Series of meetings held with representatives of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans regarding the salmon fishing plan for the upcoming season and that have left Prince Rupert city councillor and fishing industry union representative Joy Thorkelson with a grave forecast for the North Coast’s commercial fishing fleet despite hopeful news about the beginning of a recovery for wild salmon stocks.
Thorkelson informed that they are working in solidarity with First Nations leaders and other local governments. They sought and received the support of her colleagues on May 25 in the form of a letter to Fisheries Minister Gail Shea, requesting serious reconsideration of plans to make drastic changes to the fishing plan. He declared that every year it’s a struggle and it’s becoming increasingly more of a struggle to make a living in the commercial fishing industry.
It is told that in mid-90’s, commercial fishermen would have been allotted a catch of some 900,000 fish on an expected run of two million (which is the estimated size of this year’s run), she said. By 2002 fisheries management had changed and the allowable catch was just 663,000, a figure that was reduced by a further 10 percent between 2003 and 2008 to allow more fish to “go up-country” and to protect the wild stocks.
Now this year DFO has decreased the catch to 400,000, or about 30 percent less than last year. Thorkelson explained that in 2008 fishermen were poor on 600,000 fish. He told that they just cannot afford to continue to have their allocation cut when there’s no scientific basis showing the need for that size of a cut.
