Either way, its the most disgusting river netting aside from the Fraser River. Just brutal. Would be nice to see the FN nets in the inlet and spears and traditional basket fisheries in the river. That would be cool to watch.
I think more selective fisheries is the key point - not necessarily whether or not they use baskets. Certain types of fishing are suitable for certain types of rivers. Fish weirs only are able to be established in low gradient more fine sediment reaches of rivers. Fish wheels only work in confined areas such as canyons with deeper depths and turbid water. baskets work in the same areas for the same reasons.
And there is a place for other fish capture methods, such as nets. beach seines only work in areas that have a beach w/o snags. The key to gill nets is timing and net size.
I feel that many posters on here are from the lower mainland and bring their experiences and biases with them - as we all do. The Fraser is arguably the hardest river to manage for bycatch - esp. gillnets. Unlike many of the smaller rivers - there are multiple stocks and multiple species co-migrating. Some of those stocks are at risk.
But altho the watershed area is huge for the Fraser - there are in comparison many coastal watersheds where it is a very clean sockeye run with minimal bycatch.
and on the suggestion that FNs should only use pre-colonial fish capture methods - what if the tables were turned? What if a FN poster suggested that the descendants of the European settlers could only use horse and buggy to go to work, and couldn't use computers or synthetic clothing?
Would that be seen as both an unrealistic and paternalistic suggestion? I think it would.
and in any event this point on traditional harvesting has already been covered in case law - part of the existing laws of Canada which also includes case law. They rule that the "
nature of the right must be determined in light of present day circumstances." and that "
While the modern day exercise of the rights must be related to historic uses at the time of the treaty, the intensity of particular resource harvesting and the methods used do evolve" for harvesting both terrestrial and aquatic resources.
