Disconnect? How incompetent DFO really is. By Bob Hooton

[OldBlackDog]

Disconnect?
The status of those much talked about Interior Fraser Steelhead (IFS), principally the Thompson stock, is anything but a secret to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). One would assume there would be a bit of communication through the chain of command when fisheries directly impacting those stocks were being contemplated. Here’s a bit of evidence to suggest otherwise.

The net fisheries targeting Fraser chum salmon as they migrate down the coast through Johnstone Strait (DFO’s management areas 12 and 13) are long accepted as an issue in terms of the mortality of incidentally caught IFS. Strangely, though, the announcements on fishery openings in those areas never mention IFS. Fishery announcements come from the DFO office in Campbell River, the nearest one to the fisheries of concern. At the same time (i.e. hours apart on the same day) announcements are being made by the Campbell River DFO staff we have DFO’s “Ops Centre Fishery PAC” broadcasting updates on the status of the Fraser River chum stocks. Bear with me while I provide some background that has me wondering who is who in the DFO zoo and whether or not they ever communicate with each other.

October 11, 2018 – DFO, Campbell River announces their previous bulletin (dated Oct 10) indicating the Fraser chum abundance was tracking at less than the internationally prescribed 1M threshold that would allow net fisheries had been updated according to recent test fishery catches. Commercial seine and gill net fishers were put on notice to watch for announcements of fishery openings.

October 11, 2018 – Hours later, as per the preceding item, DFO Campbell River announces a gill net fishery opening for Oct 18-20 (FN 1131). Strangely, the fishery announcement preceded the announcement there might be one one coming.

October 11, 2018 – A commercial seine opening is announced for October 15 (FN 1136). The gill net opening announcement originating in the Campbell River DFO office the same day bore a different signature than the seine opening announcement.

October 15, 2018 – DFO Campbell River announces (FN1153) a one hourextension of the October 15 seine fishery. How’s that for management precision?

October 17, 2018 – DFO Operations announces (FN 1161) an update on the Fraser River chum status. “The current run size is not sufficient to allow for commercial opportunities in the Fraser River”. The projection was there was only a 47% chance the run would exceed the escapement goal of 800,000. One might reasonably conclude any chum harvested in Johnstone Strait would only serve to increase the chance that the chum escapement goal would not be reached. The notice goes on to state “Opportunities to harvest chum salmon will be constrained by management objectives for IFS which is a stock of concern presently co-migrating in the Fraser River. Harvest opportunities in all fisheries will be planned to minimize impacts on these stocks, as outlined in the 2018 South Coast Salmon Integrated Fisheries Management Plan (IFMP). Fishers are required to take every measure possible to ensure that their fishing activities avoid impacts on steelhead. Any steelhead encountered must be released with the least possible harm.”

October 22, 2018 – DFO Campbell River announces (FN 1176) gill net openings in areas 12 and 13 for Oct 26-28. The only mention of steelhead is their inclusion on the list of non-retention species (chinook, coho, sockeye and steelhead). The usual extensive verbiage about reporting sea turtles and dead birds is included. They missed the standard orca paragraph this time though.

October 22, 2018 – Four hours after FN 1176 comes FN 1179 from the DFO Operations Centre. It states there is now only a 36% chance the chum escapement goal for Fraser River chum will be reached. Otherwise FN 1179 is a carbon copy of FN 1176. Somehow the chum abundance in Johnstone Strait is no longer linked to the DFO test fisheries on the lower Fraser.

As one interested in the status and welfare of IFS I couldn’t help noticing reference to recent Johnstone Strait test fishery catches and “the in-season chum Working Group” on one of the DFO notices. Not finding evidence of Johnstone Strait test fisheries on any DFO web sites it seemed logical to ask the notice signatories where I might find that information. Both responded within hours. One came back with a link to a web site that I’d already looked at. It produced nothing but a blank page which was the reason I sent my question in the first place. The other sent a different, previously undetectable link that had all the test fishery information for multiple sites in Johnstone Strait. I offered sincere thanks but reiterated my other question – who speaks for the recreational fishing community on that chum working group?

