Tribal Council approves 2016 hunting seasons, tags

Tribal Council approved the 2016 Tribal hunting seasons and tags during its Wednesday, July 13, meeting.

Made possible by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Commission’s approval of the Tribe’s Wildlife Management Plan in September 2014, this marks the second year that the Tribe is managing its own hunting seasons on Reservation and trust lands.

In 2015, 203 Tribal members applied for 46 available hunting tags across four hunting seasons – two for deer and two for Roosevelt elk. Four animals were harvested – two deer and two elk.

Tribal Wildlife Biologist Lindsay Belonga said during the Tuesday, July 12, Legislative Action Committee meeting that Natural Resources is remaining conservative in its harvest approach for 2016, but is offering Tribal hunters more seasons, days and tags.

There will be three hunts for black-tailed deer and 40 tags split between bow, firearm and muzzleloader hunters. There also will be three hunts for elk with 30 tags split evenly between bow and two firearm hunts. The hunts will be held later than state-regulated hunts.

“Overall from 2015 to 2016, we offered 26 days of hunting. We’re bumping that up to 52 total days of hunting, and again last year we offered 46 tags and we’re bumping that up to 70 tags,” Belonga said. “We’re interested in seeing what is the best opportunity for the Tribal membership to harvest animals. Last year we offered an early hunt and hopefully we’ll offer a late hunt this year to see how that shakes out and see what the best opportunities are.”

Belonga added that the Reservation is a difficult area in which to hunt and Natural Resources is only expecting a 9 percent to 12 percent success rate in 2016.

Hunts will occur between Sept. 26 through Dec. 10 and hunters will have to take a tutorial class before hunting. If they took the course in 2015, they will be exempt from taking it again.

In other action, Tribal Council:

• Approved a $59,228 systems of care agreement with the Oregon Department of Human Services that allows Children & Family Services to provide additional support services to Tribal children and parents involved in the welfare system, as well as a $8,600 Title IVB agreement with the same state agency for child welfare services and promoting safe and stable families;

• Approved two supplemental budget appropriations to purchase timber land near the Reservation and in Tillamook County for economic development purposes. The supplemental budget appropriations totaled $5.4 million.

Also included in the July 13 Tribal Council packet was a list of approved staff directives and authorizations to proceed that directed the Tribal Attorney’s Office to move forward with drafting revisions to Tribal ordinances to permit the mailing of audited financial statements to Tribal members, split a $7,500 Boyd’s Coffee sponsorship evenly between the Veterans Powwow and Contest Powwow, approved Tribal Mascot Cultural Appropriateness Guidelines to be shared with school districts seeking a memorandum of understanding with the Tribe, moved $1,800 from contingency to the Election Board to cover additional costs and signed off on the design of the Early Childhood Education and Youth Education building expansion projects.

Tribal Council member Jon A. George joined a contingent of Canoe Family members to perform the cultural drumming and singing to open the meeting.

The meeting, in its entirety, can be viewed on the Tribal website at www.grandronde.org by clicking on the News tab and then Video.