TED Case Studies

Walleye and Trade

     CASE NUMBER:   159
     Case MNEMONIC: WALLEYE
     Case NAME:     US-Canada Walleye War


A. IDENTIFICATION

1. The Issue

     In 1994, the government of Ontario announced that people
staying in resorts in Minnesota but fishing on the Ontario side of
two border lakes, Lake of the Woods and Rainy Lake, would be
restricted to keeping zero and two walleyes, respectively.  This
was a change of the previous limit of six for each lake.  The
announced reason for the new limit was part of a larger effort to
conserve provincial fisheries.  The measure, however, contradicted
the approach taken by conservation officials on the Minnesota side
of the border and quickly arose the ire of Minnesota resort owners
who saw the new regulations as a thinly veiled effort to induce
vacationing anglers to stay in Ontario resorts rather than their
own.  The government of Minnesota responded with legislation of
their own, aimed directly at undercutting Ontario resort business
and retaliating against the Ontario regulations.  The Minnesota law
prevents Minnesota-based anglers who fish on the Ontario side of
certain border lakes from keeping anything apart from a single 
trophy' fish.  Repeated efforts to resolve the dispute have failed. 
Ontario considers the issue one primarily about conservation while
Minnesota officials see the problem more about tourist revenue.  At
present the conflict shows no signs of abating with the two sides
locked into a tit for tat pattern of regulation and counter
regulation.

2. Description

     The international border between the Canadian province of
Ontario and the state of Minnesota is a remote, largely undeveloped
wilderness with very few cities or town and a host of
interconnected lakes, rivers, and waterways.  It is the site of
Voyagers National Park, the Boundary Waters Canoe area and Quetico
Provincial Park.  It is the home of a diverse array of wildlife
including extensive bird and fish population, white tailed deer,
black bears, and the last remaining population of gray wolves in
the lower 48 states.  It is also the site of a significant dispute
between the Ontario and Minnesota governments over the use of this
natural bounty.

     The dispute between the two governments can be traced back for
decades, flaring up at times over particular issues and lying
dormant at other times.  The most recent source of contention is
over the use of freshwater fish, particularly walleye, in border
lakes  (Thus the name Walleye War). While the conflict primarily
revolves around sport fishing and tourism, it has at times
threatened to spill over into more commercial areas.  

     The current dispute began in 1994 when the government of
Ontario announced that anglers staying in Minnesota but fishing on
the Ontario side of two border lakes, Lake of the Woods and Rainy
Lake, would be restricted to keeping respectively, two and zero
walleyes.  According to Howard Hampton, Ontario Minister of Natural
Resources, the restrictions were needed to conserve provincial
fisheries.(Dennis Anderson, 1994)  Ontario catch records show that
US-based anglers generally take more than 50 percent of the walleye
harvest from the Ontario side of Rainy Lake and 37 percent from the
Ontario side of Lake of the Woods.  The new regulations went into
effect Jan. 1, 1994 also included new limits on the number of
muskies, bass, northern pike, and crappies that non-residents can
keep and a new $10  conservation tag' for visiting anglers.

     The irony of this conflict is that both sides agree on the
need to restore depleted fish populations caused by over fishing in
past years. The source of the conflict is the very  different
interpretations of how to best achieve that goal.  Minnesotans
perceive themselves not as the victims of a change in resource
management regulations, but as the victim of a policy designed to
improve the economic conditions of Canadian resort owners at the
expense of Minnesota resort owners.  Minnesotans are angry because
they believe the brunt of these new regulations were felt by them. 

    From the U.S. side of the border, the conflict seems much more
about tourist dollars than about fish resources.  Their evidence
for this is that the regulations strictly apply to anglers staying
in Minnesota resorts, not specifically Minnesota residents.  Much
less severe restrictions apply to anglers staying in resorts on the
Ontario side of the border.  Ontario's fish management policy
combines tourism with fish management.  Minnesota conservation
officials argue that the best way to deal with the fish population
"is to forget allocation and deal with the well-being of the fish
population, which covers both sides of the lake.... There's no
exact line in the lake.  The fish move back and forth. It's a
shared resource."(Skrypek in Schara,1993)

