Write your MP's and MLA's

Come on BC. Wake up. Salmon is a large part of our food chain. When it's gone people will go hungrier than they are already.
Almost every MP and MLA has a spawning river in their riding. Write them all in support of this judicial inquiry. Tell them if they vote it down they have lost your vote if need be. Write the wanna be federal fisheries minister Gail Shae. Let her know you are out there. Write to MLA's and MP's even if they are not in the governing party.
This tragedy has to be stopped now. Not next year or in ten years. Now. Get off your collective asses and do something. These people are elected officials. They are in office at your bidding. Not for the filthy rich.

History shows us that no

History shows us that no conquest, colonization and enslavement could have taken place through the ages without the blessings of priesthoods, who encouraged the criminal activities of the conquerors, as the "will of the gods"

The same is happening today with the priesthood of so called "economists", licencing the destruction of the Earth as "growth" and GDP.

There's no point blaming the politicians on their way to strings of corporate directorships, without
questioning the garbage pouring forth from our universities, encouraging and accounting the biggest crime wave in human history, as "wealth creation".

Could Rafe, or anybody, please explain why and how the teaching, misleading and brainwashing students, politicians and the public with fraudulent theories, is untouchable and above any questioning ?

Unless there's some serious examination of the fraudulent theory of monetary economics will finally take place, there's no hope for the human race.

Ed Deak.

It's Up to Us

Social progress and change, including saving our wild salmon, ONLY occurs by citizen action. We have never obtain progress by the generous willing hand of the elites. Doctors and the insurance industry vehemently opposed Medicare, which included going on strike and attacking Tommy Douglas as a crazed socialist who would collapse the economy.

Absent the brilliant Rachel Carson and public outrage after Silent Spring was published, we'd still be spraying DDT onto our countryside.

Wild salmon NEED the voice of the people. If they receive enough support, we CAN save them.

Great article Rafe. I look forward to your work every Monday!

DFO may not know what happened to the missing Sockeye

But they do know that the Sockeye smolts disappeared in the lower reaches of the Fraser River, or the lower Strait of Georgia during the spring migration of 1997.

Rafe may know this, but I don't think that he wants the public to know this. That is because these fish died within sight of the lower mainland, far away from any fish farms.

Rafe may slag fish farms with a religious zeal. Rafe may be using the missing Sockeye as a tool in his quest.

It is sad that he doesn't seem to care about the destruction of the 1997 spring smolt migration, only about the destruction of the fish farm industry.

If he does care, he should research it, and write about it. Paul Sproat is an honest decent fellow. Perhaps Rafe could spare a few minutes of time to give him a ring.

In other words, the

In other words, the fishfarms are not doing any harm and there's no global climate change/warming ????????

Of course, we just have to ask the advertising agency by the name of the Fraser Institute for the correct answers. They know everything.

Ed Deak.

Wake Up !

I'm from the Maritimes where I practiced law for over 20 years. I watched the entire collapse of the Atlantic Cod Fishery. I watched as a culture was decimated and MILLIONS of tax dollars were funneled into communities as a result of total mismanagement of a natural resource.

It is going to happen on the west coast, as certain as there is cold crap in a dead cat, unless people get behind it NOW.
I am NOT an advocate of fish farming but I am also not certain that the entire problem rests there. Over fishing by fleets that are not properly supervised bu an inadequate policing service -- give the magnitude of our coast line -- silting of spawning beds by the logging industry - again - not properly policed due to inadequate manpower requirements etc. are probably contributors as well.
An inquiry is a necessity -- can you find an impartial
tribunal ?
I would certainly hope so ---- ????

Rafe is right

Its a total mystery to DFO why the sockeye have disappeared but they think its nothing to worry about because they'll return.

Of course DFO also thinks Elvis will be touring again soon.

Sometimes its hard to believe fisheries officials could be that incompetent so one has to assume Rafe is right and they want the salmon to go extinct in order to clear the way for more American-owned "run of river" projects.

Moran dam has been nuked

In 1952 they were saying the Moran dam would cost $500 million, produce 32000 gigawatts hours annually and create a lake 260 km long. That's $9 billion in $2009.

