The Healing Circle (89/365)

22

March 30, 2015 – Working for the Federal government means that protests occasionally happen outside my office building.

Today’s example was one of the better ones though, at least from a disruption standpoint, blocking a major intersection for a couple of hours.

Bearing in mind that I am most certainly not a fisheries management type, I still feel that the First Nations have a legitimate reason to protest in this case. Given that this is a herring fishery issue, it’s even farther outside my realm. But as I understand it, the First Nations want the Central Coast Area 7 closed for herring fishing, and it was for several years. The last commercial harvest was in 2007.

The current problem is that not everyone at the table is agreeing that the fish have returned to a level that can sustain a commercial sac roe fishery.

“Pacific Herring play a key role in marine ecosystems and are a food source for a variety of piscivorous species including coho, Chinook, Pacific hake, halibut, and other important species. Herring are also believed to be important in the diet of marine mammal predators such as Steller and California sea lions, harbour seals, Northern fur seals, harbour Porpoises, Pacific white-sided dolphin, humpback whales, and grey whales.

During the time period captured in the Pacific Herring assessment (1951-2013), population sizes of seals, sea lions and baleen whales, which forage on herring, have increased.

Research continues to develop a fuller understanding of ecosystem processes and the role that herring play in maintaining ecosystem integrity and function. Little information is available to develop ecosystem-based conservation limits for herring at present.

Previous recruitment forecasting approaches, which used trawl survey data for two stocks (SOG, WCVI) and categorized model-reconstructed recruits (poor/average/good) for all stocks, are not scientifically defensible and do not capture the uncertainty in recruitment forecasts and subsequent risks to BC Pacific Herring stocks. Consequently, it is recommended that the assessment model be used to estimate the probability of breaching thresholds or achieving desirable outcomes for BC Pacific Herring stocks and fisheries.

Recommendations for future work include evaluating current and proposed alternative Pacific Herring management approaches, including the use of alternative reference levels, via simulation testing. Additional recommendations for future work include evaluating the drivers of recruitment forecasts produced by the assessment model, incorporating sources of fishing mortality not currently captured (e.g., spawn-on-kelp), and the development of biologically- based limit reference points.”

That was from DFO’s Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat, Pacific Region Science Advisory Report 2014/003. The opening seems to suggest that the current fishery has no basis in scientific evidence and is purely a political/economical construct.

And that’s difficult for the band to swallow I imagine.

As one of the most abundant fishes in BC’s coastal waters, Pacific herring are considered to be a cornerstone of the marine food-web and, as noted above, support a diversity of marine predators. In addition to wildlife, they have sustained coastal First Nation communities for many thousands of years and, in more recent decades, have been the focus of largest commercial fishery in BC, eclipsing all salmon species combined.

Herring fishing has a long history in BC (http://www.pacificherring.org/timeline) There are two main fisheries for herring roe. The sac roe fishery targets the fish themselves, scooping out vast numbers in purse seines and gill nets and harvesting the roe directly from the fish. The kelp roe fishery allows the fish to return and spawn naturally on the kelp, and then the kelp is harvested. The spawn-on-kelp fishery allows the adult fish to return to open ocean and spawn again the following year presumably resulting in a greater natural recruitment, and certainly seems to be a more sustainable option. Since the eggs hatch in about ten days, the harvest of kelp takes a much lesser toll on the population.

Spawn-on-Kelp is a specialty seafood product composed of broad leaf Macrocystis kelp with a covering of several layers of herring roe. The spawn on kelp fishery is also a highly lucrative and valuable fishery, and while it is a component of the First Nation’s cultural diet, it is also highly sought after in Japan and virtually the entire production of BC’s SoK fishery is exported to Japan.

Last week, the Heiltsuk Nation lost their court battle to keep the commercial fishery closed and a fleet of commercial herring boats, owned by Jimmy Pattison, moved in unannounced. DFO didn’t even give the Band a heads up. (http://commonsensecanadian.ca/first-nation-taking-herring-concerns-to-jimmy-pattisons-canfisco/)

Over the weekend, Band members staged a protest at the Bella Bella office and occupied it, asking to be heard. (http://www.vancouverobserver.com/news/heiltsuk-take-over-dfo-office-stop-herring-fishery) Today, after continued occupation of the Bella Bella office, and a sizeable protest outside the Vancouver office, they are being given that opportunity (http://www.vancouverobserver.com/news/breaking-feds-resume-herring-talks-heiltsuk).

The protest today was peaceful and respectful and really didn’t cause a major headache (as long as you weren’t trying to transit the area in a vehicle). They had provided advance warning that they were going to protest the building between 11am and 1pm, and staff had received an email notification. A few did show up early and accessed the second floor reception where one fellow locked himself to a rail (https://warriorpublications.wordpress.com/2015/03/30/dfo-offices-in-vancouver-occupied-in-solidarity-with-heiltsuk/). The main protest did end pretty much on schedule, and I’ve heard that the individuals occupying the reception office have peacefully left, no arrests were made.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, and right now I’m happy I work with the program that generates salmon for both conservation and harvest opportunities, in general, we aren’t hated as much as other groups within the department. :-/

115 Photos in 2015 – 59. Circles (OK, so technically it is a circle inside of what’s really more of a square…but give me this one 😉 Both layers (the inside and the outside) are protestors)

(Again, I am not a herring expert. The opinion above is solely my own, and in no way reflects the opinion of my current employer in any way)

The organizing group has a lot of photos and videos online at their FB site, part of me wonders if I might show up in anything as I was out there listening for a short while. https://www.facebook.com/events/1603618926519818/