Fish crisis prompts protest

[Lee Borgersen]

    Lake Nipissing fish crisis prompts protest rally

Wednesday, June 17, 2015   by: Jeff Turl

A peaceful waterfront protest is planned Saturday August 1st to focus attention on the decaying state of walleye fishing in Lake Nipissing.

Organizer Reg Dupuis, who was born in North Bay, told BayToday that he is "outraged" by the waste reported recently with dead fish from gill netting being tossed back into the lake or dumped on land.

"Our main goal is to inform the public of the waste and hold the MNR and NFN (Nipissing First Nation) and the local politicians accountable for all the mismanagement and lack of enforcement. They're not giving us any answers.

"We're not pointing fingers at the natives, we're pointing fingers at the NFN leaders for their lack of enforcement and lack of disclosure. At the same time we have more native support now than I would ever have thought.

"I have native in my blood as well. Our ancestors used every bit of every creature that they took from nature. So from fish, to moose to bear, there was never waste.

 "To have a 'bycatch' and all this waste just doesn't make any sense. With the 13 gill nets last year and all these poachers, people defending it are just saying they have the right to do it but nobody is coming up with any viable resolutions."

Dupuis says over 500 people from across the province have already replied on the Facebook page that they will attend.

Stop the slaughter of Lake Nipissing  https://www.facebook.com/groups/474830829334237/

He also says he is compiling a shortlist of restaurants and retailers that are selling the fish caught from gill nets.

Dupuis is proposing fish farms, using native stock from Lake Nipissing.

To help fund the venture, Dupuis has started selling Tee shirts online with profits going towards getting an independent study of the fishery by a biologist to do a proper assessment of the lake.

See tee shirt site here: http://teespring.com/save-our-walleye-save-lake-ni

"We found a couple of local manufacturers that will print them at cost, so we can start selling them at North Bay retailers.

"We're also going to fund some of the restocking programs, inform the public, and if we can, pay for some enforcement.

See related story: Chief irked by fish dump, but so is guy who found it

http://www.baytoday.ca/content/news/details.asp?c=79648

Big waste of fish makes anglers angry:

http://www.baytoday.ca/content/news/details.asp?c=79605




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