Disconnect? How incompetent DFO really is. By Bob Hooton
- Thread starter OldBlackDog
- Start date
OldBlackDog
Well-Known Member
From Blog,
Finally, DFO, would you please tell us under what new policy or whose direction it has been decided that your own long standing priorities of 1) conservation, 2) FSC fisheries and 3) commercial and recreational fisheries are now trumped by reconciliation. If the DFO intention is to abandon IFS, as every action to date would demonstrate, just say so and spare a lot of good people the angst of continuing fruitless advocacy for their conservation. Think about how much money that would save DFO.
Finally, DFO, would you please tell us under what new policy or whose direction it has been decided that your own long standing priorities of 1) conservation, 2) FSC fisheries and 3) commercial and recreational fisheries are now trumped by reconciliation. If the DFO intention is to abandon IFS, as every action to date would demonstrate, just say so and spare a lot of good people the angst of continuing fruitless advocacy for their conservation. Think about how much money that would save DFO.
wildmanyeah
Crew Member
Not sure if this answers your question but it does seem like they can tell the difference by DNA. I also read somewhere that most of the lower fraser trib steelhead are all the same DNA, Pitt river, Chilliwack, Alouette ect... How do the DNA compared to stocks in washington state or on vancouver island, I am uncertain. How many distinctive rainbow trout DNA/speacese are their? how do they compare to steelhead. Those are all interesting questions.
http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/species-es...lheadtrout-saumonarcenciel-chilcotin-eng.html
"Based on genetic data, Steelhead Trout in the Chilcotin region and Thompson River are considered discrete from other Canadian Steelhead Trout. Furthermore, DNA studies have concluded that Chilcotin and Thompson Steelhead are genetically distinct from each other. As such, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) has determined that Thompson Steelhead and Chilcotin Steelhead should be assessed as two distinct designatable units (DUs)."
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It'd be nice to be able to see how fine a selection is possible and how complete the steelhead/rainbow DNA database is. Generally, DFO likes to have 100+ individual DNA samples from each watershed of origin for a baseline - and there are now some newer DNA techniques available to help w stock discrimination. Sure would be nice to have accurate allocations from mixed-stock fisheries towards watershed-specific TACs - in an ideal and perfect world.
wildmanyeah
Crew Member
They do this for Fraser sockeye and apparently the Fraser River Sockeye assessment and DNA program takes up more then 50% of DFO's coastal budget for stock identification/enumeration/estimates
wildmanyeah
Crew Member
Bob Hooton comments on this and about bunch of programs that are no longer in existence. Apparently they have data from a lot of vancouver island streams that just sitting on the shelves because they decided not to pay for people to analyze the data or write the reports.
From a general public perspective where on their list does funding fisheries land? Where on the party platform?
wildmanyeah
Crew Member
For thus of us that care about fish its certainly diss heartening.
heavy on the "diss" part 4 sure.
As bad as those pics of shore-landed fish (incl. steelhead) were - it looks like in the bigger picture - something in the marine environment is the likely biggest culprit - as searun mentioned previously:
Declining patterns of Pacific Northwest steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) adult abundance and smolt survival in
the ocean
Neala W. Kendall, Gary W. Marston, and Matthew M. Klungle
Abstract: Examination of population abundance and survival trends over space and time can guide management and conservation actions with information about the spatial and temporal scale of factors affecting them. Here, we analyzed steelhead trout (anadromous Oncorhynchus mykiss) adult abundance time series from 35 coastal British Columbia and Washington populations along with smolt-to-adult return (smolt survival) time series from 48 populations from Washington, Oregon, and the Keogh River in British Columbia. Over 80% of the populations have declined in abundance since 1980. A multivariate autoregressive statespace model revealed smolt survival four groupings: Washington and Oregon coast, lower Columbia River, Strait of Juan de Fuca, and Puget Sound – Keogh River populations. Declines in smolt survival rates were seen for three of the four groupings. Puget Sound and Keogh River populations have experienced low rates since the early 1990s. Correlations between population pairs’ time series and distance apart illustrated that smolt survival rates were more positively correlated for proximate population
Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 00: 1–16 (0000) dx.doi.org/10.1139/cjfas-2016-0486
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/cjfas-2016-0486#.W-NRJOKIbIU
As bad as those pics of shore-landed fish (incl. steelhead) were - it looks like in the bigger picture - something in the marine environment is the likely biggest culprit - as searun mentioned previously:
Declining patterns of Pacific Northwest steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) adult abundance and smolt survival in
the ocean