     Despite complaints from Minnesota officials and enquiries from
Minnesota's congressional delegation, Ontario shows no sign of
changing its policy.  Says Hampton, " We want to cooperate with
Minnesota, but the fish allocation problem must be addressed."
(Anderson, April 1994) In obvious retaliation, the Minnesota
legislature passed the one fish import rule.  The law was intended
to discourage Minnesota anglers from traveling to Ontario by
restricting the number of game fish Minnesota residents could bring
home from that province.  The initial law was aimed at restricting
all Ontario fish, not just those caught by tourists, but even those
destined for commercial markets such as restaurants and grocery
stores.  It was thought that this would sufficiently hurt Ontario
that it would back down and change its regulations.  Minnesota
lawmakers, however, were the ones forced to back  down under
pressure from local commercial interests including retail food
stores and restaurants.  In the end the law was  limited only to
Minnesota tourists traveling to Ontario.  The legality of this
measure is questionable, it is currently under court review with a
final result expected sometime in 1996.

     The Minnesota effort to hurt Canadian resorts did not have the
desired affect.  Ontario did not back down.  Indeed some officials
have responded by calling the Minnesota demands a threat to
Canadian sovereignty.  With the apparent failure of their
retaliation measure, the Minnesota Legislature went back to the
drawing board.  A new regulation was passed giving the state
governor authority to implement  fish-in-the-round' restriction for
the 1996 fishing seasons if negotiations to resolve the dispute are
unsuccessful.  This regulation, which is essentially a nuisance
bill, would prevent Minnesota anglers from fully cleaning their
fish before coming back across the border.  This restriction would
apply not only to fishermen bringing their catch back, but to
restaurants and grocery stores as well. Objections from commercial
interests were unable to derail the bill. It is estimated that the
number of people that would be effected by this bill is around
500,000.(Anderson, April, 1995) The effect would be felt not only
by tourists traveling to Canada, but restaurants and stores in
Minnesota forced to pay higher costs for fresh fish.  Undoubtedly,
these costs would be passed on to the consumer in form of higher
prices.

     The current dispute shows no signs of a quick resolution. 
Both sides have their own official interpretation of the situation. 
Ontario seems committed to using the need of a tightly managed
walleye harvest to provide an economic boost to resort owners on
its side of the border. Minnesota derides this as blatantly
discriminatory and demands changes that will reduce the
disadvantages faced by its own resort owners.  Caught in the middle
are Minnesota anglers,restricted by both governments.  As Minnesota
and Ontario are parts of two separate sovereign nations there is
little leverage available for the former to force the latter to
make changes.  Unless intervention comes from a higher level, the
Walleye War is likely to continue in some form for some time to
come.
3. Related Cases

CANCOD Case
UKCOD Case
SALMON Case
LUMMI Case

     Key Word Clusters
     1) Trade Product:   =Tourism
     2) Biogeography:    =Temperate Forests
     3) Forum:         =USA

4. Draft Author:    Peter Kelley
     
B. LEGAL CLUSTER
5. Discourse and Status:      DISagree and INPROGress

     The primary problem is a fundamental disagreement on the most
effective method of managing the shared resources of the two
parties.  The problems is complicated by the inclusion of local
politics into a situation which is ostensibly a natural resource
management issue.  Much of the border between Minnesota and Ontario
is composed of rivers and lakes.  The fish that inhabit these
bodies of water do not recognize the dotted lines that separate the
two countries; they travel back and forth at will.  It is thus
necessary for the governments regulating the use of these resources
(i.e. the fish) to have complementary policies.  Failure to do so
will result in ineffective policies for both parties.  

      Traditionally the primary method of managing fishing stocks
in both jurisdictions is through the use of fishing licenses.  It
is in the allocation of these licenses that the disagreement has
arisen.  Both sides have used licensing procedures not only to
protect fishing stocks, but to improve the economic conditions of
local constituents.  Unfortunately, the economic improvement thus
far has come at the expense of the other side.  While the
particular dispute may eventually be settled, it is likely that the
parochial interests of the two sides will cause further disputes to
spring up in the future.

6. Forum and Scope:  UNILATeral

     While the dispute has at times received the attentions of the
federal governments of the two countries involved, the primary
forum for resolution lies at the state and provincial level.

