The scenario you outline cannot occur, The Great Lakes Fishery Commission was established in 1954 via international agreement with Canada. The language of the agreement specifically sets Great Lakes fishery management squarely in the hands of the shorelines states and Canada. State directed management of each Great Lake was further underscored in 1965 when the lake management committees were established, with nor direct Federal or Canadian representation on any of them.
Enlighten us by outlining WHAT management monies the USFWS currently provides to the State of Michigan or any other Great Lakes state for fishery management efforts on an annual basis?
Enforcement of the Consent Decree agreement specifics like gear type that can be deployed, total allowabe catch (TAC) apportionment, fishing seasons, and subsistence fisher oversight falls to tribal enforcement, Sate enforcement personnel, as well as USFWS and US Coast Guard Service personnel via ex-offcio status in the field and on all committees and councils that deal with penalties and enforcement. The dysfunctional arm of enforcement remains the Tribal Court system's failure to act punitively, documented repeatedly since the Fox decision.
Separate but equal as a doctrine in the United States was struck down by the Brown decision in 1954. How is it that a treaty the specifically oulines that game and fish taking rights should continue to be granted, until those lands are needed for settlement, is selectiively interpreted and enforced by the Federal courts? This i particulary aggregious when you factor-in the willingness of our current Supreme Court to overturn what several of those who voted in favor of this action stated publicly and repeatedly that they viewed this as settled law.
The 2020 cesus ondicates that roughly a quarter of the 10 million residents you toss out there are under 21. I strongly doubt this cohert should be included in your enumeration of potential fish purchasers. But, let's go at your argument from a demand consumption perspective.
The State and tribal commercial fishery has an annual revenue value of between 10-12million dollars in Michigan. Sea Grant set the annual revenue of the Michigan based charter fleet at 16 to 18million for Lake Michigan waters, without including revenues generated by Lake Huron charter operators. Over half of charter customers do not fish or do not fish regularly per their data. The Great Lakes Fishery Commission sets the anual value of the Great Lakes fishery at just under 7 billion dollars, so lets just do a back-of-the-envelope apportionment by dividiing that value by five lakes to get a ballpark figure of 1.4 Billion for Lake Michigan's fishery...one reason why some of those non-fishing but fish eating folks you tallied-up reside and recreat here annually. I won't touch on your fuzzy math further where you attempt to infer that your local fishery crowd's fish purchasing carries through statewide or even on a broad local scale either. I will add though, that if you buy whitefish in Marquette, it likely originated from the Thill's fish house, or VanLandschoot's in Munising: both commercial fishers who number among the 13 non-tribal operators. Thill's ships to Escanaba and Iron Mountain restaurants as well.
Unlike you, I can't determine a plausible means of apportioning use and demand that substantially offsets the size and revenue generated by the Great Lakes sport fishery to validate your argument either by looking at Public usage, or the economics of consumption. A pretty sizeable chunk of the sport fishers that I know here in the U.P. are loath to purchase fish, but many of them are Finnish, priding themselves in their self-relience.
