Originally Posted by Pudelpointer
If you are older than 10, it has happened in your lifetime.
Your comments on this thread have been both ignorant and insulting. Don, and every other Albertan who pays taxes or buys a fishing license, has every right to raise issues and challenge our government experts, and / or those accessing our license dollars. I am going to assume that unless someone has a PhD in fish biology, their opinion does not matter to you, yet here you are sharing your opinion with the rest of us... please feel free to post your membership number to the American Fisheries Society. As neither my current degree, nor my pending one, are in "fisheries" feel free to denigrate and / or ignore the following comments (I am sure that most here would prefer the latter).
I have been following this issue for many years, and am familiar with all the reasons Police Outpost has been, and continues to be, a complete sh*t-show. I do not blame the ACA for this decision, yet I do not support it either. Any solution involving legislative changes would be years in the making, so that is pretty much a useless endeavour for this issue, and this location; however, there is existing legislation about fishing through the ice on beaver ponds iirc. So, maybe that could be modified in only two years.
Someone earlier mentioned using anchored barrels; I think this is very close to being both practical and adequate, except for the fencing requirement prescribed. I believe that anchored, heavily weighted buoys would be better, as they could be designed to stay upright regardless of ice conditions, and fencing could be attached directly each fall, if not left on all year.
I feel like sometimes both NGOs (ACA) and Gov bios fail to ask for support from the community to just get things done. Let's say that the buoy fencing idea is practical, but too expensive for the ACA to fund directly. Why does the ACA not ask the local (or Provincial) fisheries related non-profits to chip in? AFGA Zones have habitat project dollars available, as do various chapters of TU, local fish and game clubs, etc. We raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in this province every year, and many would see this as money well spent - providing quality fishing opportunities for Albertans. If you had gone to Police Outpost at any time this year, or to Bullshead earlier this decade before it began to annually winter kill, you would have seen the interest people have in these opportunities; as described it was packed! More people than I have ever seen there before. Now, I am not one for crowds, but there is lots of room on that lake and at no time did I feel like it was too busy (other than the boat launch and parking lot). I would hazard a guess that MANY of those people would be willing to contribute to a fishery such as Police has recently become.
I have been involved in multiple roles with Fish and Game clubs in Southern Alberta since I came here in 2004. Only once has anyone from Gov inquired about assistance with a project, and in the end they never asked for help, despite assurances that I would personally take it on.
In my former life in BC, I was involved from conception with a very large, very expensive elk relocation project. That project had buy in, and extensive assistance (both financial and volunteer labour) from the local fish and game club from day one, and later the local First Nation. That buy in made the project acceptable to (and widely supported by) the general public. The project ran for >15 years and has become one of the most successful ungulate reintroductions in modern times. While managing volunteers can be an issue, many projects are virtually impossible without them. Had the biologist who spearheaded that project tried to keep it "within government" it would have failed, 100%. All he had to do to get the project going was to ask for help.
Fish and game clubs used to be widely called upon by local bios to work on projects throughout NA. Now such partnerships are very much the exception, instead of the rule. The result is a fishing and hunting population with very little "investment" in their sport(s), other than the vast $$ spent on gear. That is unfortunate, and IMO is getting worse every year. People WANT to help, they want to be involved; why not let them?
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