By Sonal Gupta, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada’s National Observer When Kurt Irwin was growing up near Salt Spring Island on British Columbia’s southern coast, spring meant herring season. He remembers the ocean turning white as the small fish filled the harbours, the sky alive with gulls and salmon chasing them just below the surface. “We haven’t seen that in many years… They [commercial fishing boats] literally fished it out,” said the now 58-year-old Irwin, a councillor for the Penelakut Tribe, located near Chemainus on Vancouver Island. Their members have also been pushing for a five-year moratorium on commercial herring fisheries to allow stocks to recover. For the 2025–26 season, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) approved the harvest of more than 2,000 tons of herring from the Salish Sea for…
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