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Author Topic: fishing/hunting friendly future premier?  (Read 8730 times)

Steelhawk

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fishing/hunting friendly future premier?
« on: December 16, 2017, 03:18:43 PM »

Never involved in politics myself but a friend of mine who is active in liberal leadership race calls my attention to Michael Lee, a current MLA representing Langara who is in the race for liberal party leader. I look at his site and there is one of his platforms supporting fishing and hunting in an open letter to the hunting/fishing/sport shooting community.

https://joinmichael.ca/Policy?name=open-letter-to-the-hunting-fishing-and-sport-shooting-community

So if he gets elected as leader of the Liberal party, does that mean there is a possible chance we will get a guy (who may become premier one day) who cares about what we do, like increasing funding for stocking of more steelhead and trout. I remember years ago Premier Harcourt and his minister Moe Shiota tried to cut or stop steelhead funding and it was met with much uproar from the fishing community. So this guy will get my vote if he is fishing friendly.  If you want better steelhead fishing, helping him win the leadership race is a good start. LOL. I am registering .... Haha. (Must register before December 29 2017 to be qualified to vote for leadership in February 2018 )

« Last Edit: December 16, 2017, 07:15:29 PM by Steelhawk »
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Fish Assassin

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Re: fishing/hunting friendly future premier?
« Reply #1 on: December 16, 2017, 03:21:31 PM »

Good luck. We've had this discussion before each federal and provincial election as to which party is fish friendly. None of the mainstream parties ie. Liberals, Conservatives and NDP have delivered on their promises.
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Steelhawk

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Re: fishing/hunting friendly future premier?
« Reply #2 on: December 16, 2017, 03:50:55 PM »

That may be so. Politicians are just politicians. But I did a brief glance of some of the major players in the race like Lee, Watts, De Jong, and Lee seems to be the only one with an open letter to pledge his support for the fishing/hunting/shooting sport communities. I am not even sure if he is a fisherman like us, but it is a bit unusual for him to reach out to us even before he is electing to be a premier. That may just be showing his sincerity that he cares about us who is really a politically insignificant group (due to our lack of unity and pro-active actions as a group). Lol.
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Steelhawk

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Re: fishing/hunting friendly future premier?
« Reply #3 on: December 16, 2017, 05:26:10 PM »

I also see that in the policy page of Michael Lee, he puts his open letter to the fishing, hunting and sport shooting community as the #1 item on that policy list. That is a bit unusual given other more crowd pleasing issues such as job, immigration and tourism. So in my book, he is friendly to our community. I think Steel Head Society of British Columbia should consider him a friend as steelhead is a provincial jurisdiction. If he ever gets to be a premier, he will have to be accountable to our community if his policy is different from what he is saying.

https://joinmichael.ca/Policies?page=1
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RalphH

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Re: fishing/hunting friendly future premier?
« Reply #4 on: December 16, 2017, 05:40:35 PM »

"Hunting and fishing friendly" should be recognized as political code for a particular set of values that may not be absolutely friendly to wilderness, eco-systems, wildlife or fish.
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Steelhawk

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Re: fishing/hunting friendly future premier?
« Reply #5 on: December 16, 2017, 07:28:13 PM »

I don't know enough about the detail of all his policies but it seems he cares about climate change and eco system from a brief glance of his policies. Honestly all I care is no more steelhead funding cut and best to stock some more. Perhspa he can stop the carnage of those nets from decimating the Thompson steelhead. Who knows. But at least he openly reach out to us in an open letter. That is a bit unusual unless he is ready to live up to it.
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RalphH

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Re: fishing/hunting friendly future premier?
« Reply #6 on: December 17, 2017, 09:49:15 AM »

I read the statement as specifically fishing for endorsement from the BCWF and support from it's members simply because almost all hunting and fishing clubs and their members are under the BCWF umbrella. While the BCWF is a basically a good organization with good objectives it has in the past advocated for kill fisheries for wild steelhead. It's also supported wolf culls under the mistaken idea that wolves are responsible for the horrible state of caribou populations in the Province (it's really human access & climate change). Essentially the BCWF often comes down on the side of policy decisions that increase game numbers and sport fish numbers at the expense of other fish, wildlife and environmental values and issues.

