FISHERIES MANAGEMENT 45 



Fraser. for example, different stocks often mingle as they 

 enter the river, giving rise to mixed fisheries with all their 

 attendant problems. Furthermore, because salmon often 

 pool, or wait several days at the mouth of a river before 

 moving upstream, regulating the catch of a large fleet at 

 this point is more difficult than regulating the catch from 

 a stock being fished in a sequential pattern. The problem 

 is compounded if information about the stocks is weak, 

 so managing terminal fisheries requires much better 

 resource information than is now available. Finally, some 

 species of salmon, particularly chum, detenorate in qual- 

 ity as they approach their spawning streams, so some of 

 the economic advantages of terminal fishing would be 

 offset by diminished product value. 



Notwithstanding these difficulties, terminal fishing 

 appears to hold some promise for fisheries management. 

 But surprisingly little study has been made of the oppor- 

 tunities. The variety of possibilities for directing fisheries 

 to stocks further along their migration routes clearly war- 

 rants investigation. 



The sport and troll fishenes present the most awkward 

 management diflnculties. These hook and line fisheries 

 operate on mixed stocks where migration and maturation 

 patterns are complex, creating severe problems for in- 

 sea.son management. Moreover, certain chinook and 

 coho stocks are exploited continuously throughout their 

 life cycles in these fisheries, making them especially vul- 

 nerable to depletion — a problem 1 return to in a later 

 chapter. 



Opportunities for reorganizing patterns of hook and 

 line fishing, especially sportfishing, are limited, and so in- 

 season management capabilities are particularly impor- 

 tant. This need will become much more urgent if 

 enhancement efforts succeed in increasing fish abun- 

 dance, since that will attract more fishing effort and tend 

 to frustrate attempts to rehabilitate wild stocks. Tlie hook 

 and line fisheries, therefore, must be the focus of 

 intensified management and in-season regulation. 



Other changes in the organization of fishing and in the 

 structure of fishing fleets would assist management. 

 Clearly, a substantial reduction in the fleet's size would 

 facilitate management and would reduce the adverse 

 impact on escapements of errors in decisions about open- 

 ings and closures. And area licensing would eliminate 

 some of the present uncertainty about the size of the fleet 

 likely to converge on any opening. But the feasibility of 

 such changes will depend on other considerations, dis- 

 cussed elsewhere in this report. More modest proposals 

 for improvement include coordinating openings in 

 difl["erent areas to spread the fleet, and clarifying alloca- 

 tion objectives to prevent pressures from various sectors 

 from interfering with escapement targets. These matters 

 must all be considered in long-term salmon management 

 planning of the kind proposed earlier in this chapter. 



INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS 



This Commission's terms of reference exclude arrange- 

 ments between Canada and foreign nations, so I make no 

 recommendations on these matters. But Canada's 

 arrangements with the United States bear on the manage- 

 ment of Canadian salmon fisheries in two important 

 respects that warrant comment here. 



First is the long-term relationship emerging between 

 Canada and the United States. For decades, management 

 problems and friction have arisen from fishermen of each 

 country intercepting salmon bound for the other coun- 

 try's rivers. Negotiations toward a long-term agreement 

 for cooperation are progressing, and for the past two 

 fishing seasons the Department has cooperated with 

 management authorities in the States of Alaska and 

 Washington to limit interceptions and to improve conser- 

 vation. It is wdely hoped that these efforts will soon lead 

 to a new international agreement. In any event, formal or 

 informal cooperative arrangements will create increased 

 needs for information on the stocks and will add new 

 dimensions to Canadian management programs. And 

 the\ will make more urgent the need to improve the 

 Department's technical capabilities and effectiveness. 



Second is the relationship between the Department 

 and the International Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commis- 

 sion, which is responsible for managing sockeye and pink 

 salmon on their southern approaches to the Fraser River. 

 Tlie commission has a reputation for efficiency, good 

 relations with the fishing communities in both countries, 

 and for eflfective protection of the resources under its 

 juri.sdiction. But a serious problem arises from the salmon 

 commission's mandate to deal only with sockeye and 

 pink salmon, even though substantial numbers of other 

 salmon species mix with the Fraser sockeye and pink 

 stocks. Arrangements for integrating the commission's 

 activities with the Department's efforts to conserve and 

 manage other .species, especially chinook, do not appear 

 to have been effective. 



The salmon commission and the Department cooper- 

 ate to some extent in field work, but communication and 

 coordination between their technical staff is limited: 

 exchanges of ideas and data are constrained. The isola- 

 tion of these two agencies working side by side on the 

 same Canadian river cannot be conducive to the most 

 effective resource management. 



CONCLLfDING OBSERVATIONS 



Present systems of fisheries management have evolved 

 pragmatically in response to the circumstances of various 

 fisheries, the kind and quality of information that could 

 be obtained and the controls available to managers. 

 These systems have worked with mixed success. In the 

 groundfish and invertebrate fishenes, pressures on the 



