hatchery marked-legal opinion please

[ratherbefishin]

the regs use the term''wild'' and ''hatchery marked''[defined as adipose fin cliped]

This clearly implys TWO catagories of salmon-[1]''wild''and [2]''hatchery'',with retention restrictions

We now find there are THREE catagories-[1]Wild[2] Hatchery marked,and [3] Hatchery UNMARKED.

Now that we know that the MAJORITY of hatchery fish[not just the odd one slipping through] are actually catagory [3]-Hatchery ''unmarked''and very definately NOT ''wild''. It would be very interesting to see DFO put on the spot to PROVE in court that an UNMARKED salmon was REALLY wild .There is no such thing as a ''wild'' hatchery salmon-its EITHER one or the other....

The INTENT of the law is clear-to preserve the WILD stocks for natural spawning ,while the HATCHERY stocks are available for retention.

The regs are missleading-they state''hatchery marked''-implying hatchery fish ARE marked-when in fact the MAJORITY of hatchery fish are ''unmarked''and definately NOT wild,no matter what DFO says....

[madrona sh]

How do you know that hatchery fish are unmarked?

[ratherbefishin]

it was stated at the DFO meeting in Victoria last wednesday by a person running a hatchery that only 50,000 of the 450,000 smolts released were in fact, fin clipped-the rest were simply released.DFO did not contradict or deny this fact.[they were given $1 per fish to clip the fins-$50,000-and once they had reached that number-the rest were left unclipped.]

He had raised this with DFO and asked how these unmarked hatchery fish were classified and was told''wild''-which is clearly impossable.

[Bushman]

After putting up a little stink with DFO at our last fisheries organization yearly general meeting, all of our 25,000 hand-raised coho are now adipose fin clipped by volunteer staff. It's a big job to fin clip fish in a cold, damp hatchery building but it does have benefits when the coho return. All our chinook fry are also adipose fin clipped and have been caught by commercial and sport fishermen/women all along the BC coast and throughout Alaska.

[ratherbefishin]

do you speak for ALL hatchery fish-or just those your organization raises?

[kyleklassen]

After putting up a little stink with DFO at our last fisheries organization yearly general meeting, all of our 25,000 hand-raised coho are now adipose fin clipped by volunteer staff. It's a big job to fin clip fish in a cold, damp hatchery building but it does have benefits when the coho return. All our chinook fry are also adipose fin clipped and have been caught by commercial and sport fishermen/women all along the BC coast and throughout Alaska.

and first nations our other identifiable user group....

[madrona sh]

A government agency like DFO would not do such a thing. You have clearly misunderstood what was said at this meeting you attended.
Please say sorry as for I am offended that you would say such a thing could happen.
We here in BC have the best managed fishery in the WORLD.
You obviously live in a house of lies.

[ratherbefishin]

while I strongly disagree with the way DFO has missmanaged the fishery-I still have to agree that it doesn't make sense to retain a salmon from an endangered run-but I am adamant that when I catch a hatchery fish-it should be MARKED as a hatchery fish and available for retention.Its dificult enough to get a big spring[I listed on my licence only 7 last summer-and that was fishing with a guide] but it chokes me to realise that in all likelyhood-many of the springs I was releasing-were in fact hatchery UNMARKED fish and not the wild fish at all.

I have gone over the regs-and while there is a limit for retenion of ''wild'' fish and ''hatchery marked'' fish-there is nothing about the retenion of UNMARKED hatchery fish.If the CO catches me with an UNMARKED fish-is not the onus on them to prove it was in fact a ''wild'' fish and not an UNMARKED hatchery fish?[under Canadian law,I am presumed innocent until proved guilty]

and while they're busy reducing our chinook limit by 50%-will DFO shoot some of the seals that are taking these ''endangered'' chinook off my line before I can release them?

[tomahawk]

This is not new news, its been that way for some time, with only a small percentile being clipped. It is a frustration I agree, as i know many salmon I have caught and released over the years have been hatchery fish but not clipped.

[lorneparker1]

ITs time for the regs to mimic the times. We need a 1 and 1 Daily limit reg for coho (1 wild and 1 hatchery) or a yearly limit on coho of either wild or hatch. Just please give us something that makes sense. Because mortality of sorting through 20 coho to find one with clipped fin, doesnt make any sense.

