Fishery doomed without new blood
Terry Halifax
Northern News Services
Hay River (Nov 13/00) - Following a season of high fish prices and even higher fuel prices, the summer catch by commercial fishers was down this year by over 40,000 kilograms.
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The summer fishery started on June 5 and the first was landed in the Hay River plant on June 7 -- one week later than the previous year," Brown said.
"The summer fishery for all locations and all species was 627,383 kilograms -- down by 41,706 in total."
Lloyd Jones, regional superintendent for Resources Wildlife and Economic Development, said the department wants input from fishers on a discussion paper that explores the Great Slave Lake fishery, strategy and issues such as the price of fuel.
Jones said few young people are getting into commercial fishing, because of the high entry costs and until recently, a low price for the product.
"A lot of older fishermen that will be leaving the industry and there is very little uptake by the younger fishermen," he said.
Kim Tybring, a board member and former president of the NWT fisherman's Federation, predicts the fishery will die off within five years. As the senior and often the major producers retire, no one is replacing them, he said. Without money to help new fishers with equipment and training, there will not enough fish to keep the plant open.
"In the fishing business, you can't start off in debt, if you do, the fish know," Tybring said. "They feel the same way about you as you do about them they want to kill you."
The fisher's freight subsidy program has been scaled back to the poiunt where it is of little use to the small producer, he said.
The subsidy is based on the wright of fish landed.
In a bad season like last winter the subsidy is of little help.
"When you need it the most, it's there the least," Tybring explained.
He said that last year, Stephen Kakfwi -- then RWED minister -- allowed fishers to use the left-over subsidy money.
"For a lot of fishermen who were down-and-out, this had a massively good effect," he said. Tybring said RWED has received plenty of input from fishers on the flaws in the industry but, "we're just not telling them what they want to hear."
He said RWED has suggested buying larger boats and using trawling operations, which drag nets along the bottom proposals that Tybring believes would eventually ruin the fishery.
"What destroys almost all these fisheries is encouragement to over-capitalize," he said.
"They buy bigger and bigger boats; they have bigger and bigger loans; they need more and more fish, so they put the political pressure for more and more fish and voila -- the fishery collapses."
Regulation enforcement
Larry Dow from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans said the department plans to get tough on enforcing licensing of fishers and helpers. Dow said the DFO has been flexible in the past, but this year enforcement will be strict.
He said the fishers were given some lead time to get their nets set and then register their workers and equipment, but that led to abuse of the grace period.
"We had to start chasing people," Dow said.
"If you set your nets without a certificate, there is a good chance that you could be charged," he said. "There will be no warning for something like that."
Dow said he would provide his home phone number and if fishers need to reach him to update licensing information.
"You can call me at 2:00 in the morning -- that's fine."
