Fisherman accuses DFO accuses of caving on conversation

By Aaron Beswick

FOR THE SOU’WESTER

Monty Gould is accusing DFO of caving to political pressure and protests on a conservation issue.

The Port au Choix, N.L. fishermen hauled his nets June 10 when the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) closed the turbot fishery due to large amounts of halibut by-catch.

“When they shut it down, I said ‘it’s the proper thing to do – at least they’re doing something to try to look after the halibut.”

Gould spent a day hauling his gillnets out of the water onto his 35-foot Double Trouble. During the days before the closure he had been shocked by the amount of small halibut caught in his gillnets, which had to be thrown overboard. While DFO estimates 27 tonnes of the 106-tonne halibut quota was landed as by-catch, Gould says thousands of juvenile halibut, too small to land, were just thrown overboard.

“I can’t see it in my heart to watch those beautiful fish float back to the bottom dead – anyone with any intelligence at all knows that’s wrong,” said Gould. “It’s been at least 30 years since we’ve seen so much halibut, but so many were being thrown overboard there’s no way the stock could take that abuse.”

A protest against the turbot fishery closure followed in Cow Head, where fishermen refused to take their nets from the water. Some 40 per cent of the turbot quota was going to be left in the water and the fishermen claimed they couldn’t afford to give it up.

On June 11 a meeting was held between DFO and the Fish, Food and Allied Workers union in Deer Lake. They made a deal that the turbot fishery would remain open and fishermen would move their nets to depths greater than 140 fathoms, as opposed to the 125 fathoms they had been allowed to fish at.

According to Gould, juvenile halibut will continue to get caught in the six inch mesh gillnets at 140 fathoms.

“DFO knows that too – but they caved in,” he said. “You’ve got people like Gerry Byrne (MP for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte) ranting on the radio and putting pressure on them. What does he know about conservation? All he knows about is catching votes, not fish.”

He argues that the turbot fishery should be opened in late July or August when the halibut have migrated to shallower water.

While Gould doesn’t like the deal, DFO and the FFAW say it is a responsible compromise until a better solution is found for the next season.

“Those men (fishermen) don’t have a lot to fish right now and they’ve got high costs of operation,” said FFAW inshore director Bill Broderick. “Those are not operations making big money and they need every cent they can get – they can’t afford to leave turbot in the water. They’ve paid a high price to stay in their communities rather than going out west – a real resurgence in halibut stocks should be good news, it shouldn’t be bad news.”

DFO’s western Newfoundland area management chief Don Ball predicted that the change of water depth will “greatly reduce or eliminate the Atlantic halibut by-catch.”