The impossibility of getting such a project approved in today's protest environment aside, Ontario has an $8 billion quote from Areva to build two nuclear plants producing the same amount of power on a 10 acre site without a 260 km reservoir. The Areva quote is more than double projected mass produced nuclear plant costs and those coming out of new Indian reactor builds.
Since mass produced nuclear power is the only cost effective and in time solution to the world's as little as ten years away civilization ending climate disaster, it appears that the Moran dam project is a non starter and can be put on the shelf forever.

However, given the utter stupidity and corruption shown with Canwest/Gordo's $45 billion dollar purchase of 10000 gigawatt hours of close to worthless Pirate Run of the River power - almost a world record for the most expensive "renewable"purchase yet - I wouldn't be surprised if Dick "Bagman" Coleman doesn't have a lucrative (to Gordo) proposal from some Liberal party Pirate hacks with associated campaign donations in his back pocket.

NDP Sockeye Enquiery

The NDP were part of the farm fish invasion. It's all about money and the need for feeding the future population. I recall being in seatle years ago listening to as scientist about aquaculture. with out it there will not be enough food he stated. The wild salmon can not produce what aquaculture can he said. with all the demands on the river systems the salmon is a trade off. DFO scientists whom once spoke out against fish farms were told never to do so again. So the government calls this conspiracy theories and paranoya. Fish farms bring in a lot money for government in the way of taxes Rememeber what happened in Norway and chile It's happening here

Keep it up, Rafe

Rafe, thank you for continuing to write on this issue. Ultimately, we are dependent on our environment and if we continue to destroy it, we will not survive.

Ed, you asked; here it is ...

The mindset within political, economic and educational spheres (from K to university and beyond), and within the bulk of humanity is a product of many guiding factors. When we examine the interconnectedness of these factors it not difficult to see why humanity continues to ignore the laws of nature. While these many, obvious factors that influence us have long histories and are deeply entrenched in all cultures, it seems religious, political and economic ideologies receive the most attention.

But when we consider the vast differences in ideology that define religions, politics and cultures around the globe, and the fact that the problems we face are global, it must be obvious that something else is taking place. And, despite all of the mental gymnastics used to give the impression that it’s economic theory or political ideology or culture we are left with the inescapable fact that the “something” is common to all of us.

That “something” is genetic and its ubiquitous nature is the product of natural selection. All life on this planet exists because it avoids pain and seeks pleasure. The conflicts within our human and non-human environments are the product of how we are taught to think, and how we are taught to respond to pain and pleasure (this goes beyond the basic survival response). Until we accept this, all efforts to change the political or economic components are simply so much hot air.

You can bet that if we changed economic theory ... everything else being unchanged ... and redistributed all of the existing “wealth” on the planet, with a few years we would see the same imbalance that we see today. It may end up in a few different hands but the outcome and problems will be the same.

KWD......I discovered in

KWD......I discovered in 1985 that the presently ruling neoclassical theory was a fraud, because the wrong/fraudulent definitions of economic efficiency, the GDP etc. figures. Since then the world has been rapidly going downhill into oblivion.

What I'm asking for is an economic system based on physical laws that no religion, or ideology can twist and fool around with.

Ideologies are faith based economic religions without any logical foundations.

I've lived in 4 countries, under every known ideology and know for certain that jumping from one into another would indeed just bring back the same destructive imbalances under the same predators, regardless what they call themselves..

Like we have right now the Soviet type collectivization of the economy into the hands of a criminal class of multinational corporations, while calling it "free enterprise" and "free trade" etc. lying crap.

Ed Deak.

fish farms

No one is saying that fish farms are the only cause of the decline in the wild salmon. There are many obvious causes which all need to be tackled now, but putting fish farms into closed containment and out of the ocean is a simple fix and a great place to start. Habitat destruction due to stupid logging practices, pollution, over-fishing, urban sprawl, climate change, Atlantic salmon spawning in native rivers, etc., etc. Many, many potential causes for the decline of the wild salmon, all need fixing. But where do you start? Start with the simple fixes like the fish farms and the Atlantic salmon. Lets get on with it. Doing nothing can only mean extinction for our legendary salmon. Doing nothing is just plain STUPID. STUPID. Not much of a legacy to leave our children, is it!

