Conservationists slam commercial-fishing extension

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This article was published 04/11/2015 (3937 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba has extended the commercial-fishing season on Lake Winnipeg by one week despite concerns raised by about declining walleye stocks.

Conservationists are condemning a provincial decision to delay the end of walleye season from Oct. 31 to Nov. 7 to allow fishers more time to reach their quota of walleye, the lucrative species locally known as pickerel.

Geoff Klein, the regional fisheries manager for Manitoba Conservation and Water Stewardship, said in August walleye populations in Lake Winnipeg are down as a result of commercial fishing. The annual catch declined to 3.5 million kilograms in 2014 from 4.5 million kilograms in 2013, he said.

Conservation and Water Stewardship Minister Tom Nevakshonoff, however, said at the time there weren’t enough data to warrant reducing the total quota of walleye caught in Lake Winnipeg.

This year, the catch is projected to wind up at less than three million kilograms. Some fishers, especially in Lake Winnipeg’s southern basin, were not able to collect their quota, said Jim Duncan, Conservation and Water Stewardship’s director of wildlife and fisheries.

Bad weather in the southern basin was the culprit, said Duncan, who signed a variance on Oct. 23 to extend the fishing season past Halloween.

“The biggest factor was opportunities for fishers to try to access their resources and reach their quotas,” he said. “The weather can be quite challenging, being a shallow lake with high winds.”

The province did not make Klein available for an interview. Duncan said the extension of the fishing season will not affect quotas, which he said “were set with the expectation people would have an opportunity to make quota.”

A 2011 Lake Winnipeg quota review task force, however, concluded there’s no way to determine whether the quotas are sustainable because the province, fishers and the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corp. don’t collect meaningful data and lump walleye quotas together with those of sauger and lake whitefish.

“The quotas are really somewhat arbitrary. They haven’t been adjusting them on a regular basis, based on scientific knowledge,” said task force chairman Burton Ayles, a retired Fisheries and Oceans Canada scientist.

“If they’re concerned about the fishery, it’s probably not a good idea for them to increase the season so they can catch the quota.”

The absence of data, combined with declining year-over-year catches and concerns about the walleye population, has made the decision to extend the commercial-fishing season concerning to conservation groups.

“I’d like to know what fisheries data the province has to suggest the lake can sustain another week of commercial fishing,” said Rob Olson, managing director of the Manitoba Wildlife Federation.

“This is the opposite of the precautionary principle. They’re trying to allow the fishers to maximize their profit this year without giving any consideration to how that might affect future years,” said Vicki Burns, director of the Save Lake Winnipeg Project. “It seems crazy to allow an extension when there are concerns about the sustainability.”

Science did not play a role in the decision, said Nevakshonoff, adding he did not speak to Klein.

Nevakshonoff said he made the decision at the behest of commercial fishers who said they couldn’t meet their quotas because of bad weather this fall and the danger that presented to them.

“I made the decision, yes, to respond to the fishers,” said the NDP MLA for the Interlake riding, who counts hundreds of commercial fishers among his constituents. “Scientific advice? Like I said, storms are prevalent in October.”

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca