Fish Fuss

A falling out between friends

In tiny Haines, Alaska (pop. 1,366), some 200 Canadians were suddenly disqualified last week from the annual Salmon Derby. Exclaimed Contest Chairman David Olerud, owner of a sporting goods store: "My God, they're our neighbors!" In Atlantic and Pacific coastal waters, about 100 commercial fishing boats--60 or so American--withdrew in the direction of their home ports. Both countries then set their diplomats to thrashing out the issue that had divided them: the right to fish off each other's coast.

As border clashes go, it was remarkably civilized. The Canada-U.S. Fish War, as it was immediately dubbed, grew out of the adoption in 1977 by the two countries of 200-mile territorial limits for fishing. The jurisdictions overlapped in four areas: Georges Bank off New England, the Juan de Fuca Strait between Vancouver Island and Washington, waters off the Alaskan Panhandle and the Beaufort Sea off northeastern Alaska. With negotiations to settle the border problem going nowhere, Canada banned U.S. commercial fishermen from its waters. The U.S. quickly reciprocated.

Besides boundary lines, the dispute involves conservation. The U.S. last year gave Canadians temporarily increased access to U.S. West Coast salmon grounds, on condition that Canada close its Swiftsure Bank fishing area off British Columbia, where much of the U.S. salmon catch matures, from April 15 until June 14. Canada dawdled in honoring the proviso until May 15. On the East Coast, Canada demanded that the U.S. cut back its catch of scallops, cod, pollock and haddock on the Georges Bank to match quotas imposed by Ottawa on its own fishermen. State Department negotiators declared that Washington did not have the authority to impose such restraints.

Neither side wants the fish fuss to go on. Next week, negotiators will sit down again in Ottawa to seek a solution. In any event, while the dispute is causing hardships for some individual fishermen, it affects no more than $20 million worth of fish. Compared with the $50 billion in annual trade between the two countries, that is not much to be carping about.

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