I am also unaware of the BCWF's policies regarding hatcheries. Do they support wild fish strategies? I am also not aware if they have made any statements re: global warming/climate change; simple fact is hunters and anglers have bigger per capita carbon footprints than average. Much of the problems we are having with sport fish populations can be linked to climate change and hunters and anglers have been unwilling to recognize this let alone change their habits to reduce their contribution of green house gases.

Likewise hunters and anglers are often more concerned with maintaining and expanding 'access' and by access they often mean via gas powered vehicles without little regard for the negative impacts of road and ATV track vehicles in wilderness areas.

While I think increased funding for steelhead management is essential, it's become fairly clear hatchery enhancement is not good for steelhead populations. For every success story (like the Chilliwack) there are several outright failures. The entire hatchery enhancement program on the Island is an abject failure and has been proven to be incapable of reversing the decline of steelhead stocks in the long run or even maintain adequate fisheries for local anglers. It's improbable that throwing more money at hatchery programs will produce any significant positive result.

Overall Lee's reach for support of organized fishing and hunting groups isn't enough to show he has much grasp of what the problems are with our fishing and wildlife resources and smacks more of pandering to a specific interest group. I'd rather he make a statement that shows he understands what the real problems are in the woods, by the rivers, in the ocean and on the lakes which simply being 'our friend' does not do.

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Jk47

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Re: fishing/hunting friendly future premier?
« Reply #7 on: December 17, 2017, 01:03:55 PM »

I love to read your posts, Ralph. Not only do they contain a wealth of information along with somewhat sassy (one could say almost pessimistic) albeit clearly very informed viewpoints - but the shear quality of your writing, sentence structure, grammar, and command of the English language is always a joy to read.  :) Cheers!
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Steelhawk

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Re: fishing/hunting friendly future premier?
« Reply #8 on: December 17, 2017, 04:53:17 PM »


Overall Lee's reach for support of organized fishing and hunting groups isn't enough to show he has much grasp of what the problems are with our fishing and wildlife resources and smacks more of pandering to a specific interest group. I'd rather he make a statement that shows he understands what the real problems are in the woods, by the rivers, in the ocean and on the lakes which simply being 'our friend' does not do.

That may be true but to expect a busy politician trying to run for party leadership to dwell on detail on a policy page is not realistic. It will be nice if Brian Chan is running for this office (plan A) but since it is not going to happen (at least for now lol) then perhaps having plan B is not a bad idea. What we need is a premier who is willing to listen and won't enact laws or have policies unfriendly to our community. The details of what the problems are by river or lake will be the job of lower level staffers in those ministries having jurisdiction over these matters. They will report to the guys in charge of funding or making policy changes helpful to solving the respective problems. For the voters at this stage of the game it is already good enough to know who will likely lend a listening ears to our concerns. If a candidate is not even interested to reach out to us at this stage, nor interested to engage in a dialogue, then you can expect a deaf ear from him/her later after the election. My 2 cents on this.

As for the hatchery program being harmful to wild steelhead or harmful to steelhead population on the island, that is a subject beyond me. To me it may have a lot to do with ocean survival due to the invasion of warm water species and the island steelhead smolts are a lot more vulnerable to these predators due to the proximity to the open ocean there. This may tie in with the 'blob' of warm water in the north Pacific too. Who knows for sure and so I will reserve my judgement on the cause and effect of hatchery program on steelhead population. If this is the case, how do we explain the hatchery program in the state for steelhead? Do they suffer the same problem? I have talked to friends who fish SH in the States and the general impression is that they have a lot more fish and much more productive trip there than here and often it is due to hatchery enhancement. Once I sold my new Patagonia boots (not fitting me from online shopping) to a steelheader from White Rock who was a retired teacher. He said he only exclusively fished the rivers in the State for steelhead due to the productive trips there compared to here and he said some rivers like the Sol Duc can be very productive.
« Last Edit: December 17, 2017, 05:03:57 PM by Steelhawk »
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RalphH

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Re: fishing/hunting friendly future premier?
« Reply #9 on: December 18, 2017, 07:54:33 AM »

I suspect Lee's statement may be related to the Province's recent decision to support the South Okanagan National Park proposal, which has considerable (but not majority) local opposition. Government's of both parties and in particular the Horgan government has spurned input from the BCWF and it's President Harvey Andrusak. I love the constant use of the phrase "science based approach" we see these days. In the case of the park opposition is more about access, particularly for hunters and opposition to preferential hunting by First Nations. Certainly important community issues but hardly science based.

