he link to the story appearing in todays Belleville Intelligencer.
http://www.intelligencer.ca/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentID=64967&catname=Local%20News
Here is the entire text cut and pasted from the newspaper website
Information breakdown hurting walleye research
By Ben Medd
Wednesday, April 21, 2004 - 10:00
Local News - A communications breakdown between the province and area Mohawks is preventing researchers from gathering critical information on the state of the Bay of Quinte walleye fishery.
No information regarding the number of walleye being caught in native gill nets, nor by spear fishers in local rivers is being shared between Ministry of Natural Resources staff and the Tyendinaga Mohawk band council.
Both sides are blaming each other for the shutdown in the sharing of walleye fishing information.
Tyendinaga Mohawk Chief R. Donald Maracle said his band had been working hand-in-hand with the Ministry of Natural Resources until the province backed out of discussions on the broader issue of Mohawk walleye fishing.
“There really has been very little discussion with the province since the province moved away from the negotiating table a few years ago. A judge had a table set up to try and resolve the conflict over our community fishing and the province left the table,” Maracle said. “There was a joint monitoring process in the off-reserve waters a few years ago with the Ministry of Natural Resources and that agreement has not been renewed since 2000. They did not sign another contract with us to have joint monitoring.”
Maracle said while there are Mohawk game wardens employed on the reserve to monitor native fish harvests, the province is not currently involved in the process.
This was not always the case. Jim Hoyle, an assessment biologist, with the MNR’s Lake Ontario Management Unit, said the ministry had previously relied on fishing data provided by the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte in its assessment of the fishery.
“Up until a couple of years ago we had a fairly good breakdown of the pressures from the various fisheries and how much they were taking,” Hoyle said. “The last couple of years though, we don’t have that kind of detailed information. The native fishery, we don’t have detailed records of that.”
The missing information is preventing ministry officials from being able to see the impact spear and net fishing has on walleye in the bay, Barry Radford, a communications specialist with the MNR told The Intelligencer.
“The First Nations provided us, until about two years ago, with information on their estimate of catches by the native population. And then, they just ceased to provide that,” he said. “We would love to have that information. But, we do talk with them and try to make contact, and like I said, we would love to have that information. It’s a link that helps us complete that picture about the walleye population.”
While both Maracle and MNR officials agree no information on the native fishery is currently being shared, Radford said efforts have been made to improve communications between the province and the Bay of Quinte Mohawks.
“I think what we are trying to do is build some bridges with that (Mohawk) community and one of those bridges would be through the new Bay of Quinte Fisheries Advisory Committee,” Radford said. “I believe that I attended the last meeting of that committee and they have been trying to establish those lines of communication themselves. It’s an ongoing process of trying to connect and share information. If we could get those things rolling, that would be great.”
Radford said he hopes the MNR and the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte will be able to come to an agreement similar to one recently reached with the Nipissing First Nations.
It was one week ago that the First Nations in Nipissing and the province arrived at a deal which would see natives self-regulating their walleye fishery, while working closely with the province to restore dwindling walleye numbers in Lake Nipissing.
But, Maracle said the local First Nations already monitor their own fishing and also do their part to increase the walleye population.
“For years, the Mohawk people have been milking the fish and putting the spawn and eggs back into the river ... and there is a community member that has been hatching some of the fry and putting them back into the bay for the past two years,” the chief said. “We published a council resolution that there is to be no nets in the river or the mouth of the river during the spawning season and that allows the fish to come up the river to spawn. And there are regulations on the amount that people can catch under the band’s bylaw.”
When asked what the limits are on the number of fish members of the band could take and what the repercussions are for those who violated the bylaw, Maracle admitted the bylaw is not actually being enforced.
“The band’s bylaw has never been rescinded, but the band’s bylaw has sort of been rendered inoperative because the (Supreme Court decision) Sparrow case allows sustenance hunting and fishing and so it is really up to each individual to determine what they require for their own sustenance,” he said, after being asked for a copy of the bylaw.
The Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte bylaw was not provided to The Intelligencer.
The Lake Nipissing agreement outlines a defined set rules, which include a month-long freeze on gill netting beginning this week and stricter controls on the use of gill nets. Any member of the Nipissing First Nations using nets will have to register with their band, mark and identify their nets for monitoring by provincial inspectors and report their catches for MNR records.
The issue of native gill netting sparked concern among provincial officials and outrage from Chief Maracle last May following the release of an MNR report.
“Our assessment of the future status of the walleye population has two major areas of uncertainty: the magnitude of the aboriginal gill-net fishery, and future levels of walleye recruitment. Both sources of uncertainty have a large influence on the population, and neither is easy to predict,” the report stated. “Surveillance by conservation officers suggested that the aboriginal gill-net harvest in the most recent years may have been the largest source of mortality.”
The Lake Ontario Management Unit in Picton estimated the number of walleye being taken in native gill nets from the Bay of Quinte as being between 50,000 and 200,000 kilograms in 1999, up substantially from the 1992-96 estimates of 12,800 kg a year.
MNR officials later said the 1999 estimates prompted them to impose a slot limit of between 19 and 25 inches on recreational fishing of walleye in 2002 to protect the fishery.
Maracle has dismissed these numbers as being far from fact and said he estimates the impact the Bay of Quinte Mohawks have on the local walleye stocks as being closer to 1992 MNR estimates which listed the natives as accounting for 3 per cent of the total number of walleye taken from the bay.
“We have reports and figures on what we believe our people are taking and it is nowhere near the amount that has been published by the Ministry of Natural Resources and ours is by direct observation. The amount our people take from the fishery is very insignificant,” the chief said. “I think one part of the culture is simply blind to how much they take for themselves. There needs to be some regulation put on the biggest user and it is not the aboriginal population. We have questioned constantly at the negotiating table with the MNR, what regulation is the government of Ontario going to impose upon the people it licenses?”
Radford said he hopes the province and the Bay of Quinte Mohawks will soon return to the bargaining table in an effort to work out a compromise similar to that which was reached surrounding the Lake Nipissing fishery.
“It is certainly one that is working (Nipissing) and if we could achieve successes like that things would move a lot better,” he said.
As for now, Hoyle said the Bay of Quinte’s walleye population has remained stable at about 400,000 fish for the past two years. While the number is substantially lower than the bay fishery’s peak of an estimated 1.3 million in the 1980’s, he said the population should remain balanced for the immediate future.
“It declined fairly steadily from the mid 1990s until a couple of years ago ... and seems to have leveled off at the 400,000 mark,” Hoyle said. “One of the biggest factors in the walleye’s decline would be a decrease in young fish which I suggest would be somehow linked to the changes in the bay since the arrival of zebra mussels.”
While Hoyle said it may be possible to hold the walleye to their current numbers, it may not be possible to ever return to the numbers witnessed in the eighties.
“The environment in the Bay of Quinte has changed and the current level is now in tune with that environment. So, I guess you would have to make a big change in the environment to cause the walleye to go up or down again,” he surmised.
Anglers fishing open water last year caught more than double the amount of fish than in 2003 and just under 35,000 walleye are believed to have been taken home by the anglers.
Of those fish caught, roughly 50 per cent of the walleye were two-year-olds from the 2001 hatch. It is these younger fish, ranging up to four-years-old, which seem to make up the bulk of the Bay of Quinte’s walleye stock. Only a handful of fish included in the MNR report for 2003 were older than five-years-old, with the eldest walleye being estimated at the age of 15.
Surveys done in the Kingston area show a more mature face of Lake Ontario walleye, with the majority of fish surveyed being between the ages of nine and 16, including one 20-year-old specimen.
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