Taking Stock- By Bob Hooton

[OldBlackDog]

Taking Stock

It’s high time for an update on recent events regarding Skeena and Interior Fraser Steelhead (IFS) and the political landscape now developing around both. I’ll begin with Skeena. It was…

steelheadvoices.com

 

[OldBlackDog]

Taken from blog,

In closing off today I think it useful to speak to an initiative now underway whereby a Sport Fishing Institute (SFI) member is far out of the gate pursuing a comprehensive agenda to use DFO’s Sport Fish Advisory Board (SFAB) as the sole source of public input to steelhead management issues. The SFI is dominated by marine focused commercial recreational fishing interests. The SFAB is now influenced heavily by those same individuals. I need to be reminded what a good idea it is to end run or abandon the provincial government parallel, the Provincial Angling Advisory Team (PAAT), in favour of giving full reign to commercial recreational fishers to be the dominant source of advice to the agency that has been the grim reaper for steelhead from the beginning of time. That doesn’t say PAAT isn’t in need of a major overhaul and vastly stepped up commitment to steelhead management but I’ll take PAAT over the SFI/SFAB combination in a heartbeat.

 

[OldBlackDog]

Look back on the Greater Georgia Basin Steelhead Recovery Program and the Living Rivers initiative for all the evidence needed to confirm you can never replace the habitat and productivity you didn’t protect initially. Harvest management is the only immediately applicable tool we have. Recreational fishers are painfully aware of that and commercial fishers are not far behind. Why do we continue to exempt that third user group from similar responsibility for conservation by ignoring continued use of gill nets, the most destructive, indiscriminate harvesting tool known to our waters and fish?

 

[Derby]

Taken from blog,

In closing off today I think it useful to speak to an initiative now underway whereby a Sport Fishing Institute (SFI) member is far out of the gate pursuing a comprehensive agenda to use DFO’s Sport Fish Advisory Board (SFAB) as the sole source of public input to steelhead management issues. The SFI is dominated by marine focused commercial recreational fishing interests. The SFAB is now influenced heavily by those same individuals. I need to be reminded what a good idea it is to end run or abandon the provincial government parallel, the Provincial Angling Advisory Team (PAAT), in favour of giving full reign to commercial recreational fishers to be the dominant source of advice to the agency that has been the grim reaper for steelhead from the beginning of time. That doesn’t say PAAT isn’t in need of a major overhaul and vastly stepped up commitment to steelhead management but I’ll take PAAT over the SFI/SFAB combination in a heartbeat.

LOL.. guessing Bob didnt get the buy in or folks to drink his cool aid.. always 2 sides of a story folks

 

[Sharphooks]

I’m interested in hearing the other side of the story, Derby. Share it with those of us that don’t have the inside track on these groups like you seem to have

 

[Derby]

Never a place to put on the forum board .. as in life and everything else there is 2 sides of a story & some where in the middle lies the trueth but in most case there are those that take sides.....