Advocates call for moratorium on herring fishing

[GDW]

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/l...g-fishery-in-wake-of-declining-stocks-1.94603

Interesting read, sorry can't copy and paste the artical in.

The artical says near the bottom that some areas with a low abundance of herring that have been closed to commercial fishing for years but are not rebounding are close to fish farms. The fish farm advocate goes on to say there is no evidence of fish farms eating herring... LOL as if that's the problem.

 

[wstcoaster]

west coast charlottes has not improved much for last few years has had no fishing so thats not the problem

 

[GDW]

Any fish farms up there?

Still it would be nice if they left the herring alone taking 20% of the biomass in areas commercial is still open deffinetly has a large effect. And it seems once a stock is devastated (by commercial fishing or other sources) as a lot of areas have been it is very difficult to bring it back. If most returns are too low for a fishery shouldn't we take extreme caution with the few runs that still return in reasonable numbers?

If stocks that were fished out have not rebounded on their own (which is the case in saanich inlet and those fish have had decades to rebound) that to me shows how devastating over harvest can be. Once the fish numbers are brought too low they can't sustain themselves let alone grow the population.

Commercial harvest takes 20% what % does the rest of the oceans creatures take?

 

[Foxsea]

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/l...g-fishery-in-wake-of-declining-stocks-1.94603

I thought this was a very interesting statement and certainly it's supportive of a moratorium:

Ann Salomon, marine ecologist and assistant professor of applied ecology at Simon Fraser University, said there are ecosystem, economic and constitutional reasons to support a moratorium.

“Herring are amazing. They forage fish that transfer energy from the bottom of the food chain to the top,” she said. “Their job in the ecosystem is much larger than they are given credit for.”

Species such as halibut and salmon are important to B.C.’s economy and culture. Studies have shown that herring are worth more as food for larger fish than extracted from the ocean, Salomon said.

“You get a bigger bang for your buck if you keep the herring in the water,” she said.

 

[CVmike]

No evidence of farmed fish eating herring!? Now that's BS I have a family member who works on one and he says the fish go crazy when a school of herring moves through. A more fair statement would be the amount of herring that get eaten by farmed fish is not as big of problem as the disease and other issues associated.

 

[Whole in the Water]

One fundamental thing to keep in mind that my father in law has said to me (he has been an active streamkeeper for over 15 years) is simply this; not much herring (and other bait fish), then not much predator fish (i.e. salmon, etc.).

He has been finding this out first hand with the half dozen creeks he has helped restore in the Campbell River area. While there are many variables that can impact salmon return rates, he is becoming more convinced that one of the biggest factors is the declining amount of feed for young salmon coming out of the creeks and rivers.

Years ago the coast used to be lined with huge herring spawns that created tons of biomass for young salmon to eat and nature timed the emerging smolts and the herring spawns to happen at the same time. Now these huge spawning events are greatly reduced due to gross mismanagement on the part of DFO and allowed overfishing of herring for quick and easy profits.

When I was a kid growing up in CR, you never bought frozen bait to go fishing, you went out and raked up some fresh that day as you could always find herring school milling around. Try that in CR today!

Years ago you seldom had to fight with seals over catching your salmon on the line as they were usually too busy feeeding on abundant and easier to catch herring.

Once again, DFO has put economic demands and corporate greed ahead of sound conservation.

Unless we get the DFO to better manage herring and other bait fish stocks (including krill) I think we may not be making the best use of our time, $ and effort in many salmon conservation activities. What I mean by this is that it can be a waste of our good efforts if many of the salmon we are trying to promote and conserve just end up starving when they reach the ocean!

IMHO the bottom line is this, low numbers of much bait fish (especially herring) = low number of salmon.

I know this sounds obvious, but my whole point is that we need to make the better management of herring a higher priority issue to truly bring about more abundant fish for all resource use sectors!

I think more effort by those that care about our salmon stocks needs to be focussed on conserving our vital herring stocks - they must go hand in hand as they are dependant on each other.

So do I support a moratorium on herring fishing - you bet I do!

My hope is that more and more will feel the same way and turn this serious situation around!

 

[Seafever]

Could it be that in Campbell River the toxic effluent from the mines had something to do with killing off the plankton that the herring eat?( Not saying overfishing herring had nothing to do with it either).

Herring have to eat too. Such thing as toxins, chemicals, sediments,urban development, lack of certain minerals in the some ocean areas could all be a factor as well on the reproduction of zooplankton etc. for herring food source.

Also water temps.

