April 19, 1963
THE FISHERMAN
Page 5
BC Salmon Intensively Fished, Fully Utilised
WHEN we come to salmon, the situation is a bit different. I shouldn't say it's different but it is different in the sort of arguments that one uses. We believe there is very good evidence that the BC herring stocks generally from the Queen Charlotte Islands qualify for abstention . . . and that the halibut of Area 2 and 3 south of the Aleutians do the same.
We also feel sure that our salmon stocks qualify. The arguments are different. We only catch salmon at one time. It isn't a question of deciding whether to catch them at various ages and get the best poundage out of them. Here the question is whether or not we are wasting salmon by allowing too many through to spawn.
The Pacific salmon fisheries are perhaps the only great fishery in the world in which it is quite clear there is evidence (of a direct relationship) between the size of the spawning stock and the eventual return, and that it is necessary to regulate the fisheries to see that enough fish get through to spawn. That is, I would think, because it is one of the few great fisheries depending on anadromous fish that assemble in dense concentrations to ascend rivers to spawn.
I know this may not appeal to you but salmon are actually easier to catch or it is easier to catch a high proportion of them than most other sea fish. So it was quite easy for us to show full exploitation of the major stocks.
When we examined the evidence "egarding the adequacy of escape-nents, it was evident they are no-vhere above the optimum, at least rot in any important stocks. They aie quite often lower. We were alle to show the fishery is very in-teisive.
★     ★ ★ F WE HAD NO MORE GEAR
anl no difference in the kind of geir or in the areas where they wee allowed to fish but we fished sewn days a week, it seems that we would catch 98 percent or more of the Fraser stock and over 90 penont of the Skeena.
It is interesting to note that a mardng program that we carried out recently indicated that the hea*y fishery for Bella Coola pinks last year cost about 95 percent of the small stock of pinks in the midcle creek at Port John. In othei words, this is a very intensive fishery and it was easy to show it.
As regards salmon, however, we had his other problem—a problem much more interesting to a research man; that is, to carry out a large cooperative program to see where stocks go in the high seas. The treaty calls for this because those who drafted the treaty in order to implement Japanese abstention from fishing North American salmon established a provisional line east of which the Japanese would not fish salmon. And the protocol to the treaty required the three countries to discover as soon as possible whether there was intermingling between stocks of the two continents and if so, whether this line divided the stocks as equitably as — I think it was put the other way — or whether some other line would divide them more equitably. There have been arguments as to the interpretation of the word equitably which has been referred back to the governments by the Commission and there hasn't been any decision. That also is outside the
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hands of a director of a biological station. It is simply our job to try to discover where various stocks went on the high seas.
★      ★ ★
STARTING IN 1954, THERE was a program drafted right here in Vancouver in September 1954, which scraped the bottom of the barrel as far as methods of learning this were concerned.
We included in the program exploratory fishing by research vessels, statistics of the high seas fishery, study of the high seas fishery, sampling salmon all over the ocean, and trying to identify them by comparing these samples with samples taken in inshore waters. We compared their scales, parasites, their meristic characters — that means something you can count like back bone and fins, and there serology — their blood types. Then we have tagging and we have studied their oceanographic background.
Naturally and properly from the Commission's point of view, this program concentrated on the movements of salmon across this provisional line of 175 degrees west longitude and it was shown that sockeye especially crossed this line from east to west in considerable numbers. The Bristol Bay stock crossed the line in considerable numbers so that the Japanese were able to catch Bristol Bay sockeye west of 175 degrees. It was also shown that Asian chunis and pinks crossed the line in considerable numbers in the opposite direction posing an administrative problem or problem in interpretation for the Fisheries Commission.
These findings have been reported. Kamchatka sockeye were found as far east as 170 degrees west in the North Pacific. That is five degrees east of the line on our side. Bristol Bay sockeye have been shown to go as far as 170 degrees east. That is 15 degrees on the other side of the line.
In the case of pinks, large Kamchatka stocks of pinks have dominated the Aleutian waters in the odd numbered years, especially 1957 and 1959, and have been found as far east as 155 degrees west. That is 20 degrees on this side of the line.
Western Alaskan pinks in somewhat smaller numbers have gone west of the line and central Alaskan pinks still farther west. ★      ★ ★
WITH CHUMS, ASIAN CHUMS have been found to predominate right up to the line and to occur as far east as 153 degrees west. That is not much past the weather ship that is 22 degrees on this side of the line.
North American chums have been found to predominate up to 170 degrees west, five degrees this side of the line, and to occur up to the line as shown by tags. Tags have not indicated North American chum salmon past the line— right up to the line but not past it to any extent, whereas scale samples have suggested that some go as far as 172 degrees east.
