Two recent cases of fish dumping has authorities concerned and while there are no suspects special testing could yield clues, a Department of Fisheries and Oceans enforcement officer said.
But at one site it's the other garbage that's concerning, one tribal official said.
According to Port Alberni fisheries officer Glen Lario fish was dumped in two separate locations.
“We’re investigating a site out by Franklin right now and there was another dumping at the top of the hump,” Lario said.
It’s too early to determine who discarded the fish. “Unless you see who dumped it you won’t know who did it,” he said.
Lario did however speculate on a possible reason behind it.
“People get greedy and end up with more than they can use,” he said.
“That, or they’ve still got fish left over from last year that they’ve discarded to make room for this year’s fish.”
The fish may or may not have come from the Valley, but DNA sampling will determine whether they came from the local hatchery, Lario said.
The second dumping site atop the hump was still under investigation and Lario had no information about it yet, he said.
A couple who asked to remain anonymous found the Franklin site while out for a drive at 4:30 p.m. on Friday.
“We took a side road off of Cameron Main and found it about a quarter if a kilometer up,” one of them said.
“It was devastating and just took your breath away,” the person said.
The fish was comprised of guts, heads and spines with meat on them. A pile of clam shells were also discarded nearby.
The stench wasn’t that bad yet and animals hadn’t eaten any, leading the couple to believe the dumping was recent.
More troublesome to the couple was a separate heaping pile of household garbage nearby.
Pictures provided to the News show a dishwasher, fridge, microwave, mattresses, carpets, drapes, a toilet, as well as clothes.
“It looks like a landlord cleaned out a whole house,” the person said.
The couple said they reported the dumping to DFO, the Tseshaht and Hupacasath first nations as well as the city and Alberni Clayoquot Regional District.
“We don’t want to speculate about who did it – we just want something done about it.”
The salmon derby and aboriginal fisheries took place recently.
Tseshaht councillor Luke George said he hadn’t heard of any of his members dumping fish. “That’s a long way to go out,” he said.
Tribe members are still fishing but are doing so according to a conservative fishing plan.
Tseshaht officials have been clear about overfishing though. “Don’t fish if you’re not going to do something with it,” George said.
The Hupacasath have fished recently as well, Coun. Steven Tatoosh said.
“I know who fished and I know how they dealt with their fish,” he said.
Tribal officials offered to freeze fish if members feared it would go bad on them, Tatoosh said.
It’s not just local tribespeople who had fish though.
There were also food fish distributions to aboriginal people from other nations who live in the Valley, he added.
The other refuse at the Franklin site was more alarming than the fish, Tatoosh said.
“The fish looks like just guts and backbones to me,” he said.
“I’d be more concerned about some of the other garbage.”
Source:http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_is ... 33689.html 
