Province moves to replenish fish stocks

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This article was published 11/03/2019 (2695 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The provincial government is taking major steps to reduce pressure on Lake Winnipeg fish stocks including a voluntary program to buy back fish quota.

Fish quota (annual allowable catch) for walleye, whitefish and sauger are currently 7.3 million kilograms allotted to about 500 fishers.

The province hopes to eventually get that down to a “sustainable yield” of 5.3 million kgs. on Manitoba’s largest lake.

“We are seeing the early warning signs that the sustainability of our fisheries is at risk, particularly on Lake Winnipeg,” said Sustainable Development Minister Rochelle Squires.

The window for the voluntary quota buy-back program begins immediately and closes March 21. The province will then review applications and make a price proposal based on market valuations before March 31. The commercial fishers are under no obligation to sell the quota if they don’t like the price.

The fish quota is currently selling at from $5-$6 per pound, fish harvesters say. The average commercial fisher has 8,400 to 9,000 pounds of annual quota. That would mean a cost of about $50,000 per fisher.

The province already had 10 offers to sell quota within the first hour of the program, said Squires. “We’re certainly hoping that we will have participation from fishers and permanently retire from five to eight per cent of quota, or from 350,000 kgs to 650,000 kgs.”

The province also announced it wants to protect smaller fish in Lake Winnipeg’s south basin. Currently, mesh on nets can be as low as 3 1/4 inches. Squire wants to raise that to 3 3/4 inches. That’s already the minimum size for the north basin and Lakes Manitoba and Winnipegosis.

“We’re catching the spawning walleye and sauger before they’ve had a chance to spawn. That is affecting the sustainability of the fish stocks,” Squires said.

As well, the province wants to lengthen the size of walleye that sports anglers can keep. There currently is no limit on fish caught in the Red River, Lake Winnipeg and its tributaries. The proposed limit would be 35 centimetres.

The department will begin a 30-day consultation period with interested stakeholders on the latter two proposals. “What we’ve announced today is some measure for ensuring the sustainability of the Lake Winnipeg fishery,” Squires said.

Commercial fish harvesters gave the province high marks for its plans to buy back quota to protect fish populations.

“That’s amazing. That’s what fishermen have advocated for a long time,” said Ken Campbell, a commercial fish harvester the past 18 years based out of Gimli.

Commercial fishers feared the province would just take a certain amount from everyone’s quota and hurt everyone, which would make “everyone a little less economical,” said Campbell, who is a former fisheries biologist with the province.

Quota can be hard for individuals to sell, especially in the north basin. It’s often too costly for young people to buy and so established harvesters get bigger.

“The other thing is the fishery is top heavy with old guys,” Campbell said. A buy-out could entice some of those fishers to hang up their nets, he said.

Commercial fisher Robert Kristjanson likes the quota buy-back but nixes the idea of altering net sizes. It would be a huge cost for commercial fishers to replace their existing netting.

“You can’t do that because we’ve got all the netting here. We’d have to buy all new nets,” Kristjanson said.

Larger mesh has been tried elsewhere and didn’t work, he maintained. He added that fish size “is driven by the market, not what you say you want to sell.”

Brian Kotak, managing director of the Manitoba Wildlife Federation, lauded the government announcement.

“The quota buy-back, in particular, is an indication that the government acknowledges that the current quota is too high and needs to be reduced,” he said.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca