Duffer
Active Member
Seemingly not a day goes by when someone isn’t squawking about fish stock depletions and the end of the world for fishing.
Indeed, it always makes good headlines to have a tale to tell about some empty ocean, lake or stream, and, “Oh, the culprits are...”
If you’re an ideologue then you get to submit at the end of that sentence your choice of: fish farms, commercial and/or aboriginal over-fishing, marine mammal overpopulation, draggers (trawlers), feeble hatchery stock, logging, our minions of fishing guides, or even our vast multitude of over zealous “sport” fishermen.
Depending on who is writing the story you can be assured that it is “all those other guys” without a doubt. Indeed, those pointing the fingers might even be some of our more exposed revealed “ecologically – conscious” folk who have been taking big money from the “greenie” groups who were in turn being secretly funded by the nefarious Alaskan salmon fishing industry!
Another often heard explanation of why fish stocks are supposedly down so low is that somehow climate change is to blame. This, despite the fact that many stocks were way up last summer.
Even our own region had massive runs of various species and great sports fishing overall! Bet you haven’t heard much about that, however.
So it was interesting to read of an important fishing industry group who reported last year on their catch in 2007 at the 2008 annual meeting. The Committee on Scientific Research and Statistics met in Seattle, Washington. This important group included 58 participants from five member countries which involve themselves in fishing the offshore North Pacific salmon stocks.
Now, far be it from me to know much about fishing. Me, who has maybe caught a dozen salmon and steelhead in my whole life.
I’ve also managed to hook and then lose many, many more. Probably the world’s worst fisherman indeed!
Alas, one of those few I retained I even managed to lose when I left it on the back porch over one frozen winter night and found, to my dismay, that the neighbour’s dog had wandered in past a flipped latch and bit my glorious 18-pounder in half, to my great chagrin.
But enough of that. I can at least read and have found what may be actually happening to a good many of the Pacific salmon stocks.
In this aforementioned report of the committee, their “Working Group on Stock Assessment” confirmed the preliminary commercial catch from the North Pacific WERE AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL ON RECORD (emphasis mine).
The catch exceeded one million tons and pink and chum salmon constituted the majority of the catch (51 and 31 percent by weight respectively). Sockeye were 16 percent, while coho and chinook salmon were two percent and one percent respectively.
The largest catches were reported by Alaska (430 thousand tons), Russia (349 thousand tons), and Japan (221 thousand tons) – NPAFC Newsletter No. 25 2009 page 2.
I am not a fisheries scientist, but, then again, that never seems to be a requirement for any of the other Island “yokels” who seem to think of themselves as fisheries “experts” around these parts. But I’m just sort of making a good guess that maybe, just maybe, some of those supposedly missing fish we are all reading about might just be finding their way onto those massive Japanese, Russian and Alaskan ships way out there? Could it be?
Bruce Lloyd lives in Port Alice.
Indeed, it always makes good headlines to have a tale to tell about some empty ocean, lake or stream, and, “Oh, the culprits are...”
If you’re an ideologue then you get to submit at the end of that sentence your choice of: fish farms, commercial and/or aboriginal over-fishing, marine mammal overpopulation, draggers (trawlers), feeble hatchery stock, logging, our minions of fishing guides, or even our vast multitude of over zealous “sport” fishermen.
Depending on who is writing the story you can be assured that it is “all those other guys” without a doubt. Indeed, those pointing the fingers might even be some of our more exposed revealed “ecologically – conscious” folk who have been taking big money from the “greenie” groups who were in turn being secretly funded by the nefarious Alaskan salmon fishing industry!
Another often heard explanation of why fish stocks are supposedly down so low is that somehow climate change is to blame. This, despite the fact that many stocks were way up last summer.
Even our own region had massive runs of various species and great sports fishing overall! Bet you haven’t heard much about that, however.
So it was interesting to read of an important fishing industry group who reported last year on their catch in 2007 at the 2008 annual meeting. The Committee on Scientific Research and Statistics met in Seattle, Washington. This important group included 58 participants from five member countries which involve themselves in fishing the offshore North Pacific salmon stocks.
Now, far be it from me to know much about fishing. Me, who has maybe caught a dozen salmon and steelhead in my whole life.
I’ve also managed to hook and then lose many, many more. Probably the world’s worst fisherman indeed!
Alas, one of those few I retained I even managed to lose when I left it on the back porch over one frozen winter night and found, to my dismay, that the neighbour’s dog had wandered in past a flipped latch and bit my glorious 18-pounder in half, to my great chagrin.
But enough of that. I can at least read and have found what may be actually happening to a good many of the Pacific salmon stocks.
In this aforementioned report of the committee, their “Working Group on Stock Assessment” confirmed the preliminary commercial catch from the North Pacific WERE AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL ON RECORD (emphasis mine).
The catch exceeded one million tons and pink and chum salmon constituted the majority of the catch (51 and 31 percent by weight respectively). Sockeye were 16 percent, while coho and chinook salmon were two percent and one percent respectively.
The largest catches were reported by Alaska (430 thousand tons), Russia (349 thousand tons), and Japan (221 thousand tons) – NPAFC Newsletter No. 25 2009 page 2.
I am not a fisheries scientist, but, then again, that never seems to be a requirement for any of the other Island “yokels” who seem to think of themselves as fisheries “experts” around these parts. But I’m just sort of making a good guess that maybe, just maybe, some of those supposedly missing fish we are all reading about might just be finding their way onto those massive Japanese, Russian and Alaskan ships way out there? Could it be?
Bruce Lloyd lives in Port Alice.
