An official with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) was on The Broadcast recently talking about salmon on the South Coast of Newfoundland being in trouble.
Some of the problems are fish farm escapes and also a disease called sea lice caused by the fish farms, as well as warming and low water levels.
When I was a boy going to school in Lushes Bight, I would knit a salmon net 20 fathoms long in the night after my homework was done. I caught a few salmon to eat and to sell at 15 cents per pound.
In 1954, I moved to Deer Lake to seek my fame and fortune, in other words, to better myself. I was an avid trout fisherman and Deer Lake was a good place for trout.
Later in life, my next-door neighbour, who was an avid salmon fisherman, persuaded me to try salmon fishing. So, I went with him and it took a couple of days before I hooked my first one, then I was hooked. In those days, you could keep four salmon a day from May 24 to Sept 15. In 1976, the call of the ocean was too great, so I returned to my roots to become a commercial fisherman.
At the time, there were many small boat fisher people who made a living at the salmon and lobster and some would go up the Labrador Coast for salmon when the lobster was over. This was about the same time as the cod moratorium and the commercial salmon fishery was also shut down. Now, 34 years later, it is in more trouble than ever before because the government in Ottawa, who manages the ocean, did not try to find out what caused the collapse or try to fix it.
Our wild salmon stocks are just about gone and we are not doing anything to stop it. The proposed marine park for the South Coast could protect some salmon rivers, but is at a standstill because the aquaculture industry is too powerful and is always promoting jobs.
Well, we cannot keep providing jobs until there is nothing left. Where will we get jobs then? While I haven’t caught a salmon for 50 years, I am still concerned about their future.
Things that are impeding the return of the wild Atlantic salmon include mergansers, a duck that lives in the rivers. I have killed them with their stomachs full of salmon eggs. Also, the cormorants that are in the mouth of the rivers are killing the smolt as they return to the ocean. The seals are also in the mouth of the rivers to feed on the mature salmon returning to the oceans and they are much better at it than us.
Something needs to change.
Wilfred Bartlett
Conception Bay South, N.L.
