Commerical Fishers Aren’t Emptying Lakes: Morin
Thursday, September 24, 2009 at 14:03
The Metis Nation – Saskatchewan’s minister of fisheries says the general public needs to understand that commercial fishers in the north aren’t out to drain the lakes of fish.
Max Morin says fishermen have some concerns with the provincial government’s fisheries management draft plan, which was the topic of discussion the past two days during a fisheries management roundtable in Saskatoon.
Morin says the fishers are concerned about quotas, and he wants people to know they aren’t wanting to clean out the lakes.
“Commercial fishermen have been in existence for years, and they’ve always maintained the lakes, because it’s their livelihood, and they’re not out there to kill out the fish. So if we can work something out somehow with the outfitters and the anglers and the commercial fishermen and the Metis and the First Nations — tie them together to sustain the resource, the fisheries resource, I think it will go a long ways,” Morin says.
Morin says any recommendations made at the roundtable will be written up and taken to the MNS fisheries advisory committee for further discussion, before those recommendations are taken to the fisheries branch of the Ministry of Environment.
Morin says there are some concerns with the draft, but he’s also happy that for the first time, Metis are being consulted about this plan.