Days later with no response I sent a follow-up message to DFO’s Regional Director General posing the same question. While I was at it I asked for the catch data from the recent Johnstone Strait fishing openings. That should be immediately available according to the detailed catch reporting requirements laid out very clearly in the individual fishery opening announcements and the conditions of license for participants. Not surprisingly, I haven’t heard on that question either.

Meanwhile, out there on the Fraser where there can’t be any commercial fisheries due to DFO’s declaration there are not enough chum salmon to meet its escapement goal, the First Nations fisheries have now switched from beach seines targeting sockeye to drift nets and set nets targeting chum. The overlap between late returning Adams sockeye and IFS and the impact of any netting was concerning enough. Compounding that by going with the most lethal nets possible when the target species overlaps completely with IFS in both time and space is beyond comprehension. Remember, that spawning population of Thompson origin steelhead was 150 fish this past spring. If that number doesn’t ring conservation bells such as never before, what will?

Those IFS are in more trouble than I ever would have imagined, especially after the cumulative, unprecedented efforts of so many concerned individuals and organizations since this time one year ago.

 

[searun]

I suspect the response would be something along lines of there is a 1 in 10,000 chance that an IFS would be intercepted in the fisheries....acceptable risk, full stop. 150 steelhead amoung nearly a million chums makes for very low probability of interception will be the answer.....wait for it.

In-river selective fishing using fish traps is the answer for protecting IFS, while allowing a totally sustainable fishery to take place. We can achieve a balance between protecting the environment and allowing economic opportunity. And, those fish could be marketed as more highly valued "sustainably caught" fish garnering even higher price per fish than other non-selective fishery methodology. Pretty soon everyone will want in. Time for a change.

 

[searun]

I sure hope DFO is correct, there's a lot to risk if they aren't. Just read on another thread about the severe lack of chums in the Squamish system - which is a tragic situation if true. Frankly I'm a bit puzzled how we can figure there are enough chums to run any fisheries - including recreational retention of chums.

 

[OldBlackDog]

The Fish Trap at Sooke BC with the tug J.W.P. and the tender Olive M berthed alongside. (Photo from the Doug MacFarlane collection. )

Huge fish traps modelled on the principal of the relatively modest First Nations traps were established on Vancouver Island and the mainland. This was a cheaper and harvesting approach than sending boats and crews to sea with equipment and operating costs. They were based on exclusive licences operated with small crews and producing large profit returns. The Bell–Irving family also established a trap at Point Roberts. By 1896 there were 19 traps on the US side of Boundary Bay and two on the Canadian side. The catching ability of the traps exceeded the ability to process the fish.

Concern about conservation of salmon stocks was a theme that arose early in the life of the organized fishing industry. The efficiency in harvesting was increasing, and habitat was decreasing. Fishermen’s organizations persistently asked for fish traps to be closed and for regulation of seine gear. This was analyzed by a Royal Commission in 1940 but the elimination of traps was rejected. The USA banned traps in 1935.

There was a fish trap at Sooke operated by Sooke Harbour Fishing & Packing Co. My cousin and Sooke resident Douglas MacFarlane worked on the pile driving at the trap. Once it was constructed he got a job as Second Watchman and then as Head Watchman, a position he held for 5 years.

I suspect the response would be something along lines of there is a 1 in 10,000 chance that an IFS would be intercepted in the fisheries....acceptable risk, full stop. 150 steelhead amoung nearly a million chums makes for very low probability of interception will be the answer.....wait for it.

In-river selective fishing using fish traps is the answer for protecting IFS, while allowing a totally sustainable fishery to take place. We can achieve a balance between protecting the environment and allowing economic opportunity. And, those fish could be marketed as more highly valued "sustainably caught" fish garnering even higher price per fish than other non-selective fishery methodology. Pretty soon everyone will want in. Time for a change.

