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DFO Pitch to Expand Salmon Fishery Puts Endangered Stocks at Risk

'They should be scaling back,' says watchdog group.

Jeremy Nuttall 3 Apr 2015TheTyee.ca

Jeremy J. Nuttall is The Tyee's Parliament Hill reporter in Ottawa. Find his previous stories here.

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A fisheries watchdog group says the federal government's proposal to increase commercial salmon fishing this year puts pressure on endangered salmon stocks in British Columbia in the name of profits.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) released its commercial salmon fishing plan two weeks ago. The group, Watershed Watch Salmon Society, which studied it, said the proposed expansion could harm smaller salmon runs.

That's because more abundant species co-exist with smaller, more endangered salmon stocks, said Aaron Hill, the group's executive director. Those endangered species risk getting scooped up if commercial fishing is increased in the region.

"The problem is these endangered [smaller] stocks and the abundant ones swim alongside each other," Hill said.

"When you increase the fishing pressure in the areas where they're swimming together you can't catch the abundant stocks without hammering the endangered ones."

The government has proposed increasing the commercial salmon fishery at different locations across B.C. For example, it suggests increasing the commercial sockeye fishery in the Fraser River by about 8.3 per cent over last year.

Hill said that increase could affect the Cultus Lake sockeye run, a genetically distinct salmon species that uses the river at the same time as the Fraser sockeye. Cultus Lake sockeye swim up the Fraser to reach Cultus Lake. It's feared this sockeye would be caught along with the Fraser sockeye.

About 3,150 Cultus Lake sockeye were expected to return last year when DFO experimented with allowing higher harvest numbers. However, officials counted only 2,600, he said.

Hill said similar threats exist to salmon species throughout the province, such as some sockeye that use the Skeena River in northern B.C.

Mark Cleveland is head fisheries biologist with the Gitanyow Fisheries Authority, a First Nations fishery organization, based in Kitwanga, B.C. in northwestern B.C. Cleveland said he's worried the Kitwanga sockeye run in the Skeena River will take a big hit if the plan is put into place.

"Once they're gone, they're extinct," he said.

Kitwanga sockeye swim up the Skeena River with Babine Lake sockeye, but they reach their destination about 250 kilometres before the Babine Lake salmon, he explained.

The Babine Lake salmon run is larger and benefits from man-made spawning channels and other techniques to improve returns, unlike the Kitwanga sockeye.

Cleveland said the Gitanyow First Nation have set their harvest limit for Kitwanga at 1,000, the first harvest in years, with the ultimate goal being 5,000. The Gitanyow First Nation territory is northeast of Terrace, B.C.

Conservation Efforts

The average return over the last four years has been 5,600 fish with 9,000 expected this year, he said. That increase is up from the low hundreds in 2001 and is due to efforts made to conserve the stock.

He said the current catch limits that have been in place since 2009 have helped boost the Kitwanga numbers, but that increase is in trouble if the DFO increases the stock to satisfy commercial fishermen.

"They [DFO] are being lobbied basically to try and review the data again and justify higher exploitation rates," he said. "We've found that it's been this reduced exploitation rate since 2009 that's helped our stocks rebuild."

But the DFO's Dan Bate stressed in an email that the proposed plan is not finalized and the department is consulting with a variety of groups. The deadline for a finalized commercial fishery plan is June.

Bate said actual harvest numbers will not be solidified until the number of returning salmon is known. If spawning numbers are low, DFO could reduce the salmon fishery.

"Fisheries and Oceans Canada's goal is to manage Pacific salmon stocks in a way that supports their conservation and sustainable use while maximizing fishing opportunities for First Nations, commercial and recreational fishermen," he wrote.

Meanwhile Hill said the proposed increases province-wide could harm dozens of runs throughout the province representing about tens of thousands of salmon.

"It's just making it that much harder to rebuild these populations and it's actually taking a step backwards," Hill said. "They're increasing the fisheries. They should be scaling back and they're not doing anything to promote these really sustainable stock selected fisheries."

If those runs are damaged, or eventually wiped out, it could have serious consequences for the waterways and oceans of coastal British Columbia, he said.

The Watershed Watch Salmon Society has urged residents to voice their opinions to Fisheries and Oceans Canada.  [Tyee]

Read more: BC Politics, Environment

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