Prawning regulations need change on BC Coast
JEREMY MAYNARD / CAMPBELL RIVER COURIER ISLANDER
DECEMBER 12, 2014 09:40 PM
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What a difference a year makes – exactly twelve months ago the southern BC coast was experiencing ocean modified effects of the so-called Polar Vortex. It was minus 10 deg. C. and I was fretting that because it had been so dry and cold for so long I was concerned about the prospect of salmon egg loss in many smaller rivers, because they were so low and even where possibly in wetted areas the eggs would be frozen in the sustained bitter cold.
One year later and enter the Pineapple Express. Now it is plus 10 deg. C., the freezing level is higher than the highest peak on Vancouver Island and all the salmon eggs laid down in the gravel this fall are taking a battering under the enormous water flows coursing down every area river, big and small.
This has happened before of course and the prospects for each egg depend entirely on very local circumstance, with fisherman’s hopes of catching any surviving adult in the season’s ahead contingent on this. Several weeks ago I expressed some concern about the sustained higher than usual water temperatures and the implications of this for salmon egg development and earlier than usual emergence as fry. This accelerated development may in fact save some, possibly quite a number of eggs because far more of them will have now reached the eyed-egg stage and become much more resistant to shock.
Most of the pink eggs have already hatched out and the alevins, with their cumbersome egg sac attached, will be hunkered down in the gravel as best they can but if their surroundings move they will likely be crushed or swept away, end of story.
As I write this on December 11 it looks like local rivers have reached peak flow and thankfully the weather forecast is indicating something of a break in the rain before it starts again next week about the time this column is published.
In what has now become a customary notification at this time of year, early last week DFO announced the seasonal closure (January 1 – March 31) for the recreational prawn fishery in those management sub-areas assessed in the late fall surveys to have too low an abundance of berried (egg bearing) prawns; please check Fisheries Notice # 1278 for compete details.
Regrettably the territory around the south coast subject to closure is more extensive than ever including, in or near the readership area of this newspaper, sub-areas 13-1, -12, -13, -15, -16 and -17. These embrace a large area on the south and east sides of Quadra Island reaching around most of Maurelle and Read Islands and the west side of Cortes Island. Perhaps surprisingly, sub-area 13-14 covering from Fransisco Point up to Rebecca Spit will not close but as a result will surely be subject to more than usual fishing pressure for the three months. As well sub-areas15-1, -2 and -3 will close, covering from the northeast Texada Island shore up to southeast Cortes, including the popular Twin Islands zone.
It is important to know exactly where the boundaries of these fishery management sub-areas lie and as I have before will recommend going to a DFO office and picking up a copy, for free, of the excellent sub-area map. I have a laminated copy on my boat, an essential document for the wandering fisherman. Alternatively, in the modern fashion you can go on-line to the DFO website and find this information there and print out what is relevant to your owns needs.
The reality is the management regime for the recreational prawn fishery in southern BC doesn’t work, except in years of unusually high abundance. Like all wildlife prawns respond to their surrounding environment and in recent years they seem to be doing less well. Meaningful recreational opportunity depends on some expectation of catch and that essentially disappears once the annual commercial fishery gets underway in early May. This fishery is highly efficient and is managed in-season to a prawn spawner (berried female per trap) index, with fisheries in recent years lasting weeks not months as the available resource is quickly harvested.
Most recreational effort ends once the commercial fishery gets going, only to restart in the fall as the prawn stock starts to rebuild. This is why the winter seasonal closures have such an impact on recreational opportunity as they take away the heart of the best prawning season available to the non-commercial fishing public.
The Pacific Prawn Fisherman’s Association, representing commercial harvesters, recently recommended to DFO that there should be a coast-wide closure of all prawn fishing from December 1 to March 31. No question about whose interests the association is advocating for because as noted the commercial fishery doesn’t fish then!
This is unlikely to occur as such an act would be a gross violation of the principles that the department theoretically subscribes to as described in the Vision for the Recreational Fishery document. That said, the prospect of wide-scale winter seasonal closures remains a possibility because of a shortage of funds to conduct stock assessment surveys in the fall. DFO has indicated that should this situation continue it would institute automatic seasonal closures in those sub-areas with a history of them.
There’s two ways out of the current unsatisfactory situation. One is to create areas that would be out of bounds to the commercial fishery, reserves for the recreational and First Nation food fisheries. These reserves would have to be of large enough area to be meaningful.
The other approach would be to close the commercial fishery at a higher spawner index level than the other fisheries to leave more mature prawns in the water at the cessation of the fishery. This has been tried in Howe Sound with some success and deserves to be implemented more widely. Of course should this management tactic come into effect there’s no guarantee there wouldn’t be subsequent seasonal recreational closures but the likelihood of them occurring would be lessened.
Meanwhile both ideas have been firmly rejected by the commercial interests and the current situation looks set to continue.
- See more at:
http://www.courierislander.com/spor...ge-on-bc-coast-1.1664126#sthash.FBj0HM3e.dpuf
