Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

INUVIK (Mar 19/99) - If in-progress co-management plans are any gauge, char could be the most studied area fish.

Fisheries management biologist Sam Stephenson says the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, along with area communities, is working on several more localized co-management plans.

"There's one for char in the Rat River," he says of a project he is working on.

"There's also one for char in the Hornaday River near Paulatuk and char in rivers near Holman."

As far as endangered fish go, Stephenson hazards an educated guess that it could be the char in Big Fish River, where no fishing has been allowed since the mid-1980s.

Still, he doesn't think there is a grave danger to that stock.

The reason for these integrated fishery management plans is to ensure a sustainable harvest of char by beneficiaries in the Inuvialuit, Gwich'in and Sahtu land claims.

"We want to make sure everyone agrees on the management style for these species and get everybody's input so everyone is considered."

But despite developing char management plans, the department is also in the final stages of finishing its first one -- for the coney.

Working on these plans involves a lot of discussion with area hunter and trapper committees, renewable resource boards and others while setting priorities.

"When you're going to manage a fish stock there are a hundred things you could do, but when you only have so much money, you have to set priorities -- what is going to be most important to manage this species," says Stephenson who has a PhD in zoology and fisheries.

He notes one needed element to effectively track fish numbers is better reporting. Some reporting in the past has been largely from volunteers, and since not everyone volunteers, there are holes.

Stephenson arrived in Inuvik six months ago from Thunder Bay, Ont., along with his wife Jackie and 16-year-old son Sam Jr. Two other children remained in Ontario.

Before the move he worked for the Ontario ministry of natural resources as a fisheries management biologist and had done private consulting work before that.

"All in all the greatest bunch of people I've ever worked with has been up here," he says.

"We're still tourists. Every day when there was less and less light and now when there's more light -- it's all new."

He says since he's the kind of person who likes his room completely dark when he sleeps, he thinks he may have trouble with 24-hour sunlight in a way he didn't with 24-hour darkness.