Over-Regulation Killing the Seal Hunt
While visiting Foxtrap, N.L. this spring, I attended, out of curiosity, a training course for people who wanted to get a personal sealers license.
A personal sealing license is a license to kill a seal to eat — limit of six per license and the hunter is not permitted to sell the pelt.
This course was put off by Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The local fisheries officer started off by listing some of the things that they were not allowed to do and make the statement that if you ...
Quebec Seeks Jurisdiction Royalties Over Old Harry Project in Gulf of St. Lawrence
If you source, harvest, or produce your seafood from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, you should be aware that the Province of Quebec has deposited law # 49 to acquire jurisdiction from the federal government over subsea resources in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
The mirrored legislation, already introduced in Quebec, would make way for the province to drill the Old Harry prospect. The legislation proposes that Quebec receive 100 per cent of the royalties and tax revenues from its petroleum activitie...
DFO is Over-Regulating the Newfoundland Fishery
It saddens me to write this sort of letter. People talk to me from all over Newfoundland and I hear the complaints from so many people on the way the Department of Fisheries does business in its enforcement role.
Every year the court dockets in the Newfoundland region are getting more names for violations under the Fisheries Act.
Since DFO started to micro-manage the fishery, many Newfoundland harvesters are getting into trouble with the thousands of regulations in the Fisheries Act. Most ...
Draggers Caused Irreparable Damage to Fishery
I was listening to the Fisheries Broadcast recently about an interview with Mike, a professor from Scotland stating that the European Union was banning the dumping of unwanted fish in the North Sea and that this fish had to be brought ashore.
Unwanted fish is something they are not targeting, such as lower price species and fish that are of smaller size of the same kind they are fishing for. This has been going on since the invention of the dragger fleet.
This fleet fishes by dropping a ...
N.S. Fishermen Do Not Need the Lobster Levy
It has been very frustrating in that all I have been reading in the newspapers and magazines concerning the lobster levy, I find absolutely ridiculous. It is nothing more than a free ticket for some individuals to travel the world.
In reading The Navigator’s January 2015 edition, I see tonnes of Nova Scotia lobster being shipped to all parts of the world. Korean Airlines will provide the largest shipments, not to mention the tonnes shipped to China. Korean shipments will also be sent to ...
Cod Stocks are on the Road to Recovery
I write this in response to some recent comments by a fisheries research scientist, Dr. George Rose, about the status of Northern Cod.
Specifically, he said that we are a decade or so away from anything that would be a recovery.
Let’s turn the clock back to the mid-1980s. Inshore fish harvesters were telling fisheries scientists and managers and politicians that all was not well with the Northern Cod stock. Large cod were disappearing, historical migrations patterns were changing and ...
Concentrate on the Issues and Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
Occasionally something happens that “takes the cake” and sticks in your gut to the point that you have to get it off your chest.
February 20, 2015 being a beautiful afternoon in Twillingate my wife and I decided to take a leisurely 30-minute drive up to Summerford to try and catch a few smelt for supper. When we arrived at the little cove by the highway, I noticed the federal fishery pickup pull in behind the vehicles already stopped on the roadside, a half dozen people already out on ...
Letter to the Editor
I want to express my displeasure and frustration with the Fish Food and Allied Workers (FFAW) union.
My goal, along with the help of fellow fishers, is to prove that we, the inshore fisher people, are being misrepresented by the FFAW and seek an inquiry into the affairs of this union that represent the inshore fishers here.
In 1987, FFAW disaffiliated from the UFCW and joined the CAW. The fishery has been sliding downhill every since. The last several years I have been at odds with the ...
Sealing Industry is Being Regulated to Death
The following letter was sent to Federal Fisheries and Oceans Minister Gail Shea:
Dear Minister Shea;
I don’t know the two men involved in the court cases below personally, but they live near me.
Otto Anstey — Cottlesville, NL
Marine Mammal Regulations, Section 28(3): Failed to properly crush cranium of seal after it was shot
Marine Mammal Regulations, Section 28(1)(b): Use of illegal hakapik (handle too short)
Fishery (General) Regulations, Section 22(7): Violation of ...
3PS Fishers Group Responds to Cod Quota Increase
The following is a few comments and reaction from the 3PS Fishers group with regard to the announcement on November 19, 2014, Rebuilding the Atlantic Cod Stock off Southern Newfoundland.
The 3PS Fishers group feels that a plan like this has been a long time coming. The 3PS fishery was only closed for two years for moratorium and since the reopening, the stocks have been steadily rebuilding, with fishing taking place, with no real plan in place focusing on structuring and making this a viable ...