[ratherbefishin]

regs are supposed to be clear and unambiguous-and as I read them there is nothing mentioned about hatchery UNMARKED fish....which are obviously a large percentage of the hatchery fish,nothing to do with conserving of wild stocks.And if the DFO say they can't diferentiate between a ''wild'' salmon-and an UNMARKED hatchery salmon-then how am I supposed to?

[Whonnock Boy]

ITs time for the regs to mimic the times. We need a 1 and 1 Daily limit reg for coho (1 wild and 1 hatchery) or a yearly limit on coho of either wild or hatch. Just please give us something that makes sense. Because mortality of sorting through 20 coho to find one with clipped fin, doesnt make any sense.


Better yet, any 2 makes even more sense. You know who we can thank for those ineffective regulations don't you?

[ratherbefishin]

I know-and while we take care when releasing fish-it makes you a little sick to release one bleeding from the gills-I'd rather take two and not be forced to keep on fishing to find a legal keeper.I think one fact that DFO doesn't seem to recognise and that is we ARE conservation minded-we do want to see salmon survive and thrive and the number of volunteers proves it

[Bushman]

do you speak for ALL hatchery fish-or just those your organization raises?

"all of our 25,000 hand-raised coho are now adipose fin clipped"

Not all hatchery coho are adipose fin clipped. I was willing to speak up at our annual general meeting and brought about change...hopefully for the better.

"and first nations our other identifiable user group...."

And no kyleklassen, I'm not First Nations.

[SPEYMAN]

I may not get this right, but my understanding of this situation is as follows.

An agreement between Canada and Washington,Oregon and California was that any fish,salmon and Steelhead that were adipose clipped had to have a nose tag.No no tag no clips.

The high cost was the tagging.They tried different fin clips that did not work.There was a CO2 branding attempt.

Some States have stopped complying,but you know our DFO,cant find their ass with either hand.

[kyleklassen]

"all of our 25,000 hand-raised coho are now adipose fin clipped"

Not all hatchery coho are adipose fin clipped. I was willing to speak up at our annual general meeting and brought about change...hopefully for the better.

"and first nations our other identifiable user group...."

And no kyleklassen, I'm not First Nations.

i didn't imply that but thx anyway...you identified that sport and commercial fishers on the coast caught the fish you were involved with, leaving out the oft forgotten first nations.. sector

[ultramafic]

Sorry if a dumb question but how do you tell the fish is a hatchery fish if it has not had its adipose fin clipped??


This is not new news, its been that way for some time, with only a small percentile being clipped. It is a frustration I agree, as i know many salmon I have caught and released over the years have been hatchery fish but not clipped.

[coach]

Sorry if a dumb question but how do you tell the fish is a hatchery fish if it has not had its adipose fin clipped??

You can't. That's the point of the thread.

[Ambush]

If the regulations states that you may only keep "hatchery marked" fish then that's all you can keep. Period.
They don't have to prove that your fish is indeed wild or otherwise, they only have to prove that it is not "hatchery marked". That's pretty plain.

But you are right to be upset, because the whole coastal fishery is a miss- managed football that gets punted around like a bag of garbage.

Your best bet may be to retrain the resident orcas to key on Atlantic salmon.

Or possibly getting a video of seals killing a spirit bear. Or maybe get the seals and orcas to beat the DFO to death with Atlantic salmon. Any of these scenarios are more likely than the DFO doing something right.

[Islandeer]

And we think we have mule deer problems in the EK!!??

[coach]

Ambush is right - the regs say "hatchery marked".

I realize the point of your thread, RBF. Here's a few thoughts:

- There's the frustration of releasing unmarked hatchery fish to protect "wild" stocks
- There's the threat of the Renfrew to the Fraser mouth fishery getting shut down to protect true wild stocks that may or may not be in trouble (Apparently DFO is using 6 year old data to make their decisions).
- There's the fact that the habitat where the wild interior stocks are dwindling is in poor shape and is a major contributing factor to the decline of those stocks.
- There's the fact that DFO doesn't want to assist those troubled stocks through hatcheries and instead threaten to shut down sport fishing.

If you really want to get frustrated, come boat the Fraser with me sometime next summer. Those fish that DFO wants to stop you and I from catching will have a gauntlet of native nets to swim through. Many of those nets will be illegally drift fished. Even if there's a full closure on the river, the nets will still be there and DFO officers will turn a blind eye. IF they do charge anyone, the judges will throw the charges out.