Because of this concentration on movements about the line, information on where Canadian stocks went has never been as good as it should be.
(Dr. Needier then showed slides of salmon movements revealed by research, followed by questions from the floor.)
★     ★ *
ERIC BURNELL (Fort Langley): I would like to ask a question with respect to the catch statistics that are provided bv the Japanese mid-ocean fishery. Catch statistics indicate from the years of 1955. '56, •57 and on that the salmon catches of that mid-ocean fleet are in the range of 50 million salmon pieces per year, as high as 64 million salmon. I would .like to ask you,
as a scientist, if you have explained where these 50 million salmon per year the Japanese fleet is taking come from.
DR. NEEDLER: One obvious answer to this is that a very large part of the Japanese catch is undoubtedly Asian pinks and chums.
the fish out in the middle of the ocean?
WILLIAM RIGBY: From a scientific view point and what is the nature cf the comparative loss?
DR. NEEDLER: There are two reasons against fishing on the high seas which are quite con-
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I Dr. Needier at Convention |
S Carried on this page is the final part of a talk =
1 by Dr. A. W. H. Needier to delegates attend-
S ing last month's convention of the -.United
1 Fishermen and Allied Workers Union.' Speak-
S ing as director of the Nanaimo Biological
= Station, Canada's new deputy minister of fish-
= eries reviewed research carried out under the
H terms of the International North Pacific Fish-
= eries Treaty. This section of his talk, which
H he illustrated with slides, deals with salmon
E research and includes questions by delegates H ' and Dr. Needless answers. =
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Basically, the Asian stocks of chums have historically and recently been larger than ours, and the same is true of pinks. There is some discussion on how much larger, but they are of the order of three times as large. A large proportion of this catch is away to the west where they are catching Asian pinks and chums. They have also been catching quite considerable numbers of Bristol Bay sock-eyes in recent years. The numbers of Canadian salmon are certainly an extremely small proportion of that catch.
★ * ★
BEN SMITH (Ladner): In 1957, two runs of young sockeye salmon went out to sea from the Fraser, the early run and the later run that were supposed to come back in the same year—the first run in the first part of June, and the later run some time in July. Do these runs of young salmon leave the river at the same time?
DR. NEEDLER: Now, I am no expert on just when they run on the Fraser but I don't think the times are very far apart.
BEN SMITH: The early run that year came back fairly strong . . . in 1961 and the late run was predicted as a fairly good run, but it didn't materialise. The sockeye didn't show up at all. Taking the time from when the fish leave, if they were out where the Japanese fish, it would take about 70 days for them to get back. At the time the Japanese started to fish, the other run had already left. The fish would have gone before the Japanese got there. But the Japanese could get a good catch of the second run if they were out there, and as it happened, the early run came back but the later run didn't come back. So what happened to our later run? Is it that they died off and the early run didn't, or is it that the Japanese happened to catch them? We are conserving the fish, but it doesn't look like the Japanese are.
DR. NEEDLER: I would like to get more information before I answer that question. In the first place, as I said, I am no expert on the timing of these runs, and I'd have to examine this before I could give you a good answer.
* ★ ★ WILLIAM RIGBY (Vancouver):
In regard to the Bering Sea halibut, one of the questions the scientists were asked was whether the maximum poundage was being taken. They had to consider at what stage the fish were being taken—whether they were old fish or young fish. From a scientific point, in regard to salmon, whether they be Asian pinks, Asian chums, or Bristol Bay, or Canadian fish, which many in this hall consider to be part of the catch, what is the loss in taking the fish at 175 degrees or thereabouts of the line in mid-ocean compared with the yield in food values if taken closer to where they are going?
DR. NEEDLER: You are asking if it doesn't pay the world in general and the human race to catch
vincing to me. One of them is . . . that all of the stocks are mixed up in one place so you can't protect the runs that need protection and crop the others. This is incontrovertible. This is an argument that is quite firmly based and is a strong argument against high seas fishing.
The second point is a question of whether they are growing faster than they are dying off as they come in from the high seas to the shore. On this'it is possible to get information on their growth but it is very hard indeed to get any indication of how fast they are dying off. The Japanese have suggested at times that you can get a better poundage fishing them.on the high seas because they would only be dying off faster than they grow between there and reaching the coast. We don't believe any such thing. The best estimates we can make are very definitely in the other direction, that they are growing faster than they are dying off. But we can't put a very good figure on this. If you can tell me how to discover what the mortality rate is. the natural mortality rate if you left these fish alone between the middle of the ocean until they reach the coast, we'll give you a Ph.D.
