Tag Archives: Conservancy Hornby Island
Dismal B.C. herring season sparks renewed calls for moratorium
Three days after setting his nets out in the Strait of Georgia between B.C.’s mainland and Vancouver Island, Josh Young headed back home to Pender Harbour. The herring he was expecting to catch were nowhere to be found. “I will be honest… the stocks I saw this year weren’t the healthiest year I’ve ever seen,” Young said. “We didn’t catch our entire quota.” Young wasn’t alone. When the season opened March 3 for boats equipped with seine nets, they scooped up their fill of the silver foot-long fish in 48 hours. By the time Young and hundreds of others using gillnets arrived on March 5, the fish seemed to have disappeared. “It was a different year,” Young said stoically. >click to read< 16:31
Moratorium sought on herring fisheries; critical for salmon
Conservationists are calling for a moratorium on both the upcoming food-and-bait herring fishery in the Strait of Georgia and next season’s roe herring fishery,,, They fear herring living year-round in the Strait of Georgia are at risk due to fishing.,, Conservancy Hornby Island said Strait of Georgia herring stocks are little understood. The organization is among groups urging Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray to impose a moratorium on the fish-and-bait and the roe herring fisheries to rebuild stocks coastwide.,, Rob Morley, chairman of B.C.’s herring industry advisory board, has a different view of herring fisheries in the strait, saying scientific analysis and modelling show it’s a sustainable fishery with healthy stocks. “It is our feeling that it is a very well-managed sustainable fishery.” >click to read< 16:06
Island fishermen ‘worried’ as cons call to stop herring fishery set to start in days
Lasqueti Island herring fisherman Billy Forbes worries about the future of his four-generation long fishing family. After 51 years of captaining fishing boats in the Strait of Georgia, Forbes said he’s unsure if handing over the family’s namesake boat would be a gift to his grandson or a curse. “This is all he knows, so if there’s nothing left for him he’s gotta find something else,” said Forbes. Taylor Forbes, 23, said he has started to lose hope there’s a future in fishing. Video, >click to read< 08:21
Opponents call for closure of herring fishery in Strait of Georgia
A Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) management plan for herring recommends a 20 per cent harvest in the Strait of Georgia. Opponents say the harvest rate has contributed to a 60 per cent decline in the population size since 2016. The roe fishery is slated to open early March, pending approval of the Integrated Fisheries Management Plans from the director general of the Pacific Region. >click to read< 09:41
Roe herring fishery meets DFO expectations; opposition continues to question sustainability
As with other years, the allowable catch was set at 20 per cent of the estimated 135,000 tons of returning herring. Both seiners and gillnetters came in under their quotas with seiners bringing in 7,178 tons of their 8,311 ton quota, and gillnetters catching 8,373 tons of their 11,472 ton quota. Neil Davis, director of resource management program delivery with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, says overall the fishery had good success and there were no surprises in terms of the catch versus the quota. Quincy Sample, a Comox fisherman, says he was a few tons short of reaching his quota,,, >click to read<11:34
Conservancy Hornby Island calls for government to shut down herring roe fishery
A Hornby Island organization is calling for the federal government to shut down a Pacific herring roe fishery scheduled to operate in the Strait of Georgia in March. According to Conservancy Hornby Island, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is preparing to approve the catch of 20 per cent of herring that spawn in the Strait of Georgia. This is approximately 28,000 tons of spawning herring or approximately 200 million fish.,, Neil Davis, director of resource management with the DFO says determining a fishing allowance that will ensure the sustainability of a species is not something that is taken lightly. Each year prior to spawning season in late February or March, DFO does large amounts of research before setting a fishing allowance. >click to read<12:24