Drive through the interior next summer and all the way from Hope to Dawson Creek, from Princeton to the Alberta border, you'll be able to purchase Fraser River spring salmon from the back of pickup trucks in every small town along the way.

You're right, my friend, we're in a pickle - and DFO has completely lost all credibility. How many fish are fin-clipped is only a minor part of the discussion.

I wish I knew the answers as to how to make things better.

[lorneparker1]

If the regulations states that you may only keep "hatchery marked" fish then that's all you can keep. Period.
They don't have to prove that your fish is indeed wild or otherwise, they only have to prove that it is not "hatchery marked". That's pretty plain.

But you are right to be upset, because the whole coastal fishery is a miss- managed football that gets punted around like a bag of garbage.

Your best bet may be to retrain the resident orcas to key on Atlantic salmon.

Or possibly getting a video of seals killing a spirit bear. Or maybe get the seals and orcas to beat the DFO to death with Atlantic salmon. Any of these scenarios are more likely than the DFO doing something right.

LOL. Great post and I concur

[coach]

BTW - my hunting partner, Oldngrey managed to hook 5 and land 3 "wild" vedder steelhead today. Looks like hatcheries can work...

[ratherbefishin]

I really don't understand the aversion to hatcheries to enhance salt water sport fishing,claiming a commitment instead to ''wild'' salmon.They have a massive fresh water hatchery program to stock lakes with trout.Nobody says anything about protecting the ''wild'' native cutthroat.Why is the idiological view of hatchery raised salmon radically opposite?

Nor do I see this as an ''either or'' situation-I strongly favour supporting wild salmon by way of improving and protecting stream habitat[including ensuring summer water supply as in the case of the Demanual creek dam-which DFO has vandalized by destroying the control valve]

My concern is-how do we deal with this DFO juggernaut which appearently writes its own rules and operates with impunity?Who are they answerable to-or are they a law unto themselves?Do we just stand by and watch our fishery be missmanaged and destroyed like the east coast ?

[steel_ram]

BTW - my hunting partner, Oldngrey managed to hook 5 and land 3 "wild" vedder steelhead today. Looks like hatcheries can work...

All hatchery steelhead are marked. They are all designated for sportsfishing retention. Only a fraction of other species are tagged and clipped. For these it was originally done more to track the runs, not ID retainable fish. Different fins were sometimes also clipped to quickly ID fish from different hatcheries . It's been that way for some time. I'm surprised this is such a revelation.

[coach]

Fair enough, Steel_ram. My point about the Chilliwack River system is that the hatchery works. It produces great numbers of salmon and steelhead every year and has given a much needed boost to the wild stocks. In turn, the year round fishery on that river provides great opportunity for sport fisherman as well as huge economic spin-offs throughout the Fraser Valley. Again - whether or not fish are clipped is a minor issue in the big picture.

[ratherbefishin]

so....why have they opted for a hatchery program to ensure a steelhead fishery-while closing hatcheries for salmon-claiming they want to concentrate on ''wild'' salmon?

[coach]

In addition to steelhead, that hatchery produces incredible numbers of salmon, RBF. I guess the question is: with an example of hatchery success on the Chilkiwack River system, why is DFO shutting other hatcheries down in favor of wild salmon in systems where they are destined to fail?

Also - if wild salmon are so important that we aren't willing to have hatcheries in systems of concern, and DFO feels sportfishing needs to be curtailed from Renfrew to the Fraser mouth, why are there net fisheries in the river while these vulnerable stocks are swimming through? Seems to me DFO manages a never ending stream of contradiction.

[steel_ram]

so....why have they opted for a hatchery program to ensure a steelhead fishery-while closing hatcheries for salmon-claiming they want to concentrate on ''wild'' salmon?

Most wild steelhead rivers have NO hatchery fish. Only accessible heavily fished rivers have a SH meat fishery. Catch and release, small seasonal bag limits, fishing rivers with zero retention have been the accepted norm for a long time.

Numbers and funds I suspect have a lot to do with it. A few thousand SH compared to hundreds of thousand Salmon. For fresh water you have to buy a separate stamp for salmon and another for steelhead. That's a lot of money for the few fish retained. Unfortunately all the other dollars injected into the economy by sports fishing go to general revenue, not just salmon enhancement.
Imagine the cost of clipping every salmon. I'd assume there's a certain increase in mortality added by the handling as well.

