Natural+Resources-+Ontario

media type="custom" key="21615580" media type="custom" key="21619946" media type="youtube" key="AwWy28JbdSk" height="315" width="420" Resource: Commercial fishing in the Great Lakes- Fishing SmeltCompany: Great Lakes Fishing CompanyTown: Wheatley Harbour, Lake Erie

**1. What is the resource? How is it extracted, used? What are the benefits/risks (environmental, social, economic) of developing the resource?** Resources often exploited in Ontario are fish, and among them are smelt, a type of fish that resembles salmon, except that they are much smaller. They are mainly used as food sources for other kinds of fish, such as salmon and trout, and also for humans. Smelt can be fried, and they are often eaten whole. They are used up in human activities such as ice fishing and smelt dipping. They are also extracted by using dip nets. Mainly they are used as a winter meal as people prefer cold water smelt over warm water smelt.

For economy there are benefits of extracting smelt. On the market, they are not sold at a high price but since there are many, it creates a steady income for the producer. Socially, fishing smelt can be a benefit as groups can go out and fish together. However, this is an expanding business and Great Lakes Fish Company ships locally, nationally and internationally so the demand for smelt is high. In the future managing the resource, so we don't over fish, will be something to discuss and solve.

Environmentally, the town of Wheatley, where the Great Lakes Fish Company is based out of, is facing poor water quality which affects fishing out of the lake. There are now restrictions on fish consumption, degradation of fish and wildlife populations, restrictions on dredging activities, eutrophication or undesirable algae and loss of fish and wildlife habitat. The pollution is being caused fish and vegetable processing plants. As Wheatley is now listed as an Area of Concern, the government as established the RAP which includes defining the problem, planning implementation, implementing the actions, and monitoring restoration of the environment. **2.Who are the different groups of stakeholders in the local area?** There are many stakeholders in the area of Wheatley Harbour. It is a small fishing town on the Canadian coast of Lake Erie, Ontario.It was founded in this area because of the vast quantities of fish in the lake. Even today, fishing is a major industry in the area. The most obvious stakeholders are the fishing companies, like The Great Lakes Fishing Company. They want to keep the resource going so that are able to still be in business. Other businesses in Wheatley are also stakeholders in the fishing industry. **3. Which branch of government is overseeing this development? Who is the MLA/ MP in the area?** The Ministry of Natural Resources is the section of the government that oversees the fishing of the smelt species in Lake Erie. The MP of Chatham-Kent-Essex is Dave Van Kesteren. Chatham-Kent- Essex is a federal electoral district in Ontario and where the commercial fishing harbor of Wheatley on Lake Erie is located. []

**4. Which company or gout agency is developing the resource?** A company in the town of Wheatley developing the resource is the Great Lakes Fishing Company. This company works to carry on the tradition that the Omstead family first began over a century ago. Customers can count on exceptional quality in their products and service, and smelt are caught often to keep satisfying their customers' needs, as the dish is their most popular menu item. This company has over 140 years of experience in both fishing and food processing, and it's no doubt that they'll continue to be even more successful, while numbers of smelt may begin decreasing.

Ontario shares the Great Lakes and its resources with the United States, which means that the management of these resources is an international affair. The Ministry of Natural Resources speaks for Ontario's interests in Great Lakes fisheries through its involvement in four of the Lake Committees.

**5. What is the history of our use of the resource?** **How was it done, by whom, etc?** A company that's capturing smelt fishes is the Great Lakes Fishing Company. This company has over 140 years of experience, for it started in 1911 and retail across North America into Europe and Asia. The current president is John Neate, originally started by the Omstead family from a small fishing village in Wheatley, Ontario, Canada. The Great Lakes Fishing Company's prefers to capture smelts from Lake Erie. They seasonally harvest the lake smelt and specialize it through IQF freezing and turn it into a finely-graded product that either has it's own Omstead brand label or costumers can order their own private labels. However, this company was recently closed down in mid-2010 to complete their restructuring process. The Great Lakes Fishing Company re-opened in April 4th, 2011 with new structures made to operate more efficiently. The company operates daily between March and November because that's when Lake Erie most productive. For more information about the Great Lakes Fishing Company, you can visit this site: @http://www.greatlakesfishcompany.com/

**6. What are the arguments for and against the project?** For: - Rainbow smelt is an invasive specie. It's eating habits may disrupt food webs and lead to the decline of zooplankton. Small animals that are eaten by other fish. The introduction of rainbow smelt has led to reduced populations of native fish. Rainbow smelt eat the young if other species and are then sometimes eaten by adult fish. This results in higher concentrations of contaminants in native fish which could result in a human health risk

-International relations We sell Smelt to foreign countries like Japan and Asian. These trading partners are beneficial countries to stay in good favor with.

Against: - Species are being introduced into the lakes for fishing purposes. After the numbers of that fish increase, predators must be increased in order to slow the growth of the species.

-Larger predators like trout and salmon use smelt as food. With today’s advanced fishing industry massive amounts of fish is collected each day and the smelt population is diminishing. This will eventually, in turn affect the salmon and trout populations and later the populations that feed of those salmon and trout.

**7. What are the alternatives to the resource?** Unlike trout, walleye, salmon and the smelts other predators, us humans not only fish for smelt to eat, but to also export, to use as bait for larger fish and to smelt dip. With this high demand, we should find alternatives to avoid overfishing the smelt. It probably wouldn't be very easy to decrease the amount of smelt we export, for it provided a useful and steady income. The easiest habit humans would be able to change is using smelt as bait for larger fish for there are many other alternatives. Live sandshrimp, (cured and pickled) herring or squid, night crawlers, shad and salmon kidney are (apparently) useful alternatives. Smelt dipping is a tradition in the parts of Canada and the United States surrounding the Great Lakes, where fishers used a dip net, and the occasional bucket, to scoop out many smelts at once. Since it is both a popular sport and a tradition which indicated the arrival of spring, getting that many humans to find an alternative would definitely be much more difficult than changing our bait.


 * Sources:**

[] [|http://www.ontario.ca/government/about-ontario#Ontarios_natural_resources] [|http://www.uoguelph.ca/~whulet/OGN/Vol1Issue1/Peter_Meisenheimer.htm] [] [] [|http://www.ecoissues.ca/index.php/Ontario's_Commercial_Fisheries_Policies] [] [] [] [] []