Speaking of damming

Speaking of damming (damning?) rivers, it's not just about power. Our friends the usians want our water, and the engineering proposal called NAWAPA is their breathtaking solution. Any dam built on the Fraser would be an eventual part of this stupendous transfer of water. Of course, no more running salmon would help sell this dam, but then again, a project like this would more likely be imposed rather than sold...

Two Sacred Cows you Forgot to Mention, Rafe

There are many reasons our salmon are going, going, gone. Two you didn't mention but dovetail right into the ones you did are as follows.

First, logging right across streams has decimated the salmon runs in BC. Here is an out of print report called, "Failure to Enforce", but it might as well be called, "Let's Kill All the Salmon!"
http://www.bcssp.ca/letters/nrdc_FIN.pdf

Second, fish from Salmon Hatcheries have replaced most of the wild salmon runs in the Georgia Basin with single-species salmon for sports fishing. There are numerous studies on this and the competition for food and spawning grounds.

The statistic I always remember on the hatcheries program is it cost 74 BC taxpayer dollars for each salmon raised in these hatcheries. Imagine if we had put those resources into preserving the wild stock.

But no, it's always short-term thinking.
I want my lolly now!

Salmon

Thank you to Rafe for another good effort and the NDP are the only political hope we have, as opposition to the "lying crap"! Keep telling your MP and MLAs that we want to protect our environment, and restore and rehabilitate our environment, but we will not accept current bad planning and denial of the facts and science. Mitigation, after the fact, is totally unacceptable. We need our environment intact as there is no health outside of ecology and no economy outside of nature.

Thank god.

NDP just got my vote.

Its a breath of fresh air to see some political activation within legislative bodies surrounding the state of our salmon.
I'm sure there are some Cod Fishers from the East coast starting the phrase, "I told you.....So..."

Were the "missing" sockeye ever there? How would we know?

Four points to consider:

1. The number of returning sockeye adults could be estimated from the number of outmigrating smolts and the marine survival. Are the smolts being counted or estimated as they leave the Fraser? I think not. There has never been a good smolt count on the Fraser - some its tributaries perhaps, but not at Mission.

2. Correct me if I am wrong but the City of Vancouver releases about half of its effluent as raw sewage into the Strait of Georgia - the product of three million people and industry goes into the sea untreated. The City of Victoria releases all of its sewage into the Strait of Juan de Fuca as if it were still 1950. Add to that the runoff from the Fraser watershed and you have a recipe for a dead zone in the SoG, where the only thing to thrive are jellyfish.

3. The resident orcas in the Strait of Georgia are the most polluted marine mammal on earth. As a top predator, orcas are a key indicator of the health of the marine environment and they dine on chinook salmon. See if you can see a connection between 1, 2 and 3. Go on, just for the hell of it.

4. The 2010 Olympics will cost BC about $5 billion, including $1 billion for security. Don't groan but I personally would have been much happier seeing that money build state-of-the-art sewage treatment plants for Vancouver and Victoria. I know it would have meant passing up on the luge and (men's-only) ski-jumping events, but there would be a legacy we could all be proud of instead of a 17-day circus with a few bent medals (if we are lucky), at the end of it.

Someone once said that a society that has leaky philosophy will also have leaky plumbing, and vice versa. Many civilisations in history have fallen because they had bad plumbing. BC isn't THAT bad but we could be much better than we are. We could emulate the City of Calgary, with their tertiary treatment plant. Instead we have primary treatment if any, with a promise of secondary treatment by 2015.

We eat salmon from the Fraser River, but we would never drink the water they have to swim in. Go figure.

"salmon"

if we should lose our salmon on the west coast, which I think is a very strong possibility we will also lose most of our local Orca population as they depend on Salmon as their main food source, we will lose all the coastal Black,Grizzly,Spirit Bears,
all the coastal Wolf Sub specie, all of the Eagles, Ravens, Gulls, I could go on. Just think how devastating this will be, not just for us B.C.ers but for the whole world. how tragic