

4. Unlike the loggers who lost their jobs through the expansion of the Redwoods National Park and who are eligible for handsome benefits in excess of $25,000 per year, no similar compensatory benefits of financial assistance or job programs to replace lost income have been made to Indian fishermen due to the ban on commercial fishing.

5. While over fishing is generally considered to be the primary cause for the continued depeletion of the salmon fishery, the cutting of forest products has gone almost unnoticed. Spawning stream canopies have been recklessly denuded by logging corporations' avaricious interests in profits to cut and slash to the edge of the spawning streams, thus leaving no canopy to keep the waters cool enough for the salmon fry to survive from the hot summer sun's rays. Add to this stream pollution from fallen and rotting logs and timber debris, and the clogging of the spawning streams from access by the salmon spawners and the ruining of the spawning gravel beds, it is well within the realm of reason that the logging interests may have been the greatest spoiler of salmon runs not only on the Klamath River but elsewhere. In order to obtain a frank and open discussion of the complaints and grievances of the Klamath River Indian fishermen, an unstructured group interview of about 20 Indian fishermen and their wives was held at Klamath, Calif., on May 16, 1979. Excerpts from the transcript of this taped interview is attached as Exhibit No. 2. It is particularly enlightening from the absence of extreme animosity that their expressions of complaints and grievances are more reflective of a desire to live and work at peace with the neighboring white communities. About the only additional point to be raised is that of the use of excessive force and an apparent predisposition by the Federal agents before being sent in on the enforcement problem last year that they would have welcomed trouble from the Indian fishermen as an excuse "to start busting heads".

The Secretaries of the Departments of the Interior and Commerce, in their separate and disparate actions on fishing regulations, seem to be in the process of creating lawsuits for damages for large sums of money in causing unemployment to the Klamath River Indian fishermen and for considerable financial and economic losses. It would seem that this in itself should create keen interest in avoiding such problems, Particulary since there seems to be so much evidence in support of the contentions of the Klamath River Indian fisherman.

Most respectfully,

FRANK ARCHAMBAULT, Chairman, Board of Directors.

Enclosure: Exhibit I-Interview of Mrs. Geneva Mattz. Exhibit II-Excerpts from Interviews of Klamath River Indian fishermen.

INTERVIEW OF MRS. GENEVA MATTZ, AGE, 75.

KLAMATH RIVER INDIAN RESERVATION, KLAMATH, CALIF.

Exhibit No. 1

I'm Geneva Mattz. I live right across the river. I was born over there on the reservation. I was born 1904 and my father had a group of men fishing for him on the Klamath River. We have another little place up on the river about 12 miles from here, and he had different men fish for him and he hauled his fish to Eureka, Arcata, the ranches, Crescent City, Spring ? · Every year he did that, my mother said. And he died in 1906. He was commercial fisherman in 1904. I seen the cannery days when I was going to school. We had three canneries here on the river. All Indian fishermen

unintelligble different

·

men came down and fished for their families. During the fall of the year there was no, uh, we just had this county road here. There was no trucks hauling like there is today and they would cross on the ferry boats. They all hauled their lumber up on the river and their food and everyone sailed and hiked up the river and people lived good those days. They would depend on commercial fishing for their living. There's the house I live in - was finished building

in 1912. My grandma and grandpa worked in the cannery. See when my father died, they helped raise us children. And they built this house and its still standing. Over there that white house, I had it remodeled and that's when commercial fishing money ❤ that cannery money that they worked and grandpa used to fish at night. They hauled that lumber on the boats, the boats used to haul the freight in

here

all the ceiling, the windows, and doors all came from Eureka and the rough lumber came from Hughes Mill in Crescent City, when they built that house. All the freight came

the food and different things came in on the

boat and I remember in September when it came time to can the peaches, the

peaches came on the Golden West and all the flour and the food came up on the boats.

FA: What kind of boat did your grandfather use?

Mrs. Mattz: We just had row boats and then we had the Indian canoes - that's for

the river. We lived good I'm telling you. They were hard working people,
and my boys today from the time Raymond was 9 years old, he helped his brother
fish different things up on the river. There isn't a thing that boy don't
know about fishing. He's a man now, but you have to be ambitious to be a
fisherman. You cannot be a lazy man. You have to be on the ball.

FA: Were there any Indian fishermen who went to sea to fish?

Mrs. Mattz: To fish at Lake Gears.

FA: No, I mean at sea in 1904.

Mrs. Mattz: Well, at that time they went out to fish for different kind of ocean

FA:

fish when they went out in big boats. They went out just for their own use. Not for salmon?

Mrs. Mattz: No, not for salmon. For different things. I imagine for salmon because they had different nets that they used. There was nobody out of jobs, nobody was hungry, nobody knew what welfare is. The government didn't help us here. No time. Those days. Everybody worked and some of the people who are against our own people today the older people who are against commercial fishing - I guess you call it. They raise their families like that.

FA:

Their husbands came down here and fished in those days.

But all the Indians were commercial fishermen at that time?

Mrs. Mattz: Yes, and some worked in cannery. Women folks worked in cannery

MV:

stuffing cans. That was their living year to year.

See, the women would work in the cannery and the men would do the fishing. Mrs. Mattzi Oh, and then when those Feds came in, I went to the camp when they first came in. I went to see Weimer whatever his name was. I talked with, I said I have 2 sons and some grandsons that want to fish I hope you treat our boys right, because we're entitled to fish and we need that money to fish for our living here. The boys need it. I says and I said I hope you treat the boys right and he says, "Oh, yes, we will," he said. You see, we already heard the guns had been coming in. And night after night, I'll tell you it wasn't very pleasant nights to go to bed when you see them

50-664 O- 79 - 17

coming down the nights, searching the water, you never know what you're going

to hear tomorrow with their lights in the water

with their guns on every different places you've seen at nights-even in the camps at night where the men After

folks had their camps. they'd go in the water, they'd go searching around there, so we didn't have a very pleasant summer. I tell you, it was

heart breaking the way they started acting. Them Feds I hope they never

come back here again.

FA: They just might be here to stay.

Mrs. Mattz: Well, they're not going to stay. I hate to be

FA: Well, it has to be controlled.

Mrs. Mattz: Yes, it has to be controlled, I think, you know the Indians controlled

years ago and I think it can be done if all their lawyers work together. I think They and then

it can be controlled. / used to fish here, on Saturday nights They let

I think

nobody fished. 2 days that they set up and they just had so far to fish

upon the river. The rest of them pulled in all their nets so the fish could
go up the river, but there was a lot of fish at the time. I used to see right
off the place when they'd go just like this (motioning with her hands.) But
there was no fleet out there. There was no quarantine, and there were no
tourists on the jaws of the river like this in those days. The fish just
came on in for the commercial fishing. There were no boats on the outside,
so there were a lot of fish:

FA: Tell me, back at the turn of the century as far back as you can remember,
were the tribes still practicing their religious ceremonies?

Mrs. Mattz: Oh, yes. Rites? Oh, yes.

FA: Was the first fish permitted to go up stream?

Mrs. Mattz: Well, they made medicine till the last medicine man died.

FA: How long ago was that?

Mrs. Mattz: Oh, I think he's been dead quite a while. The last one lived here

and I remember my grandpa said when the first fish was caught, after he was