Emergency SFAB Meetings About Proposed SRKW Fishing Closures
- Thread starter Whole in the Water
- Start date
Derby
Crew Member
searun
Well-Known Member
I think it merits pointing out that the 2018 management measures are part of a study DFO is undertaking to assess the impacts of Rec fishing activities on prey acquisition per the workshop outcome.
How the study is undertaken is very important because if they collect impact data that is tainted by the presence of whale watching vessels the impact results will be increased by the whale watching activities overlaid on top of the fishing activities.
So if you want to have skewed results dictating the impact analysis applied to the Rec fishery then carry on supporting having whale watchers present inside the study area. Understanding how the research methodology is set up is very important, otherwise we will be measured by double the impact as opposed to just the Rec fishery alone. I don’t think this is hard to understand.
Why are we so keen to taint the study result in order to keep the whale watchers happy?
Careful what you wish for!
How the study is undertaken is very important because if they collect impact data that is tainted by the presence of whale watching vessels the impact results will be increased by the whale watching activities overlaid on top of the fishing activities.
So if you want to have skewed results dictating the impact analysis applied to the Rec fishery then carry on supporting having whale watchers present inside the study area. Understanding how the research methodology is set up is very important, otherwise we will be measured by double the impact as opposed to just the Rec fishery alone. I don’t think this is hard to understand.
Why are we so keen to taint the study result in order to keep the whale watchers happy?
Careful what you wish for!
advTHXance
Well-Known Member
Well I just got back from the Mary Winspear parking lot, and its at about 120% capacity. Really wanted to attend this meeting and it seems I wasnt the only one! Hopefully someone who actually fought their way inside can provide an update after the meeting concludes. Lots of good men (and women) in the SAA, so Im sure our sector will be well represented.
Have you even read what I wrote? It's not so hard to understand!
ziggy
Well-Known Member
We have actual jobs??
In the Sidney Angler's meeting. Remember when the first land deals with the FN in Northamerica were struck? Then a few years later their land shrunk again? Then reservations came which were reduced again a few years later? Same thing here! As heavily restricted area 18 is already now we are to choose how to cut further and are asked to be happy about the opportunity to pick a patch here or there being left for us to fish. And all with no hope of making any difference for the objective: the whales. And the real issues are not to be discussed? I am sorry, but if our SFAB reps are facilitating that kind of BS without some pushback then this process is useless and we will see the inevitable happening soon. I wish the SFAB would take a stand that it will not participate in useless fishing closures so that DFO can get away another few years without facing the facts and reality.
Fishermen of Sidney, Victoria and Sooke: stand up and reject any further closures or restrictions! Today they ask you to choose between Active Pass or Pender Bluff, tomorrow you will lose both! And it won't help those whales a bit as suggested by all scientists. DFO just wants to be able to say: "See, we consulted the sport fishing community and they chose to have Sheringham closed!" BS! We are basically being coerced into further restrictions. Don't buy it, at least put up a fight and tell SFAB that any further restrictions are rejected until they start addressing the real issues. If they finally address them and close us in the process too, at least there is some hope that in a few years things may get better and we may have a real fishery again. If we accept, nothing will change and they will cut us further and further with still no result and eventually we will close consentually but with no hope for improvement. Force them to act and reject their retarted proposal!
searun
Well-Known Member
U bet. Did you take the time to think about what I’m saying? We can sing camp fire songs with our whale watching buds all day long so long as we don’t let this study corrupt data that will be used to either expand area closures or prove they are not effective. If we allow the study to proceed as planned where we allow whale watchers to be in the areas being measured for impacts caused by Rec fishing then don’t be crying later when you are judged by whale watching impacts being added to data collected in the recreational study area.
In other words if we allow whale watchers into the study area you are agreeing to add the impacts from their whale watching activities to be added to those caused by Rec fishing. So doubling the impacts you pay for. Pretty simple.
This isn’t about picking a fight with whale watching, it’s about making sure the study purely captures only the recreational impacts and not having other users impacts added to ours.
