LICENSING THE SMALLER COMMERCIAL FISHERIES 127 



importance to the roe industry with landings in 1981 of 

 almost 9,000 tonnes valued at $2.2 million. 



The significant food-hemng fishery that developed 

 during the mid 1970s has smce levelled off. Hopes of 

 penetrating the high-value European market have not 

 been realized for a variety of reasons, one of which has 

 been the difficulty encountered by B.C. producers in 

 matching the price and quality of product available from 

 elsewhere, such as the Atlantic provinces. Recently, the 

 main market has been Japan, where dried herring are 

 sold as migaki. This year, markets for food herring are 

 particularly weak. 



Nevertheless, this fishery offers considerable opportu- 

 nity. Herring are in their best condition for food in the 

 late fall, when the major fisheries are closed. Conse- 

 quently, this fishery can advantageously employ vessels, 

 crews, shoreworkers and plant capacity that otherwise 

 would be idle. Markets for food hemng are extremely 

 sensitive to quality but, with improvement in standards of 

 fish handling and processing, at least some experts 

 believe that this fishery has some good opportunities to 

 penetrate markets. 



A small proportion of the landings from this fishery is 

 used as fishing bait, supplementing supplies obtained 

 through special hernng permits (descnbed below). Hali- 

 but, sablefish, prawn and crab fishermen use herring as 

 bait. 



The food and bait herring catch is taken mainly with 

 seine gear in the Strait of Georgia, where a much larger 

 catch is taken from the stocks in the spring roe-herring 

 fishery. Only small catches are taken in northern waters. 

 The allowable catch can be determined well in advance 

 because it represents only part of the stock's total annual 

 yield and because, in the spawning cycle of the fishery, it 

 is taken first. In 1981 the total allowable catch was 10 

 thousand tonnes, but this level will probably not be 

 attained in 1982 because of weak markets. 



This fishery is regulated under special ministerial per- 

 mits issued to persons annually without charge, though 

 each designates a vessel to be used in fishing. Permits are 

 available to the holders of residual species licences ("C" 

 licences described below) or other limited-entry licensees 

 whose vessels are equipped with fish-cooling facilities and 

 herring gear. This means that virtually all licensed vessels 

 are eligible because even a box of ice qualifies as cooling 

 equipment. With so many eligible vessels, the size of the 

 fleet is uncontrolled. 



In the last few years this fishery has become chaotic. A 

 fleet with fishing power far in excess of that required to 

 take the catch has converged on available stocks. In the 

 Strait of Georgia, local fishery officers attempt to restrain 

 daily catches to the estimated maximum daily plant 



capacity of 1.500 tonnes by shortening the fishing period. 

 But in the face of a fleet with something like 20 times the 

 needed fleet capacity in an area, the task has proven 

 almost impossible. For example, fisherv' oflficers faced 

 with a large stock of herring in Stuart Channel in 1980 

 tried in vain to limit a fleet of 100 seiners to a catch of 

 1.500 tonnes. In an opening of only 27 minutes, 4.000 

 tonnes were caught. As a result, landings far exceeded 

 plant capacity, the 18-hour delivery rule (described 

 below) had to be waived, and because of poor quality, a 

 large proportion was unsuitable for food. This sort of 

 chaos, inefficiency and waste is commonplace in this 

 fishery. 



Most of the regulations applied to the food-herring 

 fishery are aimed at protecting the quality of the catch. In 

 addition to having cooling facilities, each vessel must 

 deliver its own catch; landings are restncted to 25 tonnes 

 per delivery : and the catch must be delivered to a proces- 

 sor within 18 hours. 



For the most part, the quality objectives of these regu- 

 lations have not been met because access to the fisher\ is 

 effectively unrestricted and because the fleet has 

 expanded to the point where it has become unmanage- 

 able in the brief, frenzied openings. A seiner can often 

 catch much more than 25 tonnes in a set, so if its delivery 

 is limited to that amount it would have to dump the 

 exce.ss; instead, a vessel that makes a large set cooperates 

 with others that make repeated deliveries to the process- 

 ing plants, thereby thwarting the catcher-deliver) rule. 

 The requirements for refrigeration equipment have not 

 been enforced, and some vessels have not carried it or 

 used it appropriately. Finally, the policy of controlling 

 catches by progressively shortening the opening time, 

 while the fleet size remains unlimited, is both impractical 

 and wasteful. In 1980. the most recent year for which this 

 information is available, the food and bait-herring fishery 

 was open for a total of only four hours. Catches cannot 

 be properly regulated, gluts exceed plant capacity and 

 large quantities of fish are spoiled. 



This scheme has certain other disturbing features. It 

 has effectively eliminated gillnetters and trawlers, not 

 because they are any less suitable for food-herring 

 fishing, but because the openings are so short they cannot 

 take worthwhile catches. Indeed, the ability of these ves- 

 sels to select only the large fish best suited for food, and 

 to cool the catch rapidly, might otherwise give them an 

 advantage. Similarly, some of the smaller processors, who 

 prepare products for high-quality food markets, cannot 

 now participate in the fishery because they are unable to 

 obtain assured quantities of high-quality fish. Finally, the 

 door has been left open to additional entrants by a com- 

 mitment from the Department that past participation will 

 not be a precondition for access to this fishery in the 

 future. 



