Page 95 - Sjæklen2006

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for at danne modvægt til Hvide Sande Fiskeriforenings
interesser i fjordfiskeriet.
15. Interview med fjordfisker Hans Lodberg.
16. Oplyst af biolog Carsten Krog.
17. Kilde: Fiskeridirektoratet.
18. Maringeolog Fl. Gertz, citeret i Ringkjøbing Amts Dag-
blad 6. september 2006.
19. Oplyst af biolog Carsten Krog.
20. Interview med Marianne Linnemann, Oxbøl Statsskov-
distrikt, Fiskeritidende 25. juli 2002.
21. Interview med miljøkonsulent Carsten Krog, Fiskeri-
tidende 25. juli 2002.
22. Bjarne Dyrberg, personlig kommunikation.
23. Interview med fjordfisker Jes Ebsen, der afløste Hans
Lodberg som fiskernes repræsentant i sluseudvalget. Hans
Lodberg understreger dog, at fiskerne ikke på noget tidspunkt
har stemt for en saltholdighed på mere end 10 promille.
24. Kilde: Fiskeridirektoratet.
25. Citat fra reportage fra en tur på fjorden med fiskerne
Villy og Michael Møller, Nr. Lyngvig. Fiskeritidende 27.
oktober 2006.
26. Bjarne Dyrberg, personlig kommunikation.
Summary
In the decades up to the 1970s, pound net fishing for eel and
herring together with gill net fishing for species like flounder
comprised the bulk of commercial fishing in Ringkøbing
fiord, occupying hundreds of fishermen. Most catches were
sold at Hvide Sande fish auction, but eels were exported
directly to Holland and Germany. Since the opening of the
sluice between Ringkøbing fiord and the North Sea in 1931,
commercial fisheries in the fiord had been affected by the
extent to which salt water from the sea was mixed with the
brackish water in the fiord. In general, the salinity of the
water in the fiord was kept low and stable, but this practice
began to be reconsidered as the fiord experienced a steady
decrease in fish stocks from around 1970 onwards. In 1975
there were around 130 full-time fiord fishermen still active
in the various small fishing locations along the fiord coast.
A decade later, only 30-40 remained.
Fishermen and biologists generally agreed that the crisis
in fish stocks was principally due to the negative effects
on the fauna from pollution, partly from towns and partly
from nutrients entering the fiord from farms. The authorities
therefore decided to change the way in which the sluice
at Hvide Sande was used to regulate salt water intake to
the fiord, and from 1987 onwards the sluice was used to
increase salinity in the fiord. The intention was to dilute
the polluted brackish fiord water with sea water in order to
produce clearer water and to provide more sunlight to the
benthic vegetation in the fiord, thus creating better growth
for the benefit of flora and fauna.
Commercial fishermen warned that sudden increases in
salinity would be harmful to the fiord vegetation, and thus
also to the fish species dependent on it. But the increased
intake of salt water from the sea was continued, and fishing
further declined in the following years. The disagreements
between fishermen and biologists continued through the
1990s as eel, flounder and herring fishing declined, and
fishermen blamed the unstable salinity in the fiord for
causing periodic damage to vegetation and problems for fish
stocks. But during this period, the fishermen experienced
considerable success through the hatchery Bjerregaard Helt-
klækkeri with hatching whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus),
a salmonid fish species which lives and spawns naturally
in the Ringkøbing fiord waters, but which had suffered a
serious decline through the twentieth century.
Since 2003, the practice has been changed and sluice
activity reduced in order to maintain a more stable salinity
in the fiord, and by 2005 and 2006 this seemed to have
improved living conditions for flora and fauna. Commercial
fishing in the fiord region had declined to a level where
only a few full-time fishermen remained. They now enjoyed
increased catches of herring, whitefish and flounder, but
times had changed, and nature conservation, protection of
salmon for leisure fishing and a large colony of cormorants
in the middle of the fiord were new elements to be contended
with, so that renewed larger scale commercial fishing in the
fiord no longer seemed to be a realistic vision for the fiord’s
future.