Sinaran, the language...
This is one issue that I don't enjoy discussing because everytime I start talking about, it makes me furious, but there is a need to bringing it up constantly otherwise it will just keep growing.
Personally I hate seeing unnecessary death, especially when it is a slow one. I can't sit there and enjoy the fishing while a small fish is flapping around beside me while the person who catches it continues about with his business as if nothing out of a norm is taking place. It's a different mentality. Most of the people who are doing this are newly immigrants from China or other parts of Asia, it's a way of life and ideology on how fishing should be for them. What angers me is the fact that people continue to do so after being told off. As an immigrant myself, I believe that we should be doing our best to appreciate what has been offered and contribute to make what's available better. It's not happening here.
There are several solutions. Education would be on top of my list. I would like to think everyone has the ability to change when reasonings of those changes are understood. In the past two years I have been corresponding with the City of Richmond and Fisheries and Oceans Canada to have information boards set up at the main fishing locations (No. 3 Road Pier, No. 2 Road Pier, Garry Point Park). The boards would serve several purposes, one is to tell people what fish are available in the area, what they need to know if they want to fish, and important phone numbers to report violations. This project hasn't really gone anywhere. Last year the City rejected these FREE boards that DFO has provided because they were apparently not pretty enough. Since then, the Lower Fraser resource manager position at DFO has changed so we are back to square one until I bring the new person up-to-date on what's going on. The resource manager's top priority is the Fraser River salmon fishery, so I doubt this will be dealt with before this winter.
The other solution would just be to develop an information sheet that clearly states killing of unwanted fish is a violation, in both Chinese and English, as well as the mandatory release of sturgeon, wild trout and char, and phone numbers of DFO. I would have the sheet laminated, pinned at the pier. I can read most of the Chinese characters, but I can't write well or have the program to type them so others would have to do that.
The movement here has to be a positive one. If people are being told to put unwanted fish back to avoid fines, then DFO would be portrayed as the enemy to watch out for instead of an agency that anglers need to work with.
What would make this and hosting the annual event like this Saturday's easier is to have an organization formed here. Perhaps, the Greater Vancouver Salmon Society, or Greater Vancouver Angling Society. With a solid number of membership, it would actually move projects along much faster. Since we started doing "Fish for the Future", this idea has brushed by many times but I am not keen on doing unless quite a few people are onboard, because I want to have a life too...
Come to the event on Saturday, we can talk about it more.
Author
Topic: London's Landing again, July 3rd, 2007 (Read 1832 times)