I was up Island last week and noticed a number of seiners out in the straight scooping up tons of herring for the roe fishery.
This selfish and wasteful practise has always disgusted me and I find it hard to see why it still happens when there is so much evidence that the herring stocks are in deep trouble.
I mentioned my feelings to a gentleman nearby on the beach and he said I was mistaken. He said the roe herring fishery is well regulated and very sustainable.
He went on to say that the real problem with the fishery, including salmon and herring, was an overabundance of seals and sea lions and they are in fact the real culprits and need to be culled.
Seals and sea lions have been around for a few million years. When the white man arrived in numbers on the west coast less than 200 years ago there were millions of salmon and herring in these waters.
Seals and sea lions were also very plentiful.
In the last 80 years or so our modern commercial net fisherey has managed to nearly deplete both salmon and herring.
Don’t blame the sea lions and seals, we are the real culprits.
Mike Morry
Brentwood Bay
