To stock or not to stock fish?

In the sixth instalment of Political Biology lecture series, Dr. Amanda Morbey from the department of Biology at UWO talked about a serious issue going in Lake Fisheries of Ontario. Fish farming has cause a lot of problems for some of the other species in lakes, stoking fish such as Chinook salmon causes problems because it drives other species away from their natural habitat. This is not only a problem for other fish species, but also for three kinds of people the aboriginal fishers, the recreational fishers and the commercial fishers. Morbey gave us lots of examples of fish species that have been harvest and a case study. Many trial an error attempts have been done to address this issue in my opinion, because in some of the graphs that Dr. Morbey showed us , they tells us that  fishing in big quantities causes problems for the fish species such as the case in Sturgeon fishery 9 of the 25 populations where eliminated because of overharvesting . Another graph that was shown was the stocking of Chinook salmon and how hatcheries were noticing that their production was increasing so they decided to lower their production so this shows that they are controlling the situation.

 Hatching or stocking Chinook is a costly practice but it benefits two kinds of people the recreational fishers and the commercial fishers because the big quantities that are produce causes the recreational fishers  to have the security that they will always catch fish, plus Chinook fish are larger and live closer to the surface of the lake than white fish. Even though 85 percent of what commercial fisheries fish in Lake Huron is wild fish, the Chinook that they catch is good to consume because it has low levels of mercury and is rich in nutrients plus they don’t have the precautions of extinction because they know they can be farmed.  As for Aboriginal fishers they are not too fond of Chinook fish as is not what they are use to.  They like lake white fish and lake trout these two species are over thrown by the Chinook salmon and extinct respectively. It is hard for the aboriginal fishers to get accustomed to a new kind of fish, and more when is not part of their culture. There are two moderators in this problem which foresee the biological and economical aspect of this problem. These people are the fishery manager and the hatchery manager; they are in charge of the ecosystem balance and to reach an agreement between the three parties. Based on the facts that Dr Morbey showed and the brainstorming that my classmates and I did in class, I think Chinook salmon should keep being stock because it helps tourism in the area and it provides a safe form of fish for us to eat. A lot of people have died from mercury poisoning and this is because they consumed high mercury content fish, there are many benefits of eating fish and Chinook fish is providing us with that opportunity. What it should be done is just keep controlling the hatchery of Chinook salmon and perhaps find way to stock the white fish and lake trout that aboriginal fishers like. So that everyone is happy. Competition is a great deal in these fish so may be reducing the amount of Chinook stock and an incrementing white fish or some sort of conditioning between the two species so they don’t fight could be a solution. Also the fishery manager should over see that the ecosystem is balance.