MAGNETAWAN – There’s something fishy in the water.
The Almaguin Fish Improvement Association has been stocking both Ahmic and Cecebe Lakes with walleye fry for the majority of the past 35 years. But that could be changing.
“We have been informed that the genetic testing costs and record keeping are too much for the Ministry (of Natural Resources and Forestry) to handle on their limited budget,” association past president Jim Shaw says.
“The fishery in Lakes Ahmic and Cecebe seems to be on the decline and the (association) is attempting to combat this problem. There are numerous advantages to a healthy pickerel population in area lakes. … We don’t want to see our fishery go the way of what has happened in Lake Nipissing.”
“We don’t want to see our fishery go the way of what has happened in Lake Nipissing.”
– Almaguin Fish Improvement Association
Shaw presented at a Feb. 26 Almaguin Steering Committee meeting to members of local councils and the public about the problem.
“We hope you will see fit to pass a resolution demanding that the MNRF allow the (association) to continue with their efforts to improve our area’s walleye population in a self-sustaining program, requiring no funding from outside agencies,” Shaw said.
The representatives present agreed to take the resolutions back to their respective councils.
Under the MNRF license and association’s watch, mature fish are caught in the Magnetawan River at the municipal park, milked of eggs and sperm, and the fry are then hatched in the basement of the Magnetawan museum, just below the village dam.
In 2008, the MNRF shut the hatchery program down, but after lobbying with various municipalities and Parry Sound-Muskoka MPP Norm Miller, the volunteer members of the association signed an agreement to reopen the hatchery for four years starting in 2011 — which is now up. Under the new contract, the association attempted to continue the restocking program, including genetic testing, and introduced a biology education program to Magnetawan Central School. Shaw says these initiatives have met with mixed results.
“We have not had particularly good luck in catching mature fish over the past couple of years and as a result have not done the genetic testing as the MNRF requires,” he says.
“The school program has run very well.”
The low catch rate could be due to a number of factors, Shaw says, including missing the spawning period, a low number of mature fish, limited time allowed for netting of mature fish, and “overzealous oversight by the Ministry.” As well, the association says the genetic testing puts severe pressure on the fish being milked.
The association has presented options to the ministry in an effort to lower costs and government oversight, including volunteering to purchase a trap net and asking the MNRF to deputize several association members as wardens to supervise the operation.
“In response the Ministry has told us we can buy fry from them and introduce them into the area lakes. We could also hatch the eggs and give them to commercial fisheries for them to raise and sell,” Shaw says.
“The MNRF claims they are afraid we’ll alter the genetics of the population, despite the fact we’re putting the fry back in the same waters from which they originated. Then they tell us we would alter the genetics of the population but want us to buy fish from elsewhere and put them in the lakes.”
Shaw says the association’s main concern is that they don’t have a clear indication on whether the MNRF will let the hatchery continue and, if not, the reasons why.
“Their statement to us, in principle, we don’t want fry planting to happen,” Shaw says.
“Well, is that principle based on science? Is it based on whim? Is that principle being applied in other jurisdictions? We don’t have answers to any of that.
“Our hatchery does not cost the public domain one thin dime. Not a nickel has been spent over the past three decades with public monies. Our monies come from individuals, our monies come from cottagers associations at both Ahmic and Lake Cecebe and we have built our hatchery with our own little hands and put it together and it works like a dream.”
After Shaw’s presentation during the steering committee meeting, audience members chimed in with their own opinions.
Armour coun. Jerry Brandt said he raised the issue with the minister during the Feb. 23 Ontario Good Roads Association conference in Toronto and he was approached by an aide afterward to speak about the topic.
Ed Kneller, a Magnetawan resident, asked Shaw what would happen if they set the nets without a license.
“We would be drawn, quartered, and hung to dry,” Shaw replied.
“Most days when we were in business there’s an enforcement officer sitting in the parking lot watching what we’re doing. I have no doubt they’d be out there with claws out.”
“Well, if you would like and you’re going to set those traps, I’ll go out there and collect them and if they take me to jail… I’ve never been to jail,” Kneller said.
“It would be my first time. Maybe some people would notice.”
“I’ve been there a number of times and I don’t want to go back,” Shaw replied amid audience laughter. “I should clarify that I was a police officer.”
Overall, Shaw says the association is just a group of people trying to do something for the good of the environment and the good of the neighbourhood.
“The ministry has a slogan: do no harm,” he said during the presentation.
“We don’t do any harm. In all the fish we’ve handled and all the years we’ve been handling them, we’ve lost what I think is maybe two fish. Maybe. The Ministry’s done some creel counting and they’ve lost hundreds of fish. We’re kind of proud of our track record. We’re proud of the contribution we make. And we need some support to get us over this hump.”
Originally posted by:
Rebecca Zanussi
Almaguin News