Wow, I hope you are questioning the long-term study requirements the next time you are starving! Do you really not see the issue here?
wolf
Well-Known Member
YOUR GONNA LOVE THIS......!!!!only ONE firm invited and ohhh look who....
https://buyandsell.gc.ca/procurement-data/tender-notice/PW-XLV-591-7458
https://buyandsell.gc.ca/procurement-data/tender-notice/PW-XLV-591-7458
My guess is that the Rec fishers and the Whale watchers are not the main or the only reason behind the Southern Whale's problems. My theory is that Mother Nature is the 800 pound gorilla in the room and that global warming is the main culprit behind what is happening. In our area 25, for example, we have noticed some dramatic weather pattern and water temperature changes in the last 2 years especially. Inshore water temperatures have been at historic highs which has kept the salmon 15 to 20 miles offshore in deep cooler water until late August/early September when they start to move into the inlets after some good rains. Outflow winds from the Interior of the Province have produced almost daily offshore Westerly winds that has blown the warm water into the Inlets. Nootka Sound for the past 2 summers has experienced very warm water conditions along with an invasion jelly fish and no salmon. Some of the Lodges in the area have shut down early because of the terrible fishing conditions. Throw into this mix the fact that because of the warmer waters the migrating patterns for herring, pilchard and anchovies etc must also be affected and it would be easy to see why some of the pods of Orcas are in trouble.
What is happening in area 18 for example, might be just the tip of the iceberg. Commissioning a small mean nothing, impossible to manage study to try and determine the affect that the recreational fishery is having on the feeding patterns of the resident Whales is not going to provide anyone with the correct answers. This problem is not going to go away anytime soon and it is much bigger than what is happening in area 18.
What is happening in area 18 for example, might be just the tip of the iceberg. Commissioning a small mean nothing, impossible to manage study to try and determine the affect that the recreational fishery is having on the feeding patterns of the resident Whales is not going to provide anyone with the correct answers. This problem is not going to go away anytime soon and it is much bigger than what is happening in area 18.
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wildmanyeah
Crew Member
In the end it does not matter what all the factors are in the end it’s just a simple supply vs demand.
There just simply are not enogh chinook for SRKW, predators, recs, trollers and First Nations.
The whales have to spend more energy to food. By reducing traffic they hope to help them with that but if we’re honest with our selfs we know there just is not the supply required.
It seems most agree were at the point that there is not much you can do to effect demand.
Even if we were to kill seals, stop trollers, strop the rec fishery the surplus would be handed over to the First Nations due to their Supreme Court legislative rights. I think we all agree the current by polictic winds that’s never going to be challenged. This problem is also componded by the lack of any sockeye fishery’s putting further pressure on chinook stocks.
So how do we increase supply?
There just simply are not enogh chinook for SRKW, predators, recs, trollers and First Nations.
The whales have to spend more energy to food. By reducing traffic they hope to help them with that but if we’re honest with our selfs we know there just is not the supply required.
It seems most agree were at the point that there is not much you can do to effect demand.
Even if we were to kill seals, stop trollers, strop the rec fishery the surplus would be handed over to the First Nations due to their Supreme Court legislative rights. I think we all agree the current by polictic winds that’s never going to be challenged. This problem is also componded by the lack of any sockeye fishery’s putting further pressure on chinook stocks.
So how do we increase supply?