 

[agentaqua]

DFO (before they were called DFO) actually outlawed FN fish traps & weirs in many watersheds up and down the coast from the late 1800s into the early 1900s:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/brit...vival-launched-by-first-nations-man-1.3184856
https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/aboriginal_fisheries_in_british_columbia/

 

[OldBlackDog]

http://alaskool.org/projects/traditionalife/fishtrap/FISHTRAP.htm

 

[OldBlackDog]

matthew k
October 23, 2018 at 10:59 pm


Oh without a doubt a disconnect for sure, 40 years fisheries on the inside were managed by 1 biologist in nanaimo. Test fisheries were ran by local dfo offices that contracted them out in season. All the data would get sent to the 1 biologist he would put it though his magic calculator and determine if fisheries could take place. DFO enforcement would then be onsite management the fisheries, would call in the catch and the biologist in nanaimo would make the call to close the fishery or extend it. Sometimes fisheries would close it early before quota was met and commercial guys would do nuts. This sometimes ment another short fishery usual resulting in them going over the quota. At that time the same people that managed the fisheries and enforcement also were the same people that went in the fall and counted all the spawning areas.

Then at some point DFO went though a big change, They Basically gave their workers the choice of becoming resource people or enforcement people. Enforcement stopped managing fisheries and resource people managed the fisheries. At that same time they bought in a bunch of fancy biologist that had no clue but got paid more than the resource people who they started to displace.

Disconnected is right

Now fisheries are managed by biologists that never leave their desks, Enforcement has been cut and most small streams dont even get enumerated.

A fisheries officer today wouldn’t have a clue on even what small streams have salmon in them.

disconnected and clueless

As noted in one reply to this post.

I sure hope DFO is correct, there's a lot to risk if they aren't. Just read on another thread about the severe lack of chums in the Squamish system - which is a tragic situation if true. Frankly I'm a bit puzzled how we can figure there are enough chums to run any fisheries - including recreational retention of chums.

 

[OldBlackDog]

https://tdn.com/news/local/columbia...cle_7fc5324d-c385-5404-baa3-616cf838846f.html

 

[searun]

Fish traps are the best sustainable fishing method yet developed - we need to help the commercial and FN transition to their use.

 

[wildmanyeah]

Fish traps are the best sustainable fishing method yet developed - we need to help the commercial and FN transition to their use.

They are a good option for FSC fisheries where fish are share among the community.

People far smarter than me will have to think of a way they can be incorporated commercially and somehow deal with all the outstanding gillnet licenses.

 

[OldBlackDog]

Fish traps are the best sustainable fishing method yet developed - we need to help the commercial and FN transition to their use.

You may not really like what you are asking for. This can easily become a double edged sword.

 

[agentaqua]

Nation revitalizes traditional fish weir to manage salmon
https://salishseasentinel.ca/2018/10/nation-revitalizes-traditional-fish-weir-to-manage-salmon/

 

[Derby]

You may not really like what you are asking for. This can easily become a double edged sword.

You have a alternative?? Double edge sword? please enlighten us with your pearls of wisdom??

 

[wildmanyeah]

Business as usual?? More finger pointing? perhaps they should also be asking DFO for the Recreational by catch numbers.... Their is no directed commercial fishery for steelhead and sturgeon yet recs can go after them... Coho and Chinook there's very little commercial pressure yet recs can target and bonk them? Pretty easy to point the finger back too!

I guess there is nothing to loose for the Fraser river angler tho who has seen just about every fishery get closed in the past years.

 

[Dave]

Wow! I hadn't seen the sturgeon picture. Very sad.

 

[searun]

Here's the reader's digest summary of the science advice paper on IFS (steelhead). Stubbornly pursuing a uni-strategy approach by focusing on just in-river fisheries is not the answer. Addressing pinniped predation in concert with helping move toward selective fishing technology is a significant strategy that some groups have simply ignored. Or rather, I think they refuse to be bothered reading the science. We need to shift away from "Faith Based Science" that supports a preconceived view of the world, and replace that with an open mind to other science based options.

1 SUMMARY

• On January 10th, 2018, COSEWIC’s Emergency Assessment Subcommittee conducted an emergency assessment of the Thompson River and Chilcotin River Steelhead Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). The Subcommittee assessed both designatable units (DUs) as Endangered and recommended that an Emergency Order be issued placing these wildlife species on Schedule 1 of the Species at Risk Act in accordance with Section 29(1). In support of a listing recommendation, DFO Science has been asked to provide this emergency Recovery Potential Assessment (RPA).
  
