Federal Protection for Alberta Fish

[PeterSL]

Alberta's Provincial fish, the Bull Trout, and the only species of Rainbow trout native to Alberta, the Athabasca Rainbow, are both listed as 'Threatened' by the province. On March 23rd the federal Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans announced that, on the advice of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, it would propose the addition of these species for addition protection under the federal Species at Risk Act (SARA) depending on input from the public. Listing under SARA would add federal support for their recovery with a focus on habitat restoration. A number of angling and wildlife organizations are looking at sending letters of support, some with conditions attached, but numbers matter to politicians and emails from individual anglers are sometimes as or more effective.
There's a deadline for comment - April 22nd - and a requirement: "Interested persons may make representations concerning the proposed Order within 30 days after the date of publication of this notice. All such representations must cite the Canada Gazette, Part I, and the date of publication of this notice, and be addressed to Julie Stewart, Director, Species at Risk Program, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0E6 (fax: 613‑990‑4810; email: SARA_LEP@dfo-mpo.gc.ca)"

The proposed Order can be found at:

http://gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p1/2019/2019-03-23/html/reg1-eng.html

[pikeman06]

Should call all native alberta fish threatened or endangered to keep the nets out of their gills while we take a good hard look at what we have left for fisheries and what direction to take. I think we could all swallow our pride and admit which lakes might actually support a self sustainable walleye population after all these years. Maybe there's some lakes that are pike perch and whitefish lakes and that's all they will ever be. Time to make a call biologists....just sayin. It ain't working and it takes forever to get back to where some of these fisheries were before the decade long protection of a species that nobody benefits from, especially the resident fish. Time to clean house and make some decisions in my opinion. Now the pike are fished out finally like the biologists must have wanted. What's the next move? Pike tags? Boy that's a good sign of successful management.