37 



CHAPTER 4 



FISHERIES MANAGEMENT 



It is not enough to say that the fisheries mil 

 be managed for the greatest benefit of those 

 in the industry and for Canada. We must 

 know what that means in operational terms. 



FISHERIES COUNCIL OF CANADA' 



Conservation and management offish resources entail 

 two fundamental responsibilities. One is preserving the 

 habitat that fish depend upon, the subject of the preced- 

 ing chapter. The other is controlling the harvest in order 

 to conserve the stocks, which is the subject of this chap- 

 ter. I have already drawn attention in this report to some 

 apparent failures in fisheries management. Most dramatic 

 was the collap.se of herring stocks in the late 1960.s, but 

 declines of halibut stocks earlier in the century and 

 depletion of a number of important salmon stocks in 

 more recent times have been no less important. 



Earlier in the century, fisheries management was con- 

 cerned almost exclusively with conservation issues. The 

 guiding principle was attaining a maximum sustainable 

 yield (MSY)- from individual stocks. But as pressures on 

 resources increased, and many stocks were threatened by 

 excessive fishing, attention became focased on the alloca- 

 tive aspects of management, the management of people 

 and vessels as well as fish. This shift in emphasis was 

 noted in a 1976 federal fisheries' policy paper: 



The guiding principle in fishery management 

 no longer would be maximization of the crop 

 sustainable over time but the best use of soci- 

 ety's resources. "Best use" is defined by the 

 sum of net social benefits (personal income, 

 occupational opportunity, consumer satisfac- 

 tion and so on) derived from the fisheries and 

 the industries linked to them.-" 



But while the policy paper prescribes a comprehensive 

 goal, the best use of society's resources, it does not indi- 

 cate how this should be attained. And certainly the 

 archaic Fisheries Act ofiers no guidance. 



Working with insufficient knowledge of stock sizes and 

 population dynamics, under heavy pressure from com- 

 peting groups of fishermen, and with inadequate control 

 over fishing activity, management has in many respects 



been reduced to a series of desperate attempts to meet the 

 demands of vocal user groups without visibly destroying 

 the resource. This is acknowledged by the Department: 



In the past, escapement targets have often 

 been compromised on the basis of compelling 

 social considerations .... or because of run 

 failure.^ 



The attention directed to meeting user demands detracts 

 from the Department's capacity to deal with the more 

 fundamental responsibilities of stock conservation, so 

 relieving these pressures is important if management 

 capabilities are to be upgraded. In later chapters I deal 

 with arrangements for allocating fishing privileges, and I 

 propose that these functions be separated administra- 

 tively from resource management activities. 



APPROAOIES TO .MANAGEMEIST 



For the most important species on the Pacific coast, 

 particularly salmon and herring, the basic objective of 

 management is to control harvesting so that the number 

 of spawners will be suflficient to regenerate the sttx:ks. For 

 species available for harvesting throughout most of their 

 life span, such as most groundfish. shellfish, and chinook 

 and coho salmon, management also aims at harvesting 

 the fish at the age and size that will yield the greatest 

 catch in terms of weight ("yield per recruit" manage- 

 ment). For this purpose, size limits, gear restrictions and 

 time and area closures are used. Management strategies 

 also take account of interactions between sttKks and 

 between species, and the extraneous effects of environ- 

 mental variations. 



Salmon 



On the Pacific coast, the biggest task is managing 

 salmon. Salmon are unusually vulnerable to fishing 

 because they are available for harvest over large parts of 

 their migratory routes to the spawning grounds and, in 

 the case of chinook and coho, during much of their lives 

 at sea as well. The salmon fleet, coupled with recreational 

 and Indian fishing, has the capacity to decimate runs, so 

 effective management calls for tight control of fishing to 

 ensure adequate escapements. This is an immensely com- 

 plicated task because of the multitude of stocks, each 

 with its unique capacity to sustain exploitation; because 

 stocks often intermingle on the fishing grounds; and 

 because all salmon are so vulnerable to overfishing. 



The International Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commis- 

 sion is responsible for managing Canadian and United 

 States fishing for sockeye and pink salmon within a con- 

 vention area that includes Juan de Fuca Strait, outer 

 Puget Sound, lower Strait of Georgia and the Fraser 

 River. All other fisheries (including those for coho, chum 

 and chinook salmon in the convention area) are the 



