In the 1970s, the Ottawa and Chippewa tribes of Michigan sued the state over the ban on gill nets. Citing the 1836 treaty that held that the government could not govern tribal fishing, the tribes argued that they had the right to fish unrestricted. As this case was litigated, the tribes continued to fish the Great Lakes with little regulation, thus impacting fish levels. As a federal judge insisted that the tribes and the state of Michigan come to a mutually agreeable solution or risk a federal mandate, representatives from the interested parties divided the fishing effort and developed a plan of rule enforcement to manage shared resources.