Nobody ever seems to be concerned with what herring eat or what makes them tick.. They think the herring are there because they should be.

There was some info that ECVI herring are bigger this year.......which indicates a well-fed herring.

Actually the keystone of the food chain is plankton.....that's where it all starts.

 

[Andrew P]

Could it be that in Campbell River the toxic effluent from the mines had something to do with killing off the plankton that the herring eat?( Not saying overfishing herring had nothing to do with it either).

Herring have to eat too. Such thing as toxins, chemicals, sediments,urban development, lack of certain minerals in the some ocean areas could all be a factor as well on the reproduction of zooplankton etc. for herring food source.

Also water temps.

Nobody ever seems to be concerned with what herring eat or what makes them tick.. They think the herring are there because they should be.

There was some info that ECVI herring are bigger this year.......which indicates a well-fed herring.

Actually the keystone of the food chain is plankton.....that's where it all starts.

You have hit on a key point with what the herring eat and all of the other factors affecting their life.....but how can they eat if they are never hatched in the first place. It is just against all logic that heavily harvesting the largest pregnant females is a good idea and sustainable. It is backwards and opposite to the management of other fisheries. You can't keep a female crab and prawn, so why the heck would pregnant herring be harvested? Perhaps greed of this generation taking from the future...

The reason that the ECVI herring are bigger this year is because they were allowed to live an extra year because they were too small last year to be economically harvested(DFO told me so so it must be true). They grow bigger every year....until they are harvested or eaten. And now that the overall herring population in BC is beaten down so much, it puts more pressure on the runs that are surviving. Not a great cycle to be in. The next argument is going to be that there are just too many predators......so maybe we should start culling those like the wolves in Alberta being blamed for the decline of the caribou. BS.

 

[Whole in the Water]

You have hit on a key point with what the herring eat and all of the other factors affecting their life.....but how can they eat if they are never hatched in the first place. It is just against all logic that heavily harvesting the largest pregnant females is a good idea and sustainable. It is backwards and opposite to the management of other fisheries. You can't keep a female crab and prawn, so why the heck would pregnant herring be harvested? Perhaps greed of this generation taking from the future...

The reason that the ECVI herring are bigger this year is because they were allowed to live an extra year because they were too small last year to be economically harvested(DFO told me so so it must be true). They grow bigger every year....until they are harvested or eaten. And now that the overall herring population in BC is beaten down so much, it puts more pressure on the runs that are surviving. Not a great cycle to be in. The next argument is going to be that there are just too many predators......so maybe we should start culling those like the wolves in Alberta being blamed for the decline of the caribou. BS.

You're right on in what you say. Saying that the huge reduction in herring numbers all over the BC coast in the last 30 years might due to things like mine effluent and lack of certain nutrients, etc. (while in a small way may be a varible) is missing the obvious point. There are less herring because they have been overfished - plain and simple! That why people are calling for a moritorium! Not becuase of a lack of sea nutrients.

 

[Andrew P]

Oh another bit about the lack of food source being a possible significance in the reason for the decline. The herring in that area really only depend on the local food source for the first part of their life and then they are out to the open ocean(as apposed to some of the resident stocks). There are tagging studies showing how quickly after the spawn they are out of there. There have been herring tagged, and I think it was the Campbell river area too, but could be wrong, and then caught ten days later 250 miles away in the open pacific. They actually have more of an effect of pulling nutrients and food from the open ocean and drawing them into the coast, feed the seals, sealions, whales, porpoises,dolphins, etc and most importantly salmon which then take the nutrient storage up the rivers to feed more life and to fertilize the forest.

I have a hard time accepting that this info is public knowledge and yet such mismanagement and spin doctoring occurs around the fishery by those who are supposed to be safeguarding this public resource as apposed to exploitation with little thought for the future.

Obviously this whole 20% take is not working when there is declining numbers. Dfos numbers show this.

 

[wstcoaster]

i to grew up in campbellriver to get bait for salmon we just put out a herring jig and soon caught all we needed thet was in 1950 not hard for cod boets to get live bait; there has been no commie fishing in CR that i know of only small bait fishery for sportys; food fishery deepwater bay in fall tho; herring on this coast a smaller specie than in atlantic 22 or 23 cenimeters is a good size here in 30 years of fishing the largest i caught was 23 centimeters i sent in a scale sample and it was 16 years old; after 20 centimeters groth is very slow or just stops as in humans; large spawns dont alway produce large results smaller ones are sometimes better[ and it dosent all get washed up on beaches where its soon eaten by birds; <thats enough for now;