Food For Thought - By Bob Hooton

[OldBlackDog]

Food for Thought

Dr. Robert Lackey is a long standing advocate of reality when addressing the future of fish and fisheries as they have been known over his long and impressive professional career. The following art…

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[OldBlackDog]

Gary Flagel says:
September 30, 2022 at 3:35 pm
I think a big part of the problem started when DFO decided to move the commercial fishery into the Fraser and Skeena estuaries, where it would be easier and cheaper to have the commercial fishery and fish buyers in one place so to speak. Instead of having them scattered up and down the coast.
It was a coast saving and control move. A move which; in my lowly opinion because of its perfection of blanketing of an area with every boat that could fit; caught every salmon species including steelhead along with the targeted species (Sockeye). By catch is what the rest is called. What happens to by catch, is it dumped (waisted)? Is it counted?
This method led to the decline of sockeye and other species in many if not all of the creeks and rivers that feed the main stream. The solution; spawning channels. Spawning channels explicitly built to feed a commercial fishery one kind of Salmon. An eggs in one basket method.
Next thing the upper management of DFO does is allow open cage fish farming to import a foreign species of salmon into these farms bringing along there viruses. A illegal move, ignored by all authorities. Even after they had been proven to have broken this importation law, they still choose to ignore it. And no one is above the law in Canada, they say. These farms are allowed to park their sea lice infested nets near rivers where returning salmon smolts are killed by the thousands. It is my opinion that this is another industry backed by the upper management of Fisheries over wild fisheries. I believe that wild Salmon (this includes steelhead) are being sacrificed for this industry. Already we see the buy back of commercial licenses for the Fraser river fishery. Does this ring any bells “by, by, Cod fishery”. This upper management group ignored the science for that fishery and they are doing the same here. Enough of the hard working officers and scientists of DFO have leaked enough for the public to know. These must be the most frustrated employees in Canada. I think there needs to be a bottom up revolution in DFO to save these fish. I think of it every day; of all the thousands of rivers and streams on this coast that could be supporting spawning fish. It is time fish were not sacrificed for industry. Climate change and other excuses are just what they are. Climate change is real but THE FISH NEED OUR HELP TO GET TO THESE RIVERS. They know what to do it’s simple math. GET THE NETS OUT OF THE ESTUARIES AND THE RIVERS. GET THE FISH FARMS OUT OF THE SEA.
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  Bob Hooton says:
  September 30, 2022 at 3:50 pm
  Thanks for taking time to express your frustrations Gary. I wish more would do likewise. I wonder what it would take for a bottom up movement for major restructuring of DFO? Don’t forget the province either. Its performance on the steelhead front has not been much better. For example, has anyone ever heard the current minister responsible for steelhead (Josie Osborne; Water, Land and Resource Stewardship) mention the word?!?
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