Seals and Salmon

There should be a traditional native fishery for seals. That would take the pressure off depleted salmon stocks in two ways and let the indginest peoples practise tradition means.

im fine with that as long as its in traditional ways not like the B.S. whale hunt there was a few years back :mad:
 
The only thing I could legally do was use the slingshot that was on the boat to fire warning shots at them to keep them away. They were really smart and stayed out about 60 yards from the boat which was just far enough away that my sling shotted marbles would land about 10 feet in front of them, no matter how hard I pulled back on it.

Slingshots! You Westerners are so cute with your seals. :D

:wave:from Newfoundland. ;)
 
im fine with that as long as its in traditional ways not like the B.S. whale hunt there was a few years back :mad:

The seal population here is rediculous. This is one situation where I'd let the natives hunt with AK's, just like the one the Saanich police saved us from last week.:D
 
The seal population here is rediculous. This is one situation where I'd let the natives hunt with AK's, just like the one the Saanich police saved us from last week.:D

that thing they found in elk lake was a club as far as i could tell maybe with lots of work i might turn back into somthin other than rusty metal .....you are right the seal population needs some .....:rolleyes:WORK:D i just dont like how some things get tagged as traditional and its not even close:cool:
 
I'd let them use helicopters as long as they carved them out of cedar.

LOL!

I was fishing off of Deep Bay and Qualicum Beach area.
Let me be clear about how I feel about the seals exactly: I don't think we should be running around blasting every seal that shows its face, but if they are taking fish I think it should be legal to get rid of those particular ones.
 
I am in the crowd that is saying that it is overfishing that has caused the problems with the seals. I dont beleive that one can just look at the circumstances and identify a problem. Fish on, seal eats fish. The problem seems to be the seal, I have had this happen myself. However, maybe it isnt that there are too many seals? Maybe its that there are too few fish? The comercial salmon fisheries? Are they set up in a safe way to manage fish populations? Obviously we have a problem somewhere with the fish. They are closing seasons on certain species. Or am I way off in thinking the govn't who we trust fully and completely, in all of thier wise decisions, really knows what is best for salmon? ha
 
Fact is: prior to about 20 years ago, the seals were unofficially "managed". Seals were not a problem then and there were still enough cute critters cruising the harbours to keep the tourists happy.

Now in many places, they're opportunistic vacuum cleaners. I have seen them 20 kms from tide water chasing, and catching adult salmon and steelhead on small streams on Vancouver Island, or down in the estuary gorging themselves on freshly released hatchery smolts.
 
I am in the crowd that is saying that it is overfishing that has caused the problems with the seals. I dont beleive that one can just look at the circumstances and identify a problem. Fish on, seal eats fish. The problem seems to be the seal, I have had this happen myself. However, maybe it isnt that there are too many seals? Maybe its that there are too few fish? The comercial salmon fisheries? Are they set up in a safe way to manage fish populations? Obviously we have a problem somewhere with the fish. They are closing seasons on certain species. Or am I way off in thinking the govn't who we trust fully and completely, in all of thier wise decisions, really knows what is best for salmon? ha


You forgot one true culprit: salmon farming. Everyone except salmon farmers know the damage they are doing. And don't you think a fish hooked on a line, played out and tired is much easier for a seal to catch? They are not stupid.

I just came back from Malcom Island and was talking to one of the old timers. He said there used to be tons of lingcod around Stubbs Island. A few years back a group of sea lions made the island home from September to may. He estimates around 60 sea lions winter there. The lingcod fishery has gotten worse every year to the point where it is now a very rare catch. I was lucky and caught one. I let it go.
 
I mean the problems with sea lice that has decimated salmon stocks, especially pink salmon. Norway and Scottland found out the hard way...20 years before salmon farming started in BC.
 
A one degree increase in water temperature along the coast can have an enormous effect on the finely ballanced marine ecosystem. More so than a few acres of net pens.
 
our biggest hurd mangment problem in bc is humans our cities do more damage than anyfish farm the dfo has reports on botom fouling and stocking problems ....or you can read reports from greenpeace or the sieara club .....and no im not a fishfarmer i just do see anyway around it everything else we consume is farmed and so will salmon we just need to make sure sites are rotated like wheat framers with fields and they have stronger protacals on medical use not like the poltery industery or say the raw sewage victoria dumps into the strieght.........
 
A one degree increase in water temperature along the coast can have an enormous effect on the finely ballanced marine ecosystem. More so than a few acres of net pens.

When has there been such an increase? Not including el nino.

our biggest hurd mangment problem in bc is humans our cities do more damage
That doesn't address the sea lice issue, which is real.

or you can read reports from greenpeace or the sieara club
Show me one independant research paper that says salmon farming is good for the wild stocks. And I hunt and fish, so conservation is important to me. As is sustainability.

everything else we consume is farmed
There are reasons why deer/elk farming are very strictly regulated. How would you feel if the elk farms in Alberta caused the decimation of wild elk and deer herds to the point that a hunt could not be sustained?

raw sewage victoria dumps into the strieght
two wrongs don't make a right. I think that the facts are indisputable, salmon farms create very high sea lice concentrations. That is bad for the wild salmon. You need to talk to people around the Broughton Archipalaego, the people who have lived there for decades. They see the destruction first hand, and believe me, most of them are not members of greenpeace or the sierra club.

Sea lice occur naturally, but when mature fish enter fresh water the lice die. As the smolts return to the ocean they have a chance to grow before they get infected. Now what happens is the sea lice live on the salmon in pens, and infect the young smolts immediately when they enter salt water. The smolts are too young to survive the infection and die.

Here is a quote from a norwegian newspaper:

"Salmon lice is the biggest threat" to stocks of wild salmon in the long term, explained Espen Farstad, a spokesman for the Norwegian hunting and fishing association NJFF.

Look, the fellow is a spokesman for the hunting and fishing association.

Anyways, my opinion won't change anything. Its all about the money.
 
i never said sealice wasnt a problem ...... its one of the things that need to be addressed not condemend .....and as far as ask self proclaimed experts like alaxandra morton (lives in echo bay) is just like the people on quadra island (suzuki for one) that sia no to wind farms......NOT IN MY BACK YARD mantality again im not saying fishfarming is perfect cuz its not ...it needs work but not to be condemend
 
How ironic, 30,000 atlantic salmon escaped from their pen yesterday.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/cbc/080703/canada/vancouver_bc_atlantic_salmon_escape

Note this interesting quote:
"If the government had acted on its own committee's recommendation and required [salmon] farms to be in closed containment, we wouldn't be seeing repeated escapes of this invasive salmon species into the marine environment," said Berry, referring to a 2007 report by a legislative committee that recommended B.C. phase out underwater net pen salmon farms and develop closed containment land-based systems within five years.
 
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