pescador
Well-Known Member
Or the US
When you fish the south end of the Island you get to spend lots of time around these whales. Often watching them either feeding, cruising or engaged in full on horse play. I don't know how many times I was halfway through a dull no fish no strike morning when the whales showed up in the area I was fishing. I always watch them to see what they do. Often they will bring on a panic bite from Chinook salmon being pushed and herded by the pod(s). Just as often nothing happens as they pass by but they continue on to a close by area where no one typically fishes much and where no one has fished that morning. They then begin changing directions, in and out, circling and obviously becoming more active and fishing. They are showing us where the fish were all morning. I can remember clearly a specifi morning where the opposite happened. I crazy bite had been on at the Trap Shack all morning. One boat had been into 12 Chinook by 8am and this is when I moved from Secretary Island where I was to hopefully get there before it ended. In the next hour I got into 6 fish. The whales had been out west at Otter Point at daylight and I left there and ran back to the Island to hopefully get some productive time in. Now after an hour at the Trap the whales were approaching this area. 6 or 7 whales were hugging the beach slowly swimming east towards us and the fish. Many more were further out of the beach swimming slowly along. As the 6 or 7 got within about 300 yards from us they began breaching, slapping the their tail flukes hard on the surface. They were calling in the troops. It was amazing to see how effective they were at spotting fish and how they communicate with the rest of their pod. I'm sure they had a good mornings feed as they were there for some time. The bite ended right there and then and most of us left knowing what fish were still down there were no longer in a feeding mode. Just some first hand experience on a morning when you knew what was going on because we as fishermen were having the same luck. Some of us found the fish and we all ended up there too.
You should all go to the general forum & watch this video:
https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/westland/items/1.0048237
The Pacific DFO was saying there was a Chinook crisis back in 1984. Pristine spawning areas on the Fraser were empty because their Chinook runs were extinct.
The commercial sector with DFO blessing started the Chinook extinction; the sports sector is now helping finish the job. If the read some of the main concerns on this:
http://www.marinemammal.org/wp-content/pdfs/SRKW_Prey_Workshop_Proceedings_2018.pdf
Declining Chinook size is a main concern.
Can you name a fishing group that selectively retains larger Chinook?
As far as the picking on the sports fishers versus the whale watchers first, I'd say that our fish finders pinging on 50Khz which the whales also use was a major factor. IMO I think your insistence on using treble hooks is also an issue as releasing larger Chinook was not working. Not sure if/how much it hurt but I am 100% sure it doesn't help. I see 3 probable outcomes:
(1) The problem is the sports fishers & the closures/restrictions will become very long term. I'd expect that this step will take as long as it took to determine the size restrictions were not working.
(2) After a few years w/o improvement (it sounds like body mass photo studies of SRKW will be used) fishing will open back up & whale watching will be restricted.
(3) More years, no improvement, whale watching starts again. More expensive (from both a political & monetary point) options such as increasing Chinook abundance will be employed.
It is going to be painfully slow; I believe in the methodology but only marginally. If there was this super urgent crisis with the SRKW they should try more than one thing at a time, get the population healthy, then being backing-out the restrictions one at a time. I used to be a Computer Architect in the business world & we would have done the latter method because without fixing the problem fast we would be outta business.
https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/westland/items/1.0048237
The Pacific DFO was saying there was a Chinook crisis back in 1984. Pristine spawning areas on the Fraser were empty because their Chinook runs were extinct.
The commercial sector with DFO blessing started the Chinook extinction; the sports sector is now helping finish the job. If the read some of the main concerns on this:
http://www.marinemammal.org/wp-content/pdfs/SRKW_Prey_Workshop_Proceedings_2018.pdf
Declining Chinook size is a main concern.
Can you name a fishing group that selectively retains larger Chinook?
As far as the picking on the sports fishers versus the whale watchers first, I'd say that our fish finders pinging on 50Khz which the whales also use was a major factor. IMO I think your insistence on using treble hooks is also an issue as releasing larger Chinook was not working. Not sure if/how much it hurt but I am 100% sure it doesn't help. I see 3 probable outcomes:
(1) The problem is the sports fishers & the closures/restrictions will become very long term. I'd expect that this step will take as long as it took to determine the size restrictions were not working.
(2) After a few years w/o improvement (it sounds like body mass photo studies of SRKW will be used) fishing will open back up & whale watching will be restricted.
(3) More years, no improvement, whale watching starts again. More expensive (from both a political & monetary point) options such as increasing Chinook abundance will be employed.
It is going to be painfully slow; I believe in the methodology but only marginally. If there was this super urgent crisis with the SRKW they should try more than one thing at a time, get the population healthy, then being backing-out the restrictions one at a time. I used to be a Computer Architect in the business world & we would have done the latter method because without fixing the problem fast we would be outta business.
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