By Fox23.com News Staff
OKLAHOMA CITY — The Muscogee (Creek) Nation has filed a lawsuit against the director of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, Wade Free, and special prosecutor Russ Cochran over hunting and fishing jurisdiction.
The tribe is asking to stop criminal jurisdiction over Five Tribe citizens hunting and fishing on the Creek Reservation.
“The Creek Reservation is a federally protected Indian reservation and hence constitutes Indian Country under federal law,” claims the lawsuit. “The Nation enjoys the authority to regulate hunting and fishing by Indians within its reservation as an ‘aspect of tribal sovereignty.'”
The Muscogee (Creek) Nation argued in favor of having exclusive authority to regulate fishing and hunting within its reservation by Native citizens, in accordance with the Five Tribe Reciprocity Agreement.
This lawsuit comes after a variety of other similar ones filed by the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Cherokee Nations.
In November 2025, the three tribes came together to file a lawsuit against Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, special prosecutor Russ Cochran, and the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.
Gary Batton, Chief of the Choctaw Nation, said, “The Choctaw Nation will defend its rights and those of its members against the Governor’s unlawful prosecution, as hunting and fishing are deeply rooted in our sovereignty and the traditions of the Choctaw people long before this state was founded.”
The lawsuit filed by the three Nations argued that Gov. Stitt lacks the authority to make decisions of this kind and his “directives to ODWC violate tribal sovereignty and jurisdiction,” citing the 2020 Supreme Court McGirt ruling as evidence.
Previously in October 2025, the Inter-Tribal Council voted to affirm the rights of tribal nations to provide their own regulations and management of any hunting and fishing that takes place on their lands.
“Tribal law is clear: each Nation has a sovereign right to regulate and manage these neutral resources. Importantly, this means no other entity, including the State of Oklahoma, has the right to prosecute our members or members of other federally recognized Tribes for hunting or fishing on Tribal land,” said the ITC.
During their October meeting, the ITC also approved 11 other resolutions. They will host its next meeting January 7-9.
Also in November, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond advised the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation (ODWC) to repeal its policy directing the perusal of criminal charges against tribal citizens hunting and fishing on tribal land.
Drummond sent a letter to ODWC Director Wade Free in an effort to dissuade the agency from continuing with the policy.
The letter read in part, “These enforcement actions are not merely ill-advised — they are unlawful. They expose individual ODWC officers to personal liability. They waste limited law enforcement and prosecutorial resources on cases that cannot succeed. And they inflict significant harm on the State’s government-to-government relationships with the Five Tribes — relationships that took years to rebuild and that benefit all Oklahomans.”
To read the full letter sent to ODWC Director Wade Free, click here.
Last month, Drummond released a binding opinion that stated federal law prohibited the state judicial system from prosecuting tribal citizens who hunt and fish on their own reservations.
Click here to read the full opinion.
