Divide and Conquor-DFO got what the wanted

[ratherbefishin]

March 24 Times Colonist ''Chinook recovery must trump fisheries ,conservationists say''-Judth Lavoie.

This is exactly what DFO wanted-to split the reaction to their ''solution'' for endangered chinook runs-now they can say they have a mandate from the public to proceed.

To illustrate the complete lack of understanding ,Wilhelmson said''maybe they can go to a diferent area and catch pinks''

There is no bigger group of conservationalists then the sports fisherman who have worked tirelessly to create spawning habitat long before being a ''conservationalist ''became in vogue.Now they are being told to be''willing to share short term pain'' to ensure there are enough fish in the future for people, whales and other animals that rely on good chinook runs[maybe ''other animals''include the seals that swim behind my boat and take the salmon off my line before I can even determine whether it is a legal fish or not]

But DFO got what they needed-to split the public reaction -now they can proceed claiming a mandate

[pnbrock]

where you fishing with seals following you?

[ratherbefishin]

pretty much anyplace off sooke.Chinooks follow the shoreline-where the seals hang out.Years ago-when there was a $5 bounty on a seals nose-you couldn't get withing a 1/4 mile of a seal-and they sure didn't swim behind your boat like they do now.Pick up a rod and a dozen seals slide off the rocks and swim right up behind the boat.Some places are so bad,you can't even land a salmon without a seal taking it.Some guys use bear bangers to scare them off-but they get used to that pretty quickly

[island grown]

So what is DFO idea and time frame. Are they completely shutting down the fishery from the Fraser to Renfrew (no retention for Chinook)??????
And what is the time frame...when do you think this will come into effect, June ??? July????

Cheers,

[steel_ram]

"Why weren't there seal problems when you were young?" I asked an oldtimer. He bluntly said, "because we shot so dammed many of them". It wasn't uncommon for a troller back in the day when hundreds of them plied the coast, to have a rifle on board . . . . and it wasn't just for sharks.

[steel_ram]

When I heard Chris Boss's statement on the news, calling for more hatcheries, I'm not sure what to think? In my eye, hatcheries are admitting a fail in enhancing natural stocks, giving into defeat. Maybe I'm just dreaming, but I would rather see protection and rehab of the quality wild fish, and not the millions pumped into inbread factory wind-ups.

[ratherbefishin]

it doesn't have to be''all or nothing''-they could easily restore the fishery by massive hatchery intervention -as they do in the US where there is a viable and sustainable fishery[which we also catch]-and at the same time try and figure out why these endangered natural runs are dying-and where.What chokes me is they KNEW there was likely going to be low returns-from the 2006 date-and did NOTHING until now-months before the salmon were due back.This is gross incompetance.The time for massive hatchery enhancement was in the FALL of 2006.

I say fire the Federal DFO and lets have a BC DFO-right here at home where they can be held accountable ,we can have input and be an integral part of it.I see absolutely no appreaciable diference in how a hatchery fish fights,or tastes from a ''wild'' fish.They both went to sea and ate natural food for 4 to 6 years before returning

also-the idea that only 10 or 15 % of the hatchery fish are available for retention [fins clipped] is outrageos.

[gitnadoix]

So if we flood the sea with hatchery fish they are going to need to eat something......what if the bottle neck of the current stocks issue is marine food off shore.....we make that problem worse.....its easy to be right when you never have to be accountable for your actions/ideas ......

[ratherbefishin]

''flooding the sea with hatchery fish they are going to need to eat something''-there is NO shortage of food-and remember we already have a healthy chinook stock-the problem here is a tiny fraction of chinook that is at risk intermingling with the healthy stocks....,which they have KNOWN would have low returns from the 2006 figures-and they did NOTHING until a few months before they return in 2012.I am highly suspicious about these ''estimates-a couple of years ago they warned us [and reduced the openings] that sockeye were ''endangered''-and we had the BIGGEST run in history...

and as for ''something to eat''-please recall that the ocean was able to sustain a much larger stock of salmon than we have today-so much so that we still have a commercial herring fishery...I recall fishing off Sooke and seeing ACRES of herring-but no coho.....which are coming back,largely due to the efforts of sportsfishermen who cleaned up streams, restored spawning beds, doing everything they could to create spawning habitat...[DFO is going to remove the dam at Demanuel creek built with volunteer labour to ensure a relaible summer water supply for smolts -saying they don't have the $50,000 ''inspection fee'']

the ideological view that they are going to abandon hatcheries in favour of ''wild salmon''[which is admirable] is actually just an excuse not to fund hatcheries...and there is no reason why they can't or shouldn't be doing everything they can to promote and retain natural spawning