{. spec pple gece esis a og il B4 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, September 14, 2005 * over the area 3, 4 and 5 fisheries,” ROB BROWN he Pacific Salmon Assessment and Re- .the number of wild steelhead. needed to smolt to adult survival. The fact that the Keogh steelhead are winter run fish while the largest component of the Skeena runs is made up of summer steelhead ‘and the fact that the Keogh is located on Vancouver Island needs to be taken into account when judging the precision of this determination. as well as the PSARC esti- mation of the carrying capacity of Skeena, which, » extrapolating from.an estimate of 40 fish per ki- . lometre Squared, the committee determined to be » _ somewhere in the area of 80,000 fish. Historic data like that which shows that some .27,000 Skeena summer steelhead were canned dur- . ing the 1927 fishing season, are convinced that fig- ures put forward by PSARC are ridiculously low. . AS critics of these estimates have pointed out, -the: immense size of the Skeena watershed and amount of productive, underutilized habitat and the _ productivity of individual streams unaffected by net _ fisheries strongly suggests that Skeena’s steelhead . ‘returns numbered in the hundreds of thousands. “How many years in the last two decades have the minimum escapement targets been met?” Bruce — aan | Hill asks rhetorically. “.-f-,-' Not many, it turns out. Of those years, 1998 ‘fois s notable. In that year, David Anderson, the first Federal Fisheries minister in decades who actually knew and appreciated the problems attending the west coast fishery, examined the evidence, con- cluded there was a coho crisis-and shut down the Skeena River fishery. Predictably, the steelhead escapement \ was esti- . mated to be approximately 80,000 fish, the returns ‘to all the major tributaries in the drainage were good and even some streams that were thought to have no fish left had some return. _ AIl.of this points to the fact that there is a real data problem when it comes to the Skeena fishery that continues to cripple attempts at an effective management regime. To start with, there is no credible baseline data on steelhead since the collection of data didn’t be- gin in earnest until 75 years after the advent of the ‘fishery. — Commercial. fishers are required by law t to re- port steelhead catches. These data are called “hail figures” and are collected by fisheries officers who ~ boat amongst the fleet and call out to fishermen to report their catches. Since it’s obviously not in a commercial fisher’s best interest to report high rates of steelhead inter- — ception, critics contend that there is a high likeli- hood that underreporting is high, a contention that is given some weight by comparisons made between catch ratios of different species reported by the fleet ‘and those obtained with the same methodology in the test fishery a short distance upstream. . The processing plants also have a legal obliga- tion to report steelhead landings that is supposed to -show up on sales slips. The sales slips from these plants show little or ‘no steelhead, yet contractors hired by provincial ’ fisheries have observed and reported tote loads of summer steelhead inside the processing facilities. The North Coast salmon fishery is an old-fash-. ' ioned industrial “derby” fishery. It requires giant - subsidies to keep fishing. It’s overcapitalized to the extent that a commercial fisherman must strive for - larger and larger catches to stay afloat. It’s a dwin- - dling fleet‘fishing mixed stocks of dwindling, and in some cases endangered, fish. “We have some idea and can exert some control ferring to the approach water fisheries, “but what about farther out, in Areas 6 and 7? And what about the Alaskans? “¥ remember when we. wrote a letter to Fran Ul- mer about Alaskan interceptions and she sent back a letter pointing out that we had 1,500 or so gill- nets, all of them 1,200 feet long, in the mouth of the - Skeena, and they were the problem. Still, we know they catch lots of steelhead.” At the end of the day, at the end of the century, we need to hope for a new era in fisheries manage- ment: one that has no room for fish farms and other ill-considered industrial impediments to the health of salmon; one that embraces selective harvesting — methods in addition to the holding boxes required of gillnetters presently: one that encourages sele- tive in-river harvest technology, like the. beach seine initiatives and fish wheels that have been employed periodically by First Nations inland; one that puts fish first and is as sensitive to the salvation of Chum, coho and lesser sockeye stocks as well as to the demands of steelhead conservation. ‘view Committee (PSARC) came up with _ - seed the Skeena System using figures gen-, erated from the data obtained from the study Keogh River steelhead, the only study site of steelhead By MARGARET SPEIRS ‘TODD BAILEY found local riders to be knowledgeable and, keen to ‘learn when. he hosted riding ‘clinics. here ~ Sept. 2 to 6. The clinics were geared to ' Western and English riding, " including. Western pleasure _ riding, reining and hunter. About 20 riders took part. to learn proper reining tech- ‘niques and how to properly get their horse to.move to have a more responsive ani- _ mal suitable for showing or — . Wild steelhead 2005 (IV) | trailing riding. He was impressed with local riders’ potential. “I’ve seen really big im- provements from when they started this morning to this afternoon,” he said Sept. 3. He said riders asked lots of questions speak up if something was unclear. “If one person out here learns one thing, it’s a suc- cess,” he said. ““T think everybody is "pretty happy.” _ He said he. learns from | _ his students too and he en- joys meeting new riders and seeing different horses. '. Bailey, who’s from Red Deer, Alberta, had some fun taking part in the weekend’s cattle sorting event. He had judged the West- ern Heritage Show here in June and judged at the Bulk- ley Valley Exhibition . in ‘Smithers. and would. a ‘MARGARET SPEIRS S ry Ri a VERA HEAMEN, right, Todd Bailey and Isabelle Heamen took second place | in the Premade cattle sorting event. 