Another look at the northern tullibee harvest

The lucrative opportunity for fishers at Pinehouse Lake to sell tullibee fish to Scandinavia does benefit the community, but one man is worried about the environmental implications of the annual harvest however the province says it’s on top of the situation.

Clarence Natomagan, originally from Pinehouse, grew up fishing on the lakes. He also worked with the federal government and mining industry for 35 years and is concerned about the possible long-term impacts caused by the surge in tullibee harvesting.

“I love the fact that my people found the ability to sell cisco (also known as tullibee) to Europe, I’m all for those economic opportunities,” said Natomagan. “But with economic opportunity comes environmental responsibility, stewardship, and sustainability.”

For the past several years, fishermen in Pinehouse have been catching tullibee during their spawning season in the fall, in order to sell the egg-filled fish for caviar.

But this practice is one they don’t normally do, said Natomagan, and this kind of harvesting removes massive amounts of tullibee from the food chain – which are essential for other fish like walleye and northern pike.

“The cisco feeds these predatory fish,” he said. “If you keep killing these fish, by the time they notice the walleye or pickerel population will already be really low. Then these fishermen won’t actually have an opportunity to harvest these fish to sell regularly, which is their lifeline”

Natomagan believes it is imperative for the provincial or federal government to conduct a study at Pinehouse Lake to determine the tullibee population, the impacts of the mass harvesting on the other fish populations, and ultimately the long-term impacts for the environment and the fishing industry.

“What if we have to wait 15 years for our lake to recover?” he said.

And since this has been going on for a number of years without a study, it will be impossible to determine the original tullibee population.

Natomagan said he has contacted the Ministers of Environment from both the provincial and federal governments, as well as the Fish Marketing Corporation – the company buying the tullibee and selling them to Europe, with little to no response..

“The federal government should be obligating the province, and if the province did their homework and followed what they were required to do based on legislation, including the Fisheries Act, it obligates them to conduct the necessary studies or environmental protection activities so that the extraction of these fish do not detrimentally impact anything downstream,” said Natomagan.

EFN Media reached out to the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment about Natomagan’s concerns and a spokesperson indicated the ministry has not ignored his inquiries.

“Yes, the ministry has been contacted about the harvest,” said the spokesperson in an email. “Mr. Natomagan has received multiple responses from the ministry by phone, email and letter.”

The ministry is also not ignoring the well being of Pinehouse Lake. According to the email, it uses a number of different methods of monitoring the health of the fishery.

“This includes lake assessments, which examine population dynamics of the fishery; commercial production assessments; and reports from stakeholders and the public,” said the spokesperson.

The current process under the Fisheries Act is that all fishers have a limit and once they reach that limit on an individual species, their fishing activities come to a halt, said Natomagan.

“It’s a beautiful opportunity for the fishermen of Pinehouse and I fully support that, but I only support it if they do it sustainably,” he said about the annual harvest. “They can only do it sustainably if the province steps up and does the damn study. How else will you properly conduct extraction if you’re not doing your homework?”

The ministry completed a full assessment of fisheries this past August and the result will be analyzed over the winter.