strictly
personal

FORMER FISHERIES minis-
ter John Fraser has uttered
the obvious: the Department
of Fisheries and Oceans |
(DFO) has failed, despite all
its fish-counting gadgets,
legions of bureaucrats and
-computer models, to protect
the Pacific salmon fishery.

~ Yet, while slamming the inepti-
‘tude of the DFO’s staff, Fraser him-
self fails to put his finger on how,
C "exactly, the bumblers blew it.
-Tcan help here by pointing out

what has happened on the East Coast :

“to the cod, and what is happening,
again, to the seals.
«~ Don’t forget that the same Brian
Tobin, current fisheries minister, who
,- vows emphatically to overhaul the
BC. fishery i is the klutz who at this
© very minute is orchestrating the mass
slaughter of seals to create a smoke-
screen behind which his DFO offi- - .
als can hide, rather than face the
"fact that they totally screwed up. .
°\. "In case you missed the story, *
Tobin has decided to open up the East
Coast seal hunt, setting a quota of

180,000 Harp seals, including pups, oe

and so:ne:5,000 Hood seals, paying a -.
sibety (a pouty. really) for. seal

ing, shuifling Iny feet to keep them:
warm, in a parking lot outside a | ~
motel in Charlottetown, Prince...’

ngry, disgusted and weary.°°:°
«The world’s leading authority on

easter ‘Adantic Ocean, Dr. Lavigne is. ;

a bearded fellow. who has been doing _
his studies for the University of

being Wemyed in the late ’60s. He

maintained his scientific Vigil aaa ,

He pate monitoring seen the.
‘eventual cancellation of the hunt for |
lack of a European market, and has :
: trekked out to the ice every year since

then to keep an eye on the slow. oy

recovery of the herds.

_ In response to my question about

the federal government's bizarre ;

“claim that the Harp seals are respon- -
sible for wiping out the eastem
Atlantic ce stocks, he said, angrily,
dispustedly and wearily:.“The Harps -
rarely feed on cod. Pethaps 1% or
less of their diet.”

"In other word's; the: zovemment’ S.
position is total ull. ‘The question is. :
what is the motivation for a big, bla- *
“tant government lie about fish and.
seals? For the answer, I find myseif
tuming to another scientist, in this "|
case Ray Rogers, a’ professor at York
University who studies modern tech-
‘Nology and the East Coast fisheries. :

‘ Prof. Rogers is a former fisherman

“himself who saw, decades ago, that

: the stocks were vanishing and decid.
ed to. swallow the anchor and | get
himself a job on the mainland,
* His thesis is terrifyingly simple.
He says the government is lying
because the DFO scientists are ying,

and they are lying to cover up the fact .

‘that they goofed enormously in the.”
first place, precipitating the disaster.

The collapse of the Hast Coast cod
stocks, Prof, Rogers says, isn’t the
fault of the fishermen, so niueh as it
is the fault of DFO scientists who
miscalculated.

The miscalculation sveat like this:
Regulated quotas have been based for
the hast two decades on a “catch-for-
effort ratio? meaning that the aumber
of fish you were allowed to take was
based on the amount of tine it took
you to catch them,

Fishermen were allowed, fur
instance, to fish for three days ata
time, taking as many fish as they
could, Chad nothing to do with how
many fish were actually there!

This might have made sense as a
way of sustaining the fishery 20 years
ago, but the pointy-headed fellows at
the DFO didn't factor the magnifying
effects of technology into the equa-
tion. .

Up until last yeur, they were using
the same catch-for-effort ratio as they
had been in 1974, In the meantime,
of course, fish-finding equipment got
more efficient, nets got longer and
larger, boats got bigger and faster,
communications improved, allowing
fishermen to stay out longer, despite
the weather. ;

In other words, everything

changed except the stupid calcula-

tions that the DFO was using.

Prof. Rogers states Nlatly that if
quotas had been set by the fishermen
themselves, instead of the power

being handed over to ivory-tower aca- ‘

demics, who tried to min the show
from Ottawa, the fishery would not
have collapsed.

Now, he adds, DFO bureaucrats
are trying to avoid being blamed for
their stupendous error by using the ”
seals as scapegoats for the disappear-
ance of the cod.

And that’s why goverment offi- ’

‘after, even if the long-term effects of _
a renewed seal hunt will only be to

. worsen the dimensions of the eenloe
-ical disaster... :
Because, finally, what gets over-

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looked inv the rush to Kill seals, pitrtie-
uhirly Harp seals, is that while they
barely catany cod atall, they eat
many other species of fish which, in
tum, feed on the cod. By killing off
the seals, we yuaranted that the cod’s
predators will multiply, putting more
pressure on the cod, rather than view
VerNit.

A nightatare, wouldn't you say!
And one brought ta you by the same
idiots who are in charge of the B.C.
salmon fishery, God help'us all.

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