Sask. tullibee fish harvest brings new cash and new concerns

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A lucrative opportunity for fishers at Pinehouse Lake to sell tullibee fish to Scandinavia benefits the community, but one man is worried about the environmental implications of the annual harvest.

The provincial government 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 the mining industry for 35 years and said he’s concerned about the possible long-term impacts of the surge in tullibee harvesting.

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“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,” Natomagan said. “But with economic opportunity comes environmental responsibility, stewardship and sustainability.”

For the last 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.

Natomagan said this practice isn’t normally done, and it removes massive amounts of tullibee from the food chain, where they’re 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 said it’s 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 effects for the environment and the fishing industry.

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

Since this practice has been ongoing for several years without a study, it will be impossible to determine the original tullibee population, he added.

Natomagan said he has contacted the federal and provincial environment ministers, as well as the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation — the company buying the tullibee and selling them to Europe — and got 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,” he said.

EFN Media contacted the provincial environment ministry about Natomagan’s concerns; a spokesperson said the ministry has not ignored him.

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

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The email said the ministry uses a number of methods to monitor 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.”

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

“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?”

According to the ministry, a full assessment of fisheries was completed in August and the results will be analyzed over the winter.

NC Raine is a Local Journalism Initiative based at Eagle Feather News. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.

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