  
• The flexibility of O. mykiss life history can potentially enhance the viability of Steelhead Trout populations but can also put them at increased risk. Anadromy and residency are highly heritable phenotypes in the genus. Accordingly, and consistent with recent status assessments for both Atlantic Salmon (Salmo Salar) and Sockeye Salmon (Oncorhnychus nerka), this assessment of Thompson and Chilcotin O. mykiss concerns only Steelhead Trout. This approach is consistent with those used by US fisheries management agencies where anadromous and freshwater-resident forms of O. mykiss are assessed separately.
  
  
• Thompson and Chilcotin Steelhead Trout escapement has been declining for 15-20 years. The number of mature fish that returned to freshwater from the ocean in the fall of 2017 and spawned in the spring of 2018, were 177 and 58 for the Thompson and Chilcotin Rivers, respectively. The decline of Steelhead Trout spawners over the last three generations has been 79% (over 15 years) for the Thompson DU, and 81% (18 years) for the Chilcotin DU.
  
  
• Exploitation rates of Thompson and Chilcotin Steelhead Trout due to bycatch in salmon fisheries and through targeted sport fishing were estimated and used to calculate pre-fishery abundance (recruitment). Model-based estimates of exploitation rate ranged from 7-26% (average of 18%) over the last 10 years. These estimates do not include losses from targeted First Nations fisheries in the Fraser River upstream of Hell’s Gate, and in the Thompson, and Chilcotin rivers.
  
  
• A Ricker stock-recruitment model with time-varying productivity was fit to the spawner-recruit time series for each DU. Both DUs show a steep decline in productivity over the last 30 years with the most recent estimates just above or below one recruit/spawner. If productivities less than one recruit/spawner persist, these populations will continue to decline even in the absence of fishing mortality.
  
  
• Factors often included as perceived impediments to the survival and recovery of Thompson and Chilcotin Steelhead Trout include habitat degradation (Thompson only), reduced water quantity and increased water temperature (Thompson only), mortality from First Nation fisheries targeting Steelhead Trout, fishing mortality due to bycatch in salmon fisheries, mortality from directed non-retention sport fishing, poor ocean rearing conditions (increased competition, reduced prey availability due oceanographic cycles or regime shifts), and increased predation from marine mammals in the ocean.
  
  
• We evaluated the importance of some of these factors by examining relationships between the log of productivity for Thompson and Chilcotin DUs estimated in the stock-recruitment analysis and a variety of covariates. Harbor Seal abundance and an index of pinniped predation risk were inversely correlated with log productivity and explained about 85-90% of its variation over time. Total biomass of Pink, Chum, and Sockeye Salmon in the North Pacific Ocean was also inversely correlated with log productivity and explained about 50% of its variation. Indices of ocean climate and streamflow in freshwater rearing habitat were poorly correlated with log productivity. The strong correlation between log productivity and
  

1

Harbour Seal abundance and pinniped predation, combined with similar findings for other salmon species, and information from studies of seal diet, seal energetics, and seal-related salmon mortality, suggest that seal or pinniped predation is likely a dominant cause for the decline in productivity of Thompson and Chilcotin DUs.

• Conservation requirements for Thompson and Chilcotin DUs were estimated to be 938 and 562-744 spawners, respectively. These escapements are predicted to result in a high probability that 100 spawners or more will escape annually to each of five major sub- populations within the Thompson watershed, and to each of the two sub-populations in the Chilcotin watershed.
  
  
• We used a simulation model to project trajectories of escapement of Steelhead Trout to Thompson and Chilcotin DUs. Simulations were driven by productivity estimates from the last five or 10 years of the stock-recruit analysis. Scenarios which doubled the log of stock productivity to simulate effects of reducing Harbor Seal abundance by 25-50%, or to simulate a decrease in salmon competition effects on prey availability by about 30%, resulted in substantive improvements in future population trajectories under most cases except for the last five year productivity simulation for the Thompson DU. Simulations suggest that reducing bycatch of Steelhead Trout in salmon fisheries and targeted catch in sport fisheries would lead to increased escapements for the Chilcotin DU, but that increased escapements to the Thompson DU will only occur if productivity improves.
  
