DFO pleased with herring results for 2009, but not everyone shared the bounty

CFTK has posted a story on its website that outlines the results from the 2009 Herring season on the North Coast.

In the story, the success rate of the fishery was described as being: "So good that many fishermen met their quotas that same evening." With the DFO's are chief for the north coast stating that "the quantity and quality of the herring was up".

This years fishery saw 363 licenced vessels out on the waters seeking out the quota of 1300 tonnes of herring.

The successful nature of the fishery for the vessels as described by DFO, probably didn't translate to much employment on shore however.

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Over the last decade or so most of the herring caught in northern waters has been flash frozen and then moved on to the Greater Vancouver area for processing, where processing plants down south do the bulk of the work that was once done on the North coast.

It's another example of how the concept of value added industry has slipped away from the resource based communities such as ours.

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The result is that the once dynamic local fishing industry now mirrors the current state of the forestry industry here, where fish, much like raw logs are just loaded for shipment afar, taking with them many of the jobs that once provided this region with its employment base, not to mention provided for income and a stable base for the population of the city.