Pit lamps (lights to attract fish) used in nighttime herring reduction fishery that almost drove the herring stocks to extinction. Photo credit: Archival Photo courtesy of the Vancouver Maritime Museum
FLAWED "INDUSTRIAL" SCIENCE USED IN JUSTIFYING CURRENT MANAGEMENT OF HERRING FISHERIES
Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) scientists continue to base Pacific herring management decisions on the same faulty principles of "industrial biology" that led to the collapse of the east coast cod. For example, recent correspondence from the DFO contains the statement that "it is well known that herring abundance is primarily determined by environmental factors rather than fishing." This type of unfounded "scientific" assertion shifts the blame from the industrial fishery to "mother nature", and unfortunately helps provide the rationale for continued overfishing.
The DFO also chooses to define a herring "stock" in a manner that protects the corporate fishery, but which is a contrary to basic conservation principles. DFO documents are remarkably open about this and state "in practice, a stock is a compromise between conservation and the needs of the high volume industrial fisheries is contrary to Federal Fisheries David Anderson's recent public statements and laudable actions to protect coho salmon, despite the high short-term costs to the industry.
DFO scientists also bias their data to protect the corporate fishery in more subtle ways. An example of this is that, in recent years, DFO has discontinued its assessments of the small remnant herring spawns. In effect, these stocks are being "written off". By no longer maintaining an inclusive and accurate database of all stocks, DFO is shirking its management responsibilities and jeopardizing the long-term sustainability and health of the entire fishery.
This follows the example that now exists in the salmon fishery where the DFO has stopped assessing many remnant salmon populations. The "catch 22" result has been the withdrawal of DFO support to rebuild these decimated stocks because their continued decline is no longer documented. De facto, the government has sanctioned their extinction.
Without the DFO showing that some herring stocks are now at very low levels, the "science" that describes the remaining stocks is actually used to defend the continuation of a massive corporate roe herring fishery. This industrially-motivated pseudo-science exacerbates the conservation problems.
DFO also has now deliberately re-written history in a way that under-estimates the serious damage done to most herring stocks by the 1940 to 1968 herring "reduction" fishery (reducing herring to fishmeal for fertilize) and ignores the stupidity of opening a massive herring roe fishery in 1971. Many herring stocks were driven to very low levels by the "reduction" fishery. Catches declined precipitously and the herring fishery was closed in 1968. Yet in 1971 - only 4 years after the closure - government open a new fishery for herring roe. The Japanese herring roe fishery was collapsing. Corporations had learned that immense profits could be made. DFO scientists then developed data to "prove" that the stocks had rebuilt enough to sustain this fishery, instead of developing conservation-based programs to ensure that all of the diverse herring stocks were fully rebuilt. This cover-up continues as stocks decline.
Today, DFO scientists continue to use only recent data that ignore the extremely high abundance and huge catches of the past. Their data therefore allow them to conclude that "herring abundance is currently near historic high levels."
This gross distortion of the real facts is an insult to the knowledge and wisdom of the elders of the coast, who know first-hand that we only have a fraction of the past abundance of herring. Not one Native tribe in the Strait of Georgia today can still access "herring-roe-on-branches" for food. Sportfishers report that herring schools are now rarely if ever located. Anguish, anger, and frustration are building throughout the coast, as the large corporate fishery continues.
DFO correspondence obtained through "access to information" notes that some DFO scientists of integrity are concerned about the decline of the herring stocks, particularly in the Strait of Georgia. An internal memo of August 28, includes a long list of traditional spawning areas that are no longer used. The author notes that recent spawning trends for this area have shown steady declines.
