Herring Fishery - help stop the catastrophe!

Hey Lasquetians – give the herring, salmon, eagles and us a Christmas present – send a letter to PM and Fisheries minister asking them to close the herring fishery.

From David Ellis:
To all who have taken the time to courageously e-speak out so far, and
to others, who might also do this.

I was told in Ottawa, years ago, that 100 letters to a Minister, makes
an "issue" that, they must deal with, as very few people, ever have the
pluck, to actually write a Minister.

I am hoping each of you, can keep up the pressure, and get others to
send in an e-mail. I see a lot are coming in from the gulf islands,
where folks are close to the issue. as noted below by John
from Squamish, every week another 600 tons of herring gets caught!

Who needs a quiet holidays, anyway?!

"Horton Hears A Who" herring e-mail (letter writing)  initiative.

In this Dr. Zeus story, Horton Elephant struggles to  protect the microscopic community of Whoville from his neighbors, who refuse  to believe it exists. About to be dropped into a pot of boiling beezelnut  oil, Whoville is finally saved, when the Mayor enlists all of his people to  make noise by shouting "We are here", "We are here", as well as playing a  variety of instruments, so the animals may hear them. The last, tiniest  voice, is JoJo, who yells "YOPP!", breaking through the sound barrier, just  before the speck hits the oil.

send an email to Prime Minister Harper pm [at] pm [dot] gc [dot] ca

and Fisheries Minister Ashfield  Min [at] dfo-mpo [dot] gc [dot] ca, too,
with a  small message, or even, two.

David Ellis – cc to: davidellis [at] lightspeed [dot] ca (herring poet)

 

What follows is nice summary of where were we are right now, by Mr. Jonn
Matsen, coordinator of the Howe Sound Herring Recovery project:

On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 6:39 PM, drjonnmatsen <drjonnmatsen [at] shaw [dot] ca> wrote:

This has been sent to all the Vancouver media of which so far only the
Province has taken steps to use it in an article. Most of the media says
they’re swamped with shootings and Christmas stories. If more people
send in their concerns about the same topic from their own point of view
they might get more involved. CBC, Global, CTV and the Vancouver Sun
could use the most persuasion. Please send this on to other in your
email group.

Herring Tragedy Unfolding

My name is Jonn Matsen and I am the coordinator of the Howe Sound
Herring Recovery project which has had great success in bringing back
the herring run at the head of Howe Sound as evidenced by the hundreds
of dolphins and increased bird life seen there recently. By wrapping
hundreds of creosote pilings under the Squamish Terminals docks we have
provided a safe and effective artificial spawning ground for these
herring. Over the past 5 years billions of herring eggs have hatched out
successfully and we guesstimate that the run is about 600 tons. This is
a good start but still not near the 2000 tons of the 1960’s before
commercial overfishing and industrial damage of their spawning grounds
destroyed that run.

We’ve passed our insights onto the Pender Harbour Rotary Club and
they’ve had some initial success this year bringing back their long lost
herring run. We’ve identified weak runs in False Creek and Burrard Inlet
and have partnered with the Northshore Wetlands Partnership to monitor
and enhance these runs starting next February. False Creek had a major
spawn in 2009 on the Olympic Village Greenshore development and should
be returning enmasse to spawn in late March, 2012. Other once strong but
now weak Georgia Strait herring runs are Powell River, Sechelt Inlet,
Saltspring Island and Quadra Island.

I’m writing to inform you that all of these weak or recently returning
runs are in serious jeopardy of being exterminated this year. Their
enemy? You might have guessed it-the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
They regulate Georgia Strait herring as one biomass and in their minds
herring stocks in Georgia Strait are in great shape. Last year they
allowed a 238 ton food fishery. This year the commercial fishing
industry asked for an increase. Likely they wanted an increase to 600
tons of herring but asked for 6000 tons, likely expecting that to be
reduced to 600 tons. Unfortunately the Fisheries regulators bit hook,
line and sinker and Okayed a 6000 ton food herring. This is not 6000
herring, nor is this 6000 pounds of herring; they’ve Okayed 6000 TONS of
“surplus” herring to be taken out of Georgia Strait.

Are 6000 tons of “surplus” herring swimming aimlessly around in Georgia
Strait? Hundreds of tons of these herring have now been scooped up and
sold on the docks for 20 cents each. The Howe Sound herring run we’ve
been struggling to bring back for 5 years spawns mainly in March. That
means those fish are now swimming around in Georgia Strait ripening. Or
were they the first 600 tons to be dumped onto the dock? Or were those
first fish caught the False Creek run, or Powell River, or Pender
Harbour, or Burrard Inlet? Nobody knows.

This herring assassination should be stopped immediately until it can be
verified that weak and struggling runs have moved out of Georgia Strait
into their spawning areas so that they won’t be devastated by this wide
open fishery. Further information can be obtained from herring
researcher Briony Penn cell-250-361-6328.

Yours truly, Jonn Matsen, Howe Sound Herring Recovery Coordinator

Home- drjonnmatsen [at] shaw [dot] ca, h-604-925-2719

Work nsnaturopathic [at] telus [dot] com w-604-986-7774