FROM THE ARCHIVE

Tribal hunting case ends

Facebook Twitter
His case went all the way to the US Supreme Court, but Nooksack hunter Donald Ray Buchanan ended the long legal battle when he decided to plead guilty to poaching elk on public land in Yakima County Superior Court.

On Friday, Buchanan pleaded guilty to a felony count of poaching. The case stems from a January 1995 incident when a Washington state game agent discovered Buchanan and two other men with a pair of bull elk. The elk had been hunted in the Oak Creek Wildlife Area.

Citing the Point Elliott Treaty of 1855, a state appeals court had upheld his right to hunt on open land anywhere in the former Washington territory, including Oak Creek. The Treaty secures the right to hunt and gather on open and unclaimed lands to the Nooksack and several other tribes in the Washington area. The charges were dismissed.

But the Washington Supreme Court disagreed and reinstated the charges, saying the hunting rights of Buchanan and other Nooksack are restricted to traditional hunting areas. The court said he should have the right to prove whether or not the Oak Creek Wildlife Area is a traditional hunting ground.

This decision prompted both sides to appeal to the US Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case last month.

Buchanan was sentenced to eight days of community service. The ruling was hailed by state prosecutors as an important precedent for hunting by tribal residents in Washington.

Staff and news wires contributed to this report.