Before leaving for the fishing grounds this morning Otto made a stop at the Prince Rupert office of The Department of Fisheries (DFO).  He needed to pick up a new “fish book” to officially record all the fish that get transferred to his boat from our other  fishermen.   He also asked  for updates on the fishery, escapement numbers on the coast, and the usually type of things fishermen like to know.  What he found out was that face to face contact with the DFO for  fishermen is now over!  The DFO office for the North Coast is cutting staff from 9 to 2 people and will not be open to the public.  All  business must now be conducted online.

So, who runs the fishery?  For the past several  seasons the presence of the DFO on the coast has diminished as private contractors take over more of the work. For example, all fishermen must buy at least one $300 log book from Archipelago Marine Research to log their catch in triplicate, or use an online logging system by the same contractor.  They also have to call in to the contractor each week to declare their intension to fish, and call to report catches at the close of each fishery.  It seems simple but it gets pricey when you need to travel hours to get a cell signal and sometimes line up for the one payphone on the docks in Prince Rupert.

In addition, this year the DFO announced that another contractor would be brought in to do the offloading monitoring that the department had previously done itself through its enforcement branch.  Now, however, the fishermen themselves have to pay for the people that watch them.   A charge of five cents for every fish must now be collected to pay the contractor.  This is a small cost for the large companies but is causing much greater difficulties for small operators due to the way it is being enforced. To make the new system workable the DFO met with the representatives of the large fishing companies and designated a number of approved offloading sites for the North Coast.  Unfortunately for independent fishermen all of the sites consist of docks, plants, and packers owned by fishing companies, and all of them charge hundreds of dollars to unload a boat that not selling them fish.   While this situation may or may not have been part of the planning, it effectively means that while the fishing companies may not get any of our fish, they are still going to get some of our money…