INSIDE: Abbotsford Heat schedule highlights T U E S D A Y
August 27, 2013
Pg. 12
Cyrus House opens
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Tri-umphant debut
– JEAN KONDA-WITTE/TIMES
The inaugural Abbotsford Sprint Triathlon, presented by Habitat for Humanity, was held at and around Albert Dyck Park on Sunday. Above, athletes power through the water for the 750 metre swim portion of the race; right, Jonathan Gendron breaks the tape as the first to finish, with a time of 1:04:07. The sprint triathlon (750m swim, 20 kilometre bike and five km run) attracted more than 100 competitors. See page A12 for more coverage.
Poached salmon: illegal fishing on the Fraser CHRISTINA TOTH CToth@abbotsfordtimes.com
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– TIMES FILE
A ban on all forms of salmon fishing along the Fraser River has not stopped some people.
ince a ban was imposed on all salmon fishing in the lower Fraser River on Aug. 16, fishery officers have seized more than 60 nets and nine boats involved in illegal fishing. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans officers have started 28 investigations into illegal fishing so far, said Nicole Gallant, DFO’s acting area chief for the lower Fraser River. If found guilty, poachers could face fines up to $100,000 and up to two years in jail. To this point, no charges have been laid. The vessels are seized until investigations are complete, or if the court orders them to be returned, said Gallant. “We are getting a lot of complaints about illegal fishing or illegal sales of (sockeye) from the public,” Gallant said Monday. She said the 30 regular fishery officers in the region are out patrolling as much as they can around the clock. “We’re using our boats, our vehicles, a helicopter and our air surveillance plane has been out,” she said. Poachers are nabbed anywhere from the Port Mann to the Fraser Canyon at all times
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DFO nets dozens of poachers as fishing ban continues
of the day and night, fishing from small vessels or casting nets from the river banks, she said. The DFO and the Pacific Salmon Commission imposed the ban to allow as many sockeye as possible to reach their spawning beds, after it became clear that only about half the expected summer-run sockeye was returning to the river. Estimates were down to about two million fish, almost 50 per cent less than the 3.7 million that fishery biologists initially forecast in June. This outlook, coupled with the extreme stress imposed on the sockeye by low water, and more significantly, the record water temperatures of 21.3 C, compelled officials to impose a sockeye ban. “Every one of these fish we now need to get to the spawning grounds, so all the fisheries in the Fraser River were shut down,” the DFO’s Herb Redekopp, chief of conservation and protection in the Lower Fraser area, told The Vancouver Sun last week.
The ban includes all salmon species from the mouth of the Fraser to above Hope to prevent sockeye from being inadvertently caught with other species. The ban is for all the user groups – commercial, recreational and aboriginal fishers. “It’s a unique situation where we have the whole river closed for all user groups. During salmon season, we might see some irregular fishing, but the with the closure, it’s a bit of different situation,” Gallant said. However, sockeye is a prized fish and several people are ignoring the ban to take advantage of a lucrative black market. “It’s highly sought after. We find a lot (of sockeye confiscated) is meant for resale, not for personal use,” said Gallant. She couldn’t say how many sockeye have been caught illegally since the ban. Redekopp was out Thursday night around midnight near Agassiz when he and his crew saw a blacked-out boat with two fishermen using gillnets. In the 10 minutes it took to catch up to the boat using night-vision equipment and a floodlight, 47 fish had been killed, Redekopp said. see POACHING, page A6
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