The State - News from May 18, 1986

Yurok Indians, trying to regain their right to fish for profit in Northern California’s Klamath River, lost their argument in a federal appeals court here when a three-judge panel ruled unanimously that the U.S. Department of the Interior could prosecute them for violating its ban on commercial fishing. The order by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a U.S. district court decision made last year and reinstated the 1979 federal ban on commercial fishing. The appeals court decision left open the possibility that the district court could still exempt the Yuroks from criminal sanctions, but only if the federal regulations are found to be “arbitrary and capricious or discriminatory.”