Steelhawk, East Coast Vanilse steelhead stocks declined dramatically 20 or more years ago . There wasn't even a sufficient return to support an living gene bank program and hatchery enhancement has been pretty much given up. "The Blob" had nothing to do with it. Many anglers don't even bother anymore and returns in the Stamp have tanked in recent years as well.

Like other rivers that run directly into the Pacific, many Olympic Peninsula rivers have fared better but overall Washington and Oregon has seen pretty dramatic declines, the same as in Southern BC

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« Last Edit: December 18, 2017, 08:01:43 AM by RalphH »
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Steelhawk

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Re: fishing/hunting friendly future premier?
« Reply #10 on: December 18, 2017, 11:02:32 AM »

I agree the steelhead fishing on the Island is a shade of its former self. I still remember a trip to the Gold with 25 wild steelies in one day some 20+ years ago. Gone are those glory days. I just don't know if hatchery enhancement is the culprit as there is no hatchery enhancement on the Gold and it still follows the general decline. It leads me to think that something is happening in the ocean causing such a decline. It could be due to excessive predation by the warm water species or the lack of food source which the blob is a major reason too. Warm water with little mineral nutrients just won't support enough plankton which means less krill and less squid & herring (and the herring roe fishery make it worse), and then less salmon and steelhead. This is happening to this year's poor pink run. My 2 cents.
« Last Edit: December 18, 2017, 11:10:09 AM by Steelhawk »
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RalphH

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Re: fishing/hunting friendly future premier?
« Reply #11 on: December 18, 2017, 01:11:54 PM »

I didn't say it was caused by hatchery production but overall there is good scientific evidence that in the longer term there are a lot of downsides for wild stocks.
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Steelhawk

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Re: fishing/hunting friendly future premier?
« Reply #12 on: December 18, 2017, 06:43:01 PM »

Anyway back to the subject of Michael Lee with his open letter to our community, the best is to show up on some of his campaign stops and ask him questions on fishery issues. My source told me that he will be meeting up with some supporters and potential voters tomorrow Tuesday at Coquitlam. I am going over there and ask him personally what he means by his open letter. Lol. If you have the time and want to ask him more about his policies, show up at:

 6:00 tomorrow at 2918 Glen Drive, Coquitlam (at Hu's Kitchen)

I was told it will be held in a Chinese restaurant called Hu's Kitchen. I will attend it and ask him to clarify his open letter. That is called taking a pro-active stance rather than debating about it here guessing where he stands on our fishing issues. Lol. If I find something interesting from Lee, will report back.
« Last Edit: December 18, 2017, 06:45:27 PM by Steelhawk »
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bigsnag

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Re: fishing/hunting friendly future premier?
« Reply #13 on: December 18, 2017, 06:45:29 PM »

I love to read your posts, Ralph. Not only do they contain a wealth of information along with somewhat sassy (one could say almost pessimistic) albeit clearly very informed viewpoints - but the shear quality of your writing, sentence structure, grammar, and command of the English language is always a joy to read.  :) Cheers!
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« Last Edit: December 18, 2017, 09:48:56 PM by bigsnag »
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bigblockfox

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Re: fishing/hunting friendly future premier?
« Reply #14 on: December 19, 2017, 08:45:09 AM »

i question the timing of this plea to the fishing and hunting community by mr lee. especially after the ban of the grizzly hunt by the greens and ndp. the ndp green alliance lost alot of rural bc support by this decision and the liberals are going to try to take advantage.

alot of hunters are not happy right now. i am not for or against the bear hunt as long as its backed by good science.
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