SHEBESHKONG RIVER - Spearing of spawning pickerel, has some area residents talking, worried that fish populations are dwindling.
One comment, made by Parry Sound-Muskoka MP Tony Clement, at an all-candidates meeting in April in Parry Sound, has garnered positive and negative response from the community. Clement told the audience responsibility runs both ways, when addressing a question pertaining to aboriginal social and economic issues.
“We have to work together,” he said. “But spearing pickerel on spawning grounds is not conservation and has to stop.”
The statement produced varied responses, some agreeing the practice is detrimental to the fish species and some claiming the comment lashed out at First Nations, hastily discounting the conservation efforts happening on and near reserves.
Shebeshekong River
The Shebeshekong River, where many pickerel come to spawn, runs past Paul Jones’ home, and empties into Georgian Bay. In late March and early April, Jones said he witnesses spawning pickerel harvested with nets and spears and taken away by the hundreds.
“People are really upset,” he said, noting the practice is harmful to fisheries. “You can’t ignore it.”
Jones also said the milking of spawning pickerel, a way to extract the eggs from the fish, is not always effective.
“The fish lay their spawn in certain ways that we can’t duplicate,” he said. “Fish have an instinct for putting their eggs in back waters, where they stay.”
Jones said if the eggs are merely dumped back into the river, the eggs will wash away.
Carling resident Don Clement said he has also seen fish leave the water by the trunk-load. Clement has fished in the area since 1948, but wasn’t aware of the issue until he became a permanent resident a few years back.
“I can see both sides of the argument,” he said. “The bottom line is I don’t like what I’m seeing.”
Clement said he hopes to see First Nations take a leadership role regarding the spearing of the fish.
Fishing in the area for over 50 years, Wayne Pamajewon, an Ojibway of the Shawanaga First Nation, has seen the decline of pickerel in local rivers and said conservation efforts have been in place for years. Shawanaga has worked with the MNR to replenish stock through a moratorium on spear fishing for 15 years.
Pamajewon said it is important for community members to be educated about conservation efforts at Shawanaga.
“Conservation has always been a part of our teachings,” he said and notes the term shouldn’t be used loosely.
For the past 25 years, the First Nation has capped the amount of fish each household can catch per day at three.
“At one time we set it at five, but we felt that was too much,” he said, noting there was some grumbling amongst the ranks about the limit.
“At the end of the day, we recognized something had to be done,” he said. Pamajewon predicts many reports of First Nations members taking more than the alloted three fish per day, may be false.
“I think some folks have got it in their mind that they’ve tried and convicted us based on heresay,” he said.
MNR
Jolanta Kowalski, spokesperson for the MNR, said the ministry is aware of the situation, and does try to monitor fishing activity.
“Under the Robinson Huron Treaty, the members of Shawanaga do have the right to (fish),” she said. Kowalski said members of the First Nation have previously talked and worked with Parry Sound representatives.
The Robinson Huron Treaty, signed and negotiated in 1850, opened the area’s natural resources to initial exploration and exploitation, according to Indian and Northern Affairs Canada.
“I think the First Nation as a whole is very concerned with this,” she said. “They are making efforts and they are conservation minded.”
Manitoba
Similar debates have popped up in other Canadian communities, with one, in Brandon, Manitoba, leading to a ban on fishing for pickerel in two rivers, until the completion of spawning.
In order to accommodate the aboriginal treaty right to fish for sustenance, Manitoba conservation hand out six frozen pickerel to each aboriginal person who went to the river to fish. The province also limited fishers to six pickerel per day on two other rivers.
Pamajewon said he doesn’t feel this type of solution is necessary here.
“You have to remember that we do have treaty rights... but there are (conservation efforts) we are doing ourselves,” he said. “It’s for the benefit of all, not just for the First Nation.”
Donna Longlade, a Shawanaga councillor, said the First Nation continues to keep open lines of communication with the MNR.
“(The MNR) is saying the fish populations in Pointe au Baril and Shawanaga are good,” she said. Longlade noted the council at Shawanaga knows the issue needs to be addressed.