Sentinels continue to serve

Before the cod moratorium in 1992, there were 25 fishermen in Bradore Bay and fishing was good.

Now only 10 still fish and the only reason they can is because of the sentinel commercial fishery that was established in 1994.

“If we didn’t have the sentinel fishery to lean back on we’d probably have to go away to Ontario to seek work like everybody else,” said long time fisherman, Gary Etheridge.

Marty Etheridge, another long-time fisherman, agreed.

“If I didn’t have this sentinel job it’d be hardly worth it,” he said.

“It’s an extra $15,000 a year.”

Each year the fishing begins in the latter part of June and continues on until mid-September.

Beginning with capelin, lumpfish, herring, mackerel and cod, the fishermen spend long hours leaving the dock at dawn to go to the fishing banks to haul their nets — just like their fathers before them.

“Some years are better than others, this year was mediocre,” Mr Etheridge said.

“The price of cod today is way down compared to the price we got per pound in the late eighties.”

According to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ website, the primary objective of the sentinel fishery program is to develop a series of abundance indices to use in cod stock assessments. The program essentially consists of contracts totalling $1 million dollars annually with the majority of funds dedicated to the leasing of fishing vessels.

The northern Gulf of St Lawrence sentinel fishery program became the first program on the Atlantic coast to incorporate abundance indices into stock abundance assessment analysis. The fisheries were developed in collaboration with fishermen’s associations along the Gulf to address issues surrounding cod stock decline.