Fisheries and Oceans Canada has been working with commercial and recreational fishers to maintain and enhance prawn populations in high use areas like the Alberni Inlet, and they’ve come up with a three-year trial to do that. Conservation and protection supervisor for West Coast Vancouver Island, Jim Robson, says these are actually openings.
It is told that areas around Port Alberni are closed from Christmas on to recreational fishers of shrimp and prawns, but under the new plan the area opens for two weeks at a time even in the winter. It is said that there is no harvesting of prawns or shrimp allowed by trap, ring net or spear in the area labelled Pacific Fishery Management Area 23-2. In addition, Alberni Harbour to Franklin River and Pocahontas Point to Chup Point remain closed until further notice.
The main aim of such closures is to maintain recreational prawn fishing opportunities through the winter months and the measures were taken in consultation with recreational and commercial prawn fishers. The strategy is called pulse fishing and it allows people to catch prawn in the winter months by trading off weeks of closure at other times of year. The plan is based on prawn biology and has been working well here and in the other two high use areas, Saanich Inlet and Stuart Channel, that it is being tried in.
According to Robson the pulse fishing is combined with the spawn index to allow the fishery to be closed as the number of females counted in traps declines. He further added that in theory the new management method should result in more females and more hatched eggs at the end of the season.
