Jake Schweigert, a fishery scientist at Nanaimo’s Pacific Biological Station, informed that seine and gillnet fishermen scooped the annual quota for the strait in just four days (Thursday through Sunday) last week, mostly in the Denman and Hornby islands area north of Nanaimo. He added that herring numbers are down from last year, when the quota for the strait was set at 10,800 tonnes, but he attributed that to natural cycles.
According to Schweigert the survival of herring depends on the ocean environment and their numbers were higher in the late 1990s and earlier this decade, with a historical high in 2003, due to cooler ocean temperatures that makes for better feeding for herring. It is said that the numbers have come down since that time, with 2005 proving to be a very unproductive year for the fishery. However, we had a better return than what we expecting this year.
It is said that herring begin to spawn in early March and it’s during this brief period in their life cycles, which usually lasts just four or five days, that the season opens and herring fishermen move fast to fill their quotas. Schweigert told that the catch is limited to no more than 20 percent of the estimated herring population in a given area and, if the numbers are determined to be too low, the fishery could be closed for the year, as happened in 1986.
