Fish-Hunter
Active Member
This issue has been eating at me for a while now. It keeps being brought up that we are not accountable so therefore we are the weak link in the chain.
THIS IS IN NO MEANS WHATSOEVER INTENDED TO TAKE AWAY FROM THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ISSUE OF THE 88/12 TAC SPLIT. (Which I will state for the record, that this really needs to be changed).
The 88/12 needs to be adjusted for sure, at the very least so that the DFO has a mechanism of flexibility to dole out additional percentages to the sectors that need it from year to year as the dynamics of the fishery changes. But....
What percentage does the Sport Sector really need?
DFO will not change the current percentages without a change to the current accountability of the Sport Sector.
The ACTIVE Commercial Sector will not likely even talk to the issue without good accountability in the Sport Sector. (There is NO guarantee that they will talk to the issue even with good accountability). As where else are the additional percentages that we want awarded to the Sport Sector going to come from? The Commercial Sector of course, and they will not like that indeed. (Although I would argue that the additional percentages should come from the Non-Active Commercial Quota holders, plain and simple).
How do we really know what the percentage needs to be adjusted to?
- DFO sets and adjusts our season lengths based on ESTIMATED CATCHES.
- DFO bases the number of anglers on ESTIMATES.
- DFO bases the Sport Sector daily and season catches on ESTIMATES.
It has been said before, and also recently that we don't need to know the real numbers of fish that we are catching. Estimates are accurate enough to extrapolate our success from. THIS IS TOTALY WRONG! We are going to be perpetually stuck with the status quo without changes to get some real numbers on the table.
HOW DO WE ACHEIVE ADEQUATE ACCOUNTABILITY??
- We need a system that accounts for a total number of anglers that are targeting halibut.
- We need a system that has checks and balance mechanisims in it that accounts for the toal number and pounds of fish caught.
- We need a system of accountability that is accepted by the Sport Sector, Active Commercial Sector, FN, and DFO. (This is the hard part, we need to get to a round table with the aforementioned groups and come up with a system of accountability that all can agree on. This would not be a discussion of allocation at all! Only a discussion of improving accountability of the Sport Sector.)
And for the Million Dollar Question... HOW DO WE GET DFO TO LOOK AT OR ACCEPT A PROPOSAL FOR A NEW ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEM FOR THE SPORT SECTOR???
- We need a Board/Panel that can get and maintain the attention and respect of DFO in order to get them on board with a change.
- Our current efforts of persuasion on the 88/12 have been heard for sure, but very little for reults as we all know.
- Legal action may be a course of last resort?
THIS NEEDS TO BE DONE ASAP!
- In order to re-establish credibility for the Sport Fishing Sector.
- To stop the finger pointing at the Sport Fishing Sector, and the accusations stating that we are not responsible and not accountable.
- So that we can start basing allocation, catch limits, and season duration on REAL numbers, not IMAGINARY ONES!!!
- So that we all know where we are with respect to our % of TAC. (If there are really 100,000 anglers targeting Halibut, and we all only catch ONE halibut EACH for the year, and the fish were of the average size found in the 2010 IPHC Survey catch, 15 pounds each, then we would be pulling 1.5 million pounds of halibut out of the water). We need to know how many of us are really fishing for halibut and how succesful we are.
- To stop speculation around how much we take out of the water, so that we are able to demand necessary changes based on facts.
- We can't wait for DFO to do it for us. That will NEVER HAPPEN! We have already gotten everything that DFO will give to us. (If DFO will not get on side, then the Courts may in fact be the solution, as has been suggested many times before by many people. If court is the only way to in the end of the day, force DFO to make changes, then we had better have a workable solution at hand before the judge asks us what we suggest as a solution, and the only answer that we have is; "well, uhmm,,, your honor, we were actually waiting for DFO to come up with the solution for us".
This is an important topic within the Halibut issue, I believe that it is a fundamental building block to the solution to the whole issue, one that we all need to start thinking of a solution for, in order to start us down the road to fixing this whole debacle.