638-7283 ing judge praises locals Sept. 3 at the Thornhill Community Grounds. Bailey, who’s from Alberta, was in town to teach a riding clinic over the weekend. About 20 riders reined in to learn his* techniques. MARGARET SPEIRS PHOTO Plans’ are underway to have him ‘travel to Houston, next year to teach advanced reining techniques. ae. “The final cattle sorting ‘event of the season went out with a gallop as the winning -Yiders penned the most bo-. vines this year. ’ Ben McCormick, Jason _ Rempel and Vera Heamen . rode to victory in Premade Cattle Sorting with a total of .13 cows sorted. . Second place went’ to’ Vera Heamen, Isabelle Hea- men and Todd Bailey, who borrowed a horse, who suc- “cessfully sorted 12 cows in total. says Hill, re- | tain Richard Klein says. dicts. to age meaning they will By MARGARET SPEIRS ULTIMATE takes its game on the road for the sixth time to compete down south against teams from around ‘the province, Alberta and the U.S. this weekend. Local Ultimate athletes will hook up with former Terrace players to form a team of 14 for the UHF 9 Pil- grimage of Plastic tournament Sept. 17 in Vernon. “It’s alot of fun, very good competition,” The Hand Jobs, named after an Ultimate term for when a team scores a point after every person on the team handles the disc, have consistently finished i in the ‘ top 10 at the tourney and expect to do so again. “We'll be a strong B-division team,” Klein pre-— The teams aren t pitted against each other according» O€s. on a team cap- face younger players but he’s not worried. jokes. Treachery and : “Treachery and ex- experience can “perience can overcome Overcome youth youth and speed,” he and speed The tourney demon- says. . fare in round robin play. strates Ultimate’s spirit of competitiveness and shows the co-ed sport at a high level of competition, Klein He says the team will play four games the first day and three or four the next day depending on how they ‘pilgimage’ weekend in Vernon. THE TERRACE Utimate Club gets their game an n this Local author rubs elbows with Team Canada, sort of By MARGARET SPEIRS A LOCAL AUTHOR had a close encounter with Todd Bertuzzi some of Canada’s elite hockey players recently. — a Joe Pelletier said he came within one foot of Todd Bertuzzi, who seemed . larger than life. “When: they’re on: their skates, you’re like a little kid looking up at these guys,” he said “Theyre already six-five or six-six plus skates, I believe he’s six three and 260. pounds, and with equipment’ he looks bigger.” Pelletier was granted media accredi- tation from Hockey Canada to travel ‘to the Team Canada hockey camp in Kelowna Aug. 17 to 20. The camp was a team building ex- ercise for the 2006 Winter Olympics, allowing players to familiarize them- selves with each other on and off the ice. Pelletier didn’t get the chance to talk to Bertuzzi, who was swamped by me- dia and fans. “Tt was impossible to get near him or Wayne Gretzky,” he said. and. “] tried to give Gretzky a copy of. my book, but couldn’t get close to him,” he said, adding he came within 15 feet of the Great One. “He’s very protective and only al- Iows media he knows and likes. He’s very picky that way.” Pelletier was able to talk to Ottawa’s Dany Heatley and Tampa Bay’s Brad Richards. When they’re on. their skates, you're like a little kid looking up at these guys “I just asked how they felt out on the ice and if they had any chemistry with any other players,”he said. “They said that everything was clicking pretty quickly and playing with high level players made it easier to play together. “At least that’s what they said, they’re very well trained.” Pelletier spent one day behind the scenes observing how the media con- ducted interviews and another day sit- Bertuzzi and Gretzky and Heatley, oh my, at hockey camp ting with the fans.. ... He said the event was sold out with 4,000 seats taken by fans and 2,000 re- - served for VIPs. Each day, one half of the team would practice followed by a team scrimmage “and then the second half would prac- tice, which took up the morning. The players went golfing in the af- ternoon. Pelletier watched all the action on the ice and tried unsuccessfully to find the players off the ice. “I tried to find some golf cours- es but they wouldn’t let you know what ones they were heading to,” he said, adding Kelowna boasts too many golf greens for him to stake. them out in hopes of finding the players. Pelletier doesn’t expect there to be any more hockey camps for the Olympic team, but said if he hears of any, he'll definitely try to go again. Team Canada will take to the ice to play for the 20th Olympic Winter Games from Feb. 10 to 26, 2006 in Turin, Italy. Lyn ‘Rempel, Hansen and Jason Rempel penned. 16 cows for the win in Random sorting. Carla Amason, Jocelyn Benoit and Alan Wiese took second with 12 cows. Biking clinic teaches self- esteem THE SPROCKIDS clinic ' is coming to town to teach kids biking skills and promote self-esteem and self-confidence. Organizer Lucy Praught says not many. cities are‘asked to host the event, which makes it a real privilege to host it. ‘ “I’m so excited that we have the opportunity to do this,” she says, adding that she will be a Sprock- ids leader. | ‘Based on program that teaches bike safety’ and riding techniques, this compact course will focus on a fun approach. Kids will learn —rid- ing skills, games, riding technique’and bike main- tenance basics, including how to lock their bikes up safely. oo Praught — emphasizes. that: kids don’t need an expensive bike to partici- pate. A helmet is, required and a water bottle is en- couraged. She urges parents. to sign their kids up early so she can plan for the num- ber of leaders needed. .. On the day of the clin- ic, parents will need to accompany their children .to sign a waiver and pro- | vide a contact number for emergencies. To register, call Praught at 638-7603, or.the Cana- dian Cycling Association at 1-604-737-3034, or register online at www. .cycling.be.ca. The Sprockids’ clinic for youth aged six to 12 cycles at Ferry Island from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 24. A BBQ lunch is includ- ed or kids can bring a bag lunch. Insurance will be covered through Cycling B.C. ’ Cindy | a 10-week ; iia |