RATIONALIZING THE SALMON AND ROE-HERRING FISHERIES 107 



salmon licences restrict vessel replacements, but are not 

 issued to persons; roe-herring licences are issued to per- 

 sons, but do not restrict vessel replacements. These 

 deficiencies should be corrected, and the inconsistencies 

 between the two licence systems eliminated in all new 

 licences issued. Hence — 



4. Each initial 10-year salmon licence is.sued in 1983 

 should identify as the liceasee, the person or company 

 that owns the vessel now licensed. The vessel should 

 be the licensee's designated vessel, subject to replace- 

 ment regulations. 



5. Each initial 10-year roe-herring licence issued in 1983 

 should designate a ves.sel, chosen by the licensee, to be 

 ased by him in exercising his licence and to be subject 

 to replacement regulations. 



Thus, in future, the two licensing systems will be har- 

 monized; licences in both cases will designate the licen- 

 see's vessel and all vessels can be replaced only according 

 to the replacement rules recommended later in this chap- 

 ter. 



Gear licensing Currently, roe-herring licences specify 

 that either seine or gillnet gear is to be employed by the 

 licensee. In the salmon fishery, only seine gear has been 

 specifically limited; a moratorium was invoked in 1977 to 

 prohibit any additional seine gear from entering the 

 fishery, but ways have been found to circumvent this 

 restriction. Apart from these restrictions and those on 

 other gear applied to Gulf trollers referred to earlier, ves- 

 sels with salmon licences have been free to use troll, 

 gillnet or seine gear or any combination of these. Control 

 over the addition of new types of gear on vessels and the 

 switching from one gear to another is essential in order to 

 limit the capacity of the fleet. To this end, I make the 

 following recommendations; 



6. The present seine and gillnet gear specifications in 

 roe-herring licences should be retained. 



7. Comprehensive gear licensing should be introduced to 

 supplement the existing salnmn liccasing system. To 

 accomplish this, all salmon licences issued in 1983 

 should specify the gear to be ased by the licensee, 

 according to the following criteria: 



i) Where the vessel has landed 90 percent or more 

 of its salmon catcli, by weight, using one gear 

 type during either 1980 or 1981, the licence 

 should specify only that gear lienceforth. 



ii) Licences that apply to combination vessels that 

 have landed iiH)re than 10 percent of their salmon 

 catch with gillnet and more than 10 percent with 

 troll gear, in both 1980 and 1981. should hence- 

 forth authorize the liceastn? to ase either or both 

 of these gears for the term of the licence. 



These rules for eligibility for initial combination 

 licences should not restrict new combinations of gear, 

 however. By allowing licensees to combine gear on ves- 

 sels (which may well be efficient units in certain circum- 

 stances) they will also reduce the total number of vessels 

 and thereby promote fleet rationalization. Thus — 



ill) Subject to the vessel replacement rules, liceasees 

 should not be restricted in acquiring from other 

 licensees the privilege to use another t>pe of gear 

 on their vessels. 



Anyone who receives a licence for more than one gear, 

 either by qualifying for a combination licence initially or 

 later through an acquisition, should not be permitted to 

 split them by transferring the right to use one of the gears 

 while retaining the other. That would give the initial com- 

 bination licen.sees an unrea.sonable advantage and. as 

 explained in the preceding chapter, would permit more 

 vessels to enter the fishery. This implies that combination 

 licences (referring to licences authorizing more than one 

 gear to fish a particular species, not licences for different 

 fisheries) must be maintained as such. 



Catch allocation Unquestionably, the most sensitive 

 issue in fisheries regulation is how the available catch is 

 to be allocated among competing groups. In the roe- 

 herring fishery two groups compete; the gillnetters and 

 the seiners. In the salmon fishery, there are more: the 

 gillnetters. seiners, trollers, sport fishermen and Indian 

 food fishermen, as well as subsidiary groups like combi- 

 nation gear vesselowners and charterboat operators. 

 Each group, knowing that the total catch must be limited, 

 focuses attention on its share. This is the source of the 

 gear wars, and the endless debates. generou<;ly evidenced 

 in testimony at this Commission's hearings, about which 

 user group is more legitimate or has a stronger claim. 



The Department has no explicit legislative authority to 

 allocate the available catch among users. But it has, in 

 effect, been doing .so for years; allocation is an inevitable 

 consequence of regulating openings and closures and 

 restricting gear. The Department even has a target for 

 dividing the roe-hernng catch between the seine and 

 gillnet fleets. But it has never attempted to allocate the 

 salmon catch according to any explicit formula. 



A lively discussion has occurred in recent years about 

 the desirability of allocating the commercial salmon 

 catch among the sectors of the fleet. This issue is related 

 to gear licensing, and not surprisingly small groups (espe- 

 cially those who see their position in the industry as par- 

 ticularly threatened) support gear licensing only on the 

 condition that the catch allocation be fixed also. Three 

 years ago the Pacific Region Fisheries Management 

 Advisory Council established a committee to advise on 

 this matter. After lengthy deliberations, the committee 

 was unable to reconcile the strongly conflicting positions 



