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CHAPTER 9 



RATIONALIZING THE 

 SALMON AND ROE- 

 HERRING FISHERIES 



but also because the fishing fleets have expanded unpro- 

 ductively- This reflects the general tendency — explained 

 in the preceding chapter — of common-property fisheries 

 to overexpand harvesting capacity. The catches, now 

 spread over grossly oversized fleets, must bear the cost of 

 all the excess capacity. This is a result of faulty regulator^' 

 policy. And the policy that has encouraged, or at least 

 permitted, this to happen will also allow any future gains 

 from enhanced resources or higher prices to be dissipated 

 in further redundant fleet expansion. This chapter there- 

 fore recommends fundamental changes to reverse these 

 trends. 



. . .the one clear point is that if there were 

 fewer vessels exploiting the resource, the eco- 

 nomic returns to those remaining in the 

 industry would be increased and from the 

 management point of view, the chances of 

 severely depressing or wiping out a stock 

 entirely by over-fishing, would be reduced. 



THE FISHERIES ASSOCIATION OF B.C ' 



This and the following chapter reveal a histor>' of fail- 

 ure to provide regulatory policies that will promote 

 orderly development of the fishing fleets. In fishery after 

 fishery, measures to control excessive expansion of 

 fishing capacity have been introduced too late, or ineptly. 

 The result is too large a fleet for the available catch. The 

 pressure on the stocks is excessive and the economic 

 returns to fishing are depressed. Nowhere is this failure of 

 policy more evident than in our two biggest fisheries, 

 salmon and roe-herring. Because they are our two domi- 

 nant fisheries, and because they are so closely linked, I 

 deal with them together in this chapter, leaving all the 

 other commercial fisheries to the chapter following. 



At the time of this inquiry, the fisheries have been par- 

 ticularly depressed by weak international markets, 

 modest runs of fish, exceptionally high interest rates and 

 escalating fuel costs, among other things. While these 

 pressures are serious in themselves, they also aggravate 

 the much more fundamental and longer-term problem of 

 excess fleet capacity. The causes of this excess capacity 

 are much more directly in the hands of the fisheries 

 authorities, and because of it a temporary weakening in 

 market conditions causes severe adversity. 



To understand these fisheries' problems and my recom- 

 mendations for solving them requires understanding why, 

 given that the value of salmon and roe-herring catches 

 has risen substantially over the last decade, the returns to 

 fishing have not also risen. The answer is that the cost of 

 fishing has increased, not just because the prices of 

 labour and capital have risen as they have everywhere, 



THE SALMON FISHERIES 



The salmon fleet's size and structure, and its technical 

 sophistication, have changed significantly in recent years, 

 so that it is now among the world's most advanced small- 

 boat fleets. Of particular interest are the changes that 

 have taken place since limited-entry licensing was intrcv 

 duced to control unwarranted expansion of the salmon 

 fleet in 1969. As shown in Figure 9-1. the number of 

 vessels in the salmon fleet has declined fairly steadily 

 since then. By 1980 only 4707 vessels were reporting 

 salmon landings compared to 6104 in 1969. CNote that 

 these figures refer to the number of vessels that reported 

 landings. The number of vessels licensed is somewhat 

 hieher.) 



Figure 9-1 Composition of the salmon fleet 



1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 



Sources: For years prior to 1975. G. Alex Fraser. License Limitation in 

 the British Columbia Salmon Fisher>'; for later years, unpub- 

 lished data from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. 



The composition of the fleet has changed as well. The 

 number of seine vessels fishing only for salmon has 

 increased from 286 in 1969 to^316 in 1980. The full 



