sensitivity training over spear fishing

[gofishing]

Clement needs sensitivity training over spear fishing remarks that miss First Nation conservation work

Tony Clement needs native sensitivity training for his completely ignorant comment he made that natives “spearing fish on spawning grounds is not conservation and needs to stop.”
Were he to have his way, native conservation in fisheries would end!
For years, his white constituents got walleye, via the Ministry of Natural Resources, from the Shawanaga tribal river (noted as such by the federal and provincial governments) to supply their white fish hatcheries. If natives went to fish, effectively fish that originated from their tribal river, exerting their treaty right to harvest, the whites were against it.
Their fish now, they thought. Nothing like spurning their supplier whom they got fish from, via the MNR, for years.
Natives don’t toot their horns about conservation like whites. They live it as a lifestyle, which has gone down prior to Europeans arriving on this continent. Unlike whites, they don’t harvest walleye when the eggs are forming in the females. You harvest that female, with eggs forming inside her, and, you end a life cycle. No more fish can be produced from that female. Natives harvest in the spring, when the eggs and roe are fully formed in females and males.
They kill the parent fish by spearing. They “milk” the fish by taking the eggs and roe and I have witnessed this myself. The life cycle of the parent fish, via their offspring, continues. So, you get more fish!
The Lake Huron Fisheries Management Branch of the MNR has done extensive studies on Shawanaga tribal river walleye. They find the populations to be healthy and sustainable. The MNR stated, “they must be doing something right.”
What the Ojibways are doing is what they have been doing for centuries. Spear fishing on the spawning grounds in the spring and milking the fish to ensure more fish and the life cycle continuing.
Clement, in my opinion, should apologize publicly to natives and retract his ridiculous statement.
Natives do not need someone originally from England teaching them how to conserve walleye in Canada, especially when natives helped replenish a resource, working with the MNR, which had been over-harvested via other fishing methods.
Those previous fisheries agreements between the MNR and natives got the walleye populations back for people to fish!

[steelheader]

hi ontfish...i found your comments very informative.....gives a whole new perspective to native issues to myself and probably quite a few others.... I guess the more years on the clock makes us more wary of making snap decisions and opinons..Our new challenge locally is the MEGA QUARRY north of shelburne,.the native presence and support is welcomed and i with thousands more are doing our utmost to put an end to this insane proposal that has implications that would affect everyone in ontario!!!!!! and destroy more than anyone can imagine!!!thanks again for your comments.............................,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,............................................ EVERY SPORTSMAN IN ONTARIO !!!!!!!!!!get on board...go to www.ndact.com and lets prevent this disaster!!!! bent rods