The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Seeking balance on the Margaree
“May the scales be in your favor” is scribbled on a whiteboard in the Chiasson’s baby barn beside the Southwest Margaree River.
It’s one of those maxims that can be taken as a wry joke on the accuracy of a fish monger’s scale or an insight into life.
Because a scale can’t be in anyone’s favour until it’s balanced.
Playing with his four-yearold granddaughter while his daughter, Grace, hauled a trap load of gaspereau on a sunny Wednesday morning, life was looking reasonably balanced to Pierre Chiasson.
“All that we have under our control is what we do on the river,” said Pierre Chiasson.
“Right now, I think we have found a good balance.”
That, however, is a matter of some debate.
A soon to be released stock assessment for Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence gaspereau will estimate the number of fish that reaches Lake Ainslie each spring to spawn as being in the critical zone.
“The catches and biological characteristics all show significant declining trends,” said Cindy Breau, a Fisheries and Oceans Canada research scientist.
Though gaspereau travel up nearly every sizeable river along the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence through May and June to lay eggs/spawn in the water column, the DFO stock assessment relies on data collected on the Margaree and Miramichi rivers.
That data is based upon measurements of fish caught at a Dfo-operated station on the Margaree and on log book data from the approximately 12 commercial traps on the river, like the Chiasson’s.
It is the first assessment of southern Gulf of St. Lawrence gaspereau in many years.
By pegging the number of fish that gather below the Margaree in the spring as in the “cautious zone” and those that make it past commercial fishermen and natural hazards to spawn in Lake Ainslie as being in the “critical zone,” the assessment has the potential to cause management to reduce the days that the fishery can be pursued.
Currently, the fishery is closed Sundays and Mondays, with crews on either side of a bridge on the Southwest Margaree taking turns fishing full days or half days.
Chiasson takes issue with the assessment – saying it relies upon the spawning stock of the late 1980s as a baseline.
“In the 70s and 80s there was an incredible abundance of fish that’s never seen before except post-world war, when there was no market,” said Chiasson.
“It’s a false baseline. They’re using that as the baseline of what’s normal when it wasn’t normal, it was extreme. Not to say it didn’t get overfished. It did and measures were taken. But certainly the stock is far and away better from where we were in early 90s.”
Chiasson’s family has been trap fishing gaspereau on the Southwest Margaree since the 1850s.
Over those generations, the family’s lives have been tightly tied to the changing fortunes of the gaspereau.
When the final rocks were dumped for the causeway across the Strait of Canso in 1955, the fish’s migratory route back into the Gulf of St. Lawrence was blocked and they showed up a month later in the Margaree River.
The next year they were on time again.
After a decline, Chiasson said the stock built heavily through the 1970s and reached a peak in the 80s. A new market opened up for canned fish in Europe and it became a bonanza with some 80 traps being operated on the river.
Then the stock collapsed. “I wouldn’t say there was perfect harmony on the river as there weren’t enough fish to go around,” said Chiasson.
The schedule, drawn up by Chiasson in consultation with other fishermen and DFO of who gets to fish when, was born as a tool to fairly limit the effort. Over the years it’s been tinkered with as they seek to balance what they take from the river with what is allowed to get by to spawn.
“In the 60s you would see nine and 10 year olds fish,” said Chiasson of the gaspereau, which first returns to the river of its birth to spawn at about three years old.
“You want that wide spectrum of age. We were through the 90s seeing mainly younger fish, but now we’re seeing six and seven year old fish.”
By his measure, and that of other trap fishermen on the river, the stock is slowly building after a period of decline.
For her part, Breau said the age range of spawning fish remains younger than in the early 80s. While acknowledging historical stock fluctuations, she said it has “recently gone down and remains low.”
What Chiasson and Breau agree on is that they both want balance for the river.
So someday, Mariek, the four year old whose toys partially fill the Chiasson’s shed on the river, can join her mother, grandmother and grandfather hauling a living from its waters.