It is very difficult knowing how to get the information. We can dis-. cover the total mortality rate be-! tween the time they leave the coast and the time they come back. We can say so many smolts went to sea, so many came back; they were out there so long. You can pro-rate this to the time and if you do this, you discover that they are growing faster in that period than they are dying off. But we are trying to narrow this down by learning mor| about what mortality rates occar close to the coast before they leave coastal waters and indications are that there are very heavy mortalities especially with pinks and chums which arrive in salt water very small and with very small reserves — there is lot of mortality before they get to sea.
We are trying to get firmer evidence. The evidence is certainly in the direction now that if you want to get more pounds, let them get to the coast. It is also easier to catch them.
★ * ★
JOE YARMISH (Steveston): In your opinion, do you think that a 12 mile limit will adequately protect our salmon?
DR. NEEDLER: I can't answer the question in that form. There is no question that a 12 mile limit would give some more protection but it is only a 12 mile limit. You may remember that at the Geneva conference the government of Canada tried to have a 12 mile limit generally accepted. They asked us the same question* We indicated that we thought that it would give some protection, not only to salmon but to some other things.
★ ★ ★ GEORGE   COLLINS (Vancouver):. I understand that you are
having quite a difficult time getting scientific facts from Japanese scientists. Is that true?
DR. NEEDLER: Not in my experience. I think the Japanese have their troubles getting enough well trained scientists just as we do. We have not seen evidence of their withholding information, if they have it, with the exception of certain information in the far west which they didn't want to release to us before they used it in discussions with the Soviet Union. But, other than that, we have never noticed them withholding information, if they have it. . . .
★      ★    - ★
MRS. WALLI BURNELL (Fort
Langley): In your address you mentioned that scientists were concerned with the pursuit of truth. The question I would like to ask you is do you feel that the limitations of the research work that you were allowed to conduct in terms of the treaty prevented you from establishing an overall true picture? Did you only have an opportunity to establish perhaps partial truth which would support the intent of the treaty? (Loud applause).
DR. NEEDLER: This seems to be an attractive idea. I don't know whether you're hoping that's true or not. As far as I know, it isn't. One never learns the whole truth about anything so complicated as salmon, but we had no restriction on us other than the amount of people and money we had. The government of Canada, like any other government, doesn't allow its research organisations to go without any limit whatsoever and this has certainly been true the last few years. There are various things worth various priorities. We had to do work on the Fraser River pink salmon; we had to do lots of things and the only restriction on what we were allowed to do was in resources and of course resources are always inadequate to do anything that any scientist with any imagination would want to do.
T. BUCK SUZUKI (Sunbury): I would like to make one observation and ask a few questions regarding the size of fish at certain times of the year. Last year, around July 10 to 12, beginnings of the huge schools of pinks had hit the central area. In some cases the fish were barely two, or 2V4 pounds. Now when they are first off the west coast of the Queen Charlottes and the Hecate Strait area, around March and April, what size are they?
DR. NEEDLER: Well, they are smaller; that is all I can say. We have not caught large quantities of pinks in this area that early. As you will recall, in early April
the pinks were all to the south. We did some fishing this year in January, but we didn't get any pinks, and we think they may have been too small to be caught with the gear we were using or may have a different depth distribution but we didn't get any. The pinks are growing quite rapidly. They are only in the sea 15 months.
BUCK SUZUKI:   And   on the
coast there are large numbers of immature cohos. I measured a batch and they were exactly 12Y4 inches long. How old would they be at 12y4 inches long?
DR. NEEDLER: They would be coho that would spawn in the following autumn when they would be three years old. All coho in British Columbia; practically all; are spawned in one autumn, spend one winter in the gravel, spend a whole year from one spring to another spring in fresh water, in a stream, go to sea in that spring when they are a year and a half old, spend a year and a half in the sea, and spawn when they are three years old. So these would be coho that would spawn in the following autumn.
BUCK SUZUKI: I know the scientific boat wasn't there, but for a while I though they were a baby black cod. I took a look down to see why the black cod were so active in the morning and they were not black cod, they were cohos and in another case they were pinks. They were going after my empty hooks just the way the black cod do. This was in May.
DR. NEEDLER: Well, we would like to get some of those if they were pinks. We haven't been able to so far.
★      ★ ★
J I M   CHAMBERS (Westview):
Could you explain why there was no herring in Barkley Sound last fall and winter and why no tagging operations have been done on the west coast in the last number of years?
DR. NEEDLER: The tagging is an expensive and difficult thing and in the disposition there of our resources, we thought there were higher priorities than doing more tagging of herring considering how much we had done.
I can't answer the first question. I don't know how many herring there were in Barkley Sound and there's quite a lot of variation in the movements of herring as any fisherman knows.
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