7. Decision Breadth:          2 (United States and Canada)

8. Legal Standing:       Sublaw

C. GEOGRAPHIC FILTERS    

9. Geography:

     a. Continental Domain:   North America (NAMER)
     b. Geographic Site:      Minnesota-Ontario border(NAMER)     
     c. Geographic Impact:         Canada

10. Sub-National Factors:          Yes

     The dispute centers on regulations found at the state and
provincial level.  Essentially it is an argument over fishing
licenses.  Ontario wishes to protect its fish resources by
restricting the number of catches Minnesota citizens can keep.  The
Government of Minnesota sees this as discriminatory and has
responded using various methods aimed at punishing the people of
Ontario.

11. Type of Habitat:               Temperate Forest

     While the overall habitat for this dispute is the temperate
forest, the specific area of debate is found in the many fresh
water lakes that cover the region.

D. TRADE FILTERS

12. Type of Measure:          Licensing [LICEN] and Import
Standards [IMSTD]

     The Ontario measures deal primarily with changes in fishing
licenses while the Minnesota law regulates the number of fish that
can be brought across the border and what form they can be
in.

13. Direct vs. Indirect Impacts:        DIRect

     It is the specific laws being passed by both sides that is the
source of the dispute.

14. Relation of Measure to Impact

a. Directly Related:          Yes  fish
b. Indirectly Related:        No
c. Not Related to Product:    Yes  Tourism impacts on the entire
ecosystem
d. Related to Process:        Yes  potential loss of fishing stocks

15.Trade Product Identification:        Tourism

16. Economic Data

17. Degree of Competitive Impact:       Medium

     The costs of the various regulations involved in this dispute
are difficult to accurately calculate because they revolve
primarily around tourism income which can be affected by a host of
other factors including weather, and the overall state of the
economy.  The impact is medium because of the potential for
economic damage to northern Minnesota, an very dependent upon
tourism for economic sustenance. 

18. Industry Sector:          TOURism

19. Exporters and Importers:  Canada and USA

E. ENVIRONMENT

20. Environmental Problem Type:    Bio-Diversity Loss [BIODIV]    

   This problem is not about the extinction of any particular
species, or even about a drastic reduction in the numbers of a
particular species.  Rather it is a localized effort to determine
how best to maintain a full range of biodiversity in the affected
area.  The problem is compounded by the differing approaches of the
two governments involved. While there is no guarantee that werethe
location of the problem in a single nations it would be easily
solved, it seems probable that some solution would more quickly be
arrived at.

21. Species Information:

     Name:               Walleye
     Species Genera:     Stizostedion Vitreum

22. Impact and Effect         LOW  and SCALE

23. Urgency and Lifetime:     LOW  and 5 to 7 years

24. Substitutes:         LIKE products

     Walleye is certainly not the only fish available to anglers in
this region.  Others include Northern Pike, Bass, Lake Trout, etc. 
Walleye is, however, one of the most prized of the freshwater sport
fish in this part of the world.

F. OTHER FACTORS

25. Culture:             NO

26. Human Rights:        NO

27. Trans-Boundary Issues:    YES

     The issues in this dispute relate directly to the boundary
itself(lakes and rivers) and to the methods chosen to manage the
fish resources of that boundary. 28. Relevant Literature    
Anderson, Dennis. "Repeal of Border Limits Wins Support," Star
Tribune, May 12, 1995, p. 1C

     Anderson, Dennis. "In-the -Round Fish Bill Would Hurt
Economy," Star Tribune, April 28, 1995, p. 2C

     Wheratt, Robert. "Private Mediators Take Shot at Ending Border
Dispute on Fishing," Star Tribune, January 13, 1995, p. 3B

     Schara, Ron. "Its Time to Call Off Border Ban," Star Tribune,
Aug. 17, 1994, p. 8C. 

     Anderson Dennis. "Ontario In No Hurry to Settle Border
Dispute," Star Tribune, July 1 1994, p. 3C

     Anderson, Dennis. "Border-Water Fishing Bill Is Made Law by
Carlson," Star Tribune, April 22, 1994 

     Anderson Dennis and Ron Schara. "Meeting Set For Ontario
Fishing Dispute,." Star Tribune, March 16, 1994

     Schara Ron. "As Minnesota, Ontario Square Off, Anglers Lose,"
Star Tribune, December 26, 1993

     Husar, John. "Fishy Politics Cross Border to Revenge," Chicago
Tribune, March 11, 1993, p. N9