  
• In the absence of management actions or natural increases in productivity that would reduce predation or competition, lowering exploitation rates via changes to salmon fisheries and those targeting Steelhead Trout in in-river First Nations fisheries is the only remaining way to improve the status of Thompson and Chilcotin Steelhead Trout populations.
  

 

[searun]

Here's a bit more convincing evidence to consider:

There are a number of studies indicating that predation of Steelhead Trout juveniles and returning adults by Harbour Seals (P. vitulina) is having a substantive negative effect on marine survival rates. Predation by Harbour Seals is considered an important source of mortality for migrating juvenile Steelhead Trout off Washington State (Berejikian et al. 2016). Harbour Seal abundance was significantly negatively correlated with the productivity of 13 wild Chinook Salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest (Nelson et al. 2017). Steelhead Trout in Harbour Seal scat collected in the Strait of Georgia was detected at a level much higher than expected based on the estimated abundance of Steelhead Trout smolts relative to the abundance of smolts from other salmon species. This could indicate that seals are preferentially targeting Steelhead Trout smolts, which are larger than salmon smolts and closer in size to herring and other prey items that seals commonly prey on (Nelson et al. 2017). As pinniped abundance is concentrated in inshore areas, the very low survival of acoustically-tagged Steelhead Trout smolts from the Thompson watershed in the Strait of Georgia provides further support for a potentially substantive negative effect on Thompson and Chilcotin DUs. Evidence for negative effects of pinniped predation on salmon populations is summarized in Nelson et al. (2018):

‘The importance of adult salmon to the diet of harbour seals has been recognized for some time (Olesiuk 1990, Howard et al. 2013). Harbour seals have also been known to target outmigrating smolts in some areas of the Strait of Georgia (Olesiuk et al. 1996, Yurk and Trites 2000), but were not thought to cause significant mortality until recently (Thomas et al. 2017). Some biologists now suspect there may be a causal relationship between harbor seal predation on smolts and the low marine survival rates of some salmon and steelhead populations (Berejikian et al. 2016, Chasco et al. 2017, Thomas et al. 2017).“

Ricker ‘a’ values for Thompson and Chilcotin Steelhead Trout DUs declined with increases in Harbor Seal abundance in the Strait of Georgia, and a constructed index of total Pinniped salmon consumption that included approximate estimates of abundance trends for sea lions (Edgell and Demarchi 2012) and elephant seals and accounted for differences in energetic demand among species (Table 1, M. McAllister, Institute of Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia, unpublished data). Harbour Seal abundance and the constructed index of pinniped predation explained 84% and 90% of the variation in log productivity for the Thompson DU (Fig. 8a and b), and 88% and 87% of the variation for the Chilcotin DU (Fig. 8c and d), respectively. These correlations were significant (p<0.001) and the strongest of all covariates that we examined. Similar correlations between Harbour Seal abundance in the Strait of Georgia and productivity have been found for other species (e.g. Nelson et al. 2017). The diet and energetic studies reviewed above indicate that these relationships are likely causal, and that pinniped predation is perhaps a dominant cause for the decline in productivity of Thompson and Chilcotin DUs.

 

[OldBlackDog]

http://steelheadvoices.com/?p=1271

 

[wildmanyeah]

ocean fishermen blaming seals for salmon declines is no different than river fishermen blaming gil net fisheries.

They look at who's taking the biggest amount of pie and blame them. Used to be every looked at commercial fishermen as taking the biggest amount of pie.

The question is what do we do about those eating all the pie?

 

[Whitebuck]

The comparison of Thompson steelhead collapsing due to harbour seals is embarrassing. I'm sure it plays a small role,
You want to see these stocks recover keep the nets out of the river and in Johnstone straight. Or go with actual selective measure beach seining....which we know how well that works lol