Northern gillnetters get early fishery
Gttlnetting in Areas 3 and 4 will kick off with a chinook opening on June 13.
This is part of a three-year package plan worked out with the Skeena Watershed Committee and the North Coast Advisory Board.
The Skeena Watershed Committee reached a consensus on target harvest rates of 21 percent for steelhead, 33 percent for early steelhead and 19 percent for coho.
The fishing pattern on sockeye will be aggressive in early July, but the last week in July and early August will see commercial net fisheries restricted to provide reduced harvest rates on Skeena Steelhead and fall coho stock.
But the trade off of early openings for cut fishing time and the role of the Skeena Watershed Committee is controversial. The following is UFAWU northern representative Joy Thorkelson's explanation of the UFAWU position.
The UFAWU believes that fish management is the responsibility solely of the DFO. The North Coast Advisory Board's (NCAB) responsibility is to advise DFO on behalf of the commercial industry as how to best conduct the commercial fishery. The Skeena Watershed Committee's (SWC) mandate is to "foster communication and cooperation among the parties in order to conserve, protect and rebuild the salmonid resources of the Skeena Watershed."
The department has in the past managed according to pre-season run size projec-
tions, which have been modified during the season as timing, run size, conservation concerns and effort have varied from the pre-season forecasts. The NCAB has assisted the DFO in developing broad fishing plans, however the DFO has always retained the final authority.
In the past, the fishery has been managed from the point of view of maximizing sock-eye harvests in July and pink harvests in August, always, of course taking into consideration demonstrable conservation concerns.
Now the DFO is planning to manage sockeye harvest, not by sockeye abundance,
Joy Thorkelson NORTH COAST
but by steelhead harvest rates.
It is ridiculous to manage a fishERY using the harvest rates of other species. It could be disastrous to establish actual fishing dates in early May for a fishery that is to take place in July and August.
Yet, this is apparently what the Skeena Watershed Committee is recommending.
The SWC has no mandate to set commercial industry fishing plans. In fact, this is entirely contrary to the memorandum of Understanding for the Skeena Watershed Committee as negotiated and
signed by NCAB representatives on April 25,1992. Moreover, the direction given by the NCAB commercial caucus at the last caucus meeting to SWC participants was to listen to the other groups to see if there was any possible basis for agreement.
Instead, an agreement has been negotiated which is being presented to the NCAB meeting as a final position and as a package deal, take-it or leave-it.
It is preposterous that the commercial industry should negotiate intricate commercial fishing plans with the sports sector. However, industry representatives spent days justifying things like daylight openings to sports representatives. "Negotiations" got down to virtually trading hours in one week for hours in another.
Are the fish, however, going to run according to this model?
The DFO has apparently abandoned its responsibility to manage the fishery and handed over its mandate to the SWC. It has given up managing on a biological basis and turned the management of the Skeena commercial fishery over to a
political process where politics, pressure and other agendas reign.
The UFAWU believes that the DFO should retain management of the fishery and manage according to biology. Commercial openings should continue to be determined by run strengths and timing. Advice should continue to be given by the commercial industry through the NCAB on how to run the commercial fishery. The SWC should continue to function as a place where the different user groups can exchange ideas and concerns, and where research plans can be vetted.
The UFAWU does not believe that a fishing plan should be developed to the extent that the natural returns of the fish are ignored. Possibilities can be looked at, goals set, in so far as is practical. Rigid, model based, politically driven plans are likely doomed to fail.
The UFAWU does not support the placing of even more sockeye on the spawning grounds, fish which should be caught in the commercial fishery, in order to increase run sizes of stocks which do not have conservation problems.
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THE FISHERMAN / MAY 23,1994 • 11