I agree, if they're going to say we can keep hatchery, they should make them all identifiable, but they're not, they're only allowing us to keep a fraction of them, the marked fish only.

[Buck TraX]

In one of the small rivers i fish for springs they can be adipose clipped or a maxilary clip left or right or a ventral fin clip left or right side depending on the year they were released.The reg state 1 hatchery marked fish per day,but most fishermen dont know and are looking for a adipose clip only.I even had a dfo challenge me on this one day leaving with a fish he told me it was wild and i was getting a ticket,so i told him about the hatchery program,he made a couple of phone calls and he appologised.He had no idea.

[Whonnock Boy]

A part of me thinks the DFO (ie; government) and the inner workings of it, are letting these runs of salmon go down the toilet so to speak to be used against the FN as a whole. Really, why do they want to sustain a fishery, as in tens-hundreds of millions of dollars that is just going to be fished out regardless of numbers by the FN's. Who is the ultimate benefactor if hatchery's are built to sustain and increase the runs? Are FN's putting any money into enhancement?

That is my tinfoil hat theory for the day, and quite honestly if it were true, I do not know if I like the plan or not.

[MOOSE MILK]

This all stemed from the FISH WARS between Canada and the US. back in the early 90's. The returning runs were so bad after that that we had corodors that we could fish Chinook in and were not allowed to venture out into Coho waters,, fish cops sat on corner of Secretary and wrote tickets to those who crossed the line.
DFO realized that they pretty well wiped out the Coho run and are now trying to rebuild the run with the hatchery unmarked Coho. And at the same time they cut funding for the hatchery. That run was wiped out in two years and hasen't recovered yet. Due to DFO stupidity.

[steel_ram]

Hard to put the needed money into fishies when there's submarines to maintain, firearms registries to operate, high union wages, gross pensions etc etc etc.

[IronNoggin]

... DFO feels sportfishing needs to be curtailed from Renfrew to the Fraser mouth, why are there net fisheries in the river while these vulnerable stocks are swimming through? Seems to me DFO manages a never ending stream of contradiction.

DFO's own (more than suspect) records of FN catch do however note their percentage runs greater than 30% - as of what, 5 or 6 years ago now. Any bets as to whether their effort has decreased since then?

What the Rec Fleet is seeing now in that area is reflective of what has occurred with the WCVI Troll Fleet for many many years now. The Ernie Crey's of the world scream that "their" runs are slipping, and DEMAND that anyone & everyone else's effort MUST be slowed or curtailed. Underlying threat is if this doesn't occur, the FN's will fish them into extinction. DFO's assessments concur with the downward spiral, and so they merrily go about severely limiting the fishing efforts of those they can (the ONLY ones they can). The FN's rub their hands, and carry on Business As Usual. There is no surprise to me or any other Area G Troller that the pain is now coming to the anglers, it was simply a matter of time. We've been living with it for years.

I would LOVE to believe we could actually get all of the FN's on the same page with us as far as conservation goes. Unfortunately I see major obstacles to that ever occurring. Case in point, the Stolo's fishing away to the MAJOR discontent of up-river Bands - they cannot even agree amongst themselves how to conserve the runs - although as in many cases, this reflects the actions of a singular, selfish group.

The latest sham from Ernie Crey regarding his public plea for the recreational sector to "join the FN's in conservation" is exactly that - a sham specifically designed to deflect criticism of his own, and his band's fishing operations. Given the explicit DEMANDS he and his ilk have laid at DFO's feet regarding any other sector's efforts, this rather well shows his true colors.

I am ALL for a United front, consisting of all 3 sectors working together towards the betterment of our resources. I am more than willing to work diligently towards that goal. It would be DFO's worst nightmare, and for that alone, I'd be IN!

But, until we can browbeat The Dino into desisting from their intentionally divisive tactics, until we can forgive the differences between the sectors, and until we find a method of dealing with the likes of Mr. Crey, I am afraid the day we wish for is a long ways from being realized...

And none of that is very damn "Cheery",
Nog

[butcher]

I would just like to take a moment to explain the concept of a "wild" fish being raised in a hatchery. In the FFSBC hatcheries most of the fish being raised are from "wild" parents captured and spawned at lakes. The eggs are hatched and reared at the hatchery, then released(into the wild) after 3-12 months. Next year, same thing all over again. that way the consumer (anglers) are not seeing domesticated "hatchery" fish and the integrity and diversity of "wild" stocks is preserved.