SO LET'S START SOME THINKING!
THIS IS IN NO MEANS WHATSOEVER INTENDED TO TAKE AWAY FROM THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ISSUE OF THE 88/12 TAC SPLIT. (Which I will state for the record, that this really needs to be changed).
The 88/12 needs to be adjusted for sure, at the very least so that the DFO has a mechanism of flexibility to dole out additional percentages to the sectors that need it from year to year as the dynamics of the fishery changes. But....
What percentage does the Sport Sector really need?
DFO will not change the current percentages without a change to the current accountability of the Sport Sector.
The ACTIVE Commercial Sector will not likely even talk to the issue without good accountability in the Sport Sector. (There is NO guarantee that they will talk to the issue even with good accountability). As where else are the additional percentages that we want awarded to the Sport Sector going to come from? The Commercial Sector of course, and they will not like that indeed. (Although I would argue that the additional percentages should come from the Non-Active Commercial Quota holders, plain and simple).
How do we really know what the percentage needs to be adjusted to?
- DFO sets and adjusts our season lengths based on ESTIMATED CATCHES.
- DFO bases the number of anglers on ESTIMATES.
- DFO bases the Sport Sector daily and season catches on ESTIMATES.
It has been said before, and also recently that we don't need to know the real numbers of fish that we are catching. Estimates are accurate enough to extrapolate our success from. THIS IS TOTALY WRONG! We are going to be perpetually stuck with the status quo without changes to get some real numbers on the table.
HOW DO WE ACHEIVE ADEQUATE ACCOUNTABILITY??
- We need a system that accounts for a total number of anglers that are targeting halibut.
- We need a system that has checks and balance mechanisims in it that accounts for the toal number and pounds of fish caught.
- We need a system of accountability that is accepted by the Sport Sector, Active Commercial Sector, FN, and DFO. (This is the hard part, we need to get to a round table with the aforementioned groups and come up with a system of accountability that all can agree on. This would not be a discussion of allocation at all! Only a discussion of improving accountability of the Sport Sector.)
And for the Million Dollar Question... HOW DO WE GET DFO TO LOOK AT OR ACCEPT A PROPOSAL FOR A NEW ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEM FOR THE SPORT SECTOR???
- We need a Board/Panel that can get and maintain the attention and respect of DFO in order to get them on board with a change.
- Our current efforts of persuasion on the 88/12 have been heard for sure, but very little for reults as we all know.
- Legal action may be a course of last resort?
THIS NEEDS TO BE DONE ASAP!
- In order to re-establish credibility for the Sport Fishing Sector.
- To stop the finger pointing at the Sport Fishing Sector, and the accusations stating that we are not responsible and not accountable.
- So that we can start basing allocation, catch limits, and season duration on REAL numbers, not IMAGINARY ONES!!!
- So that we all know where we are with respect to our % of TAC. (If there are really 100,000 anglers targeting Halibut, and we all only catch ONE halibut EACH for the year, and the fish were of the average size found in the 2010 IPHC Survey catch, 15 pounds each, then we would be pulling 1.5 million pounds of halibut out of the water). We need to know how many of us are really fishing for halibut and how succesful we are.
- To stop speculation around how much we take out of the water, so that we are able to demand necessary changes based on facts.
- We can't wait for DFO to do it for us. That will NEVER HAPPEN! We have already gotten everything that DFO will give to us. (If DFO will not get on side, then the Courts may in fact be the solution, as has been suggested many times before by many people. If court is the only way to in the end of the day, force DFO to make changes, then we had better have a workable solution at hand before the judge asks us what we suggest as a solution, and the only answer that we have is; "well, uhmm,,, your honor, we were actually waiting for DFO to come up with the solution for us".
This is an important topic within the Halibut issue, I believe that it is a fundamental building block to the solution to the whole issue, one that we all need to start thinking of a solution for, in order to start us down the road to fixing this whole debacle.
SO LET'S START SOME THINKING!