Neala W. Kendall, Gary W. Marston, and Matthew M. Klungle
Abstract: Examination of population abundance and survival trends over space and time can guide management and conservation actions with information about the spatial and temporal scale of factors affecting them. Here, we analyzed steelhead trout (anadromous Oncorhynchus mykiss) adult abundance time series from 35 coastal British Columbia and Washington populations along with smolt-to-adult return (smolt survival) time series from 48 populations from Washington, Oregon, and the Keogh River in British Columbia. Over 80% of the populations have declined in abundance since 1980. A multivariate autoregressive statespace model revealed smolt survival four groupings: Washington and Oregon coast, lower Columbia River, Strait of Juan de Fuca, and Puget Sound – Keogh River populations. Declines in smolt survival rates were seen for three of the four groupings. Puget Sound and Keogh River populations have experienced low rates since the early 1990s. Correlations between population pairs’ time series and distance apart illustrated that smolt survival rates were more positively correlated for proximate population
Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 00: 1–16 (0000) dx.doi.org/10.1139/cjfas-2016-0486
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/cjfas-2016-0486#.W-NRJOKIbIU
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https://marinesurvivalproject.com/w...ad-Marine-Survival-2015-17-Research-Plan1.pdf
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Steelhead trout are the official fish of Washington State, an icon of the Pacific Northwest, and a major contributor to Washington’s recreation and fishing economies. Yet the Puget Sound steelhead population, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2007, is now less than 10% of its historic size and faces possible extinction. Poor juvenile survival in the Puget Sound marine environment has been identified as key factor in that decline and a significant barrier to recovery.
https://marinesurvivalproject.com/research_activity/list/puget-sound-steelhead/
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Steelhead trout are the official fish of Washington State, an icon of the Pacific Northwest, and a major contributor to Washington’s recreation and fishing economies. Yet the Puget Sound steelhead population, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2007, is now less than 10% of its historic size and faces possible extinction. Poor juvenile survival in the Puget Sound marine environment has been identified as key factor in that decline and a significant barrier to recovery.
https://marinesurvivalproject.com/research_activity/list/puget-sound-steelhead/
searun
Well-Known Member
Read the science, its pretty clear that those nets aren't the big problem that we once thought they were. Harbour seals per the science do correlate to a strong causal reason for the declining survival of steelhead smolts. Moving to more selective fishing techniques certainly would help the few remaining fish, but it isn't the smoking gun. Of course we can all ignore the science and go with our gut feeling - it worked pretty good for the Executive team of Eastman Kodak.
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.
wildmanyeah
Crew Member
In the SARA call today DFO said they just recently required commercial fishermen to record steelhead encounters. They were quite proud of themselves that they put a section for it on commercial license.
FSC fisheries catch reporting much like recreational creel surveys they said.
The province said freshwater habitat is not an issue because there are no steelhead in the habitat.
The sara person said FSC won't get exemption under a listing because there simply is not many IFS steelhead left.
Seals? well seals were not even mentioned. But Naked people at the merritt mountain music festival destroying steelhead spawning grounds were LOL
Seal are no doubt a predator pit preventing the rebound but they certainly were not the smoking gun in the 70's when steelhead populations started to crash. As someone pointed out steelhead populations have crashed 80% in the last 2 decades but 99% since 1970.
I am willing to say that seals are part of the problem and maybe even the problem now They did say predation is a "limiting factor" fisheries are "threats"
Don't worry tho Searun they pretty much said the IFS steelhead won't be listed because of "social and economic reason" So no recover plan will be implemented and No addition funding will be allocated towards these fish but guess what there will still be ****** no fishing closure recreational and commercial fishing windows in the river.
yay!
FSC fisheries catch reporting much like recreational creel surveys they said.
The province said freshwater habitat is not an issue because there are no steelhead in the habitat.
The sara person said FSC won't get exemption under a listing because there simply is not many IFS steelhead left.
Seals? well seals were not even mentioned. But Naked people at the merritt mountain music festival destroying steelhead spawning grounds were LOL
Seal are no doubt a predator pit preventing the rebound but they certainly were not the smoking gun in the 70's when steelhead populations started to crash. As someone pointed out steelhead populations have crashed 80% in the last 2 decades but 99% since 1970.
I am willing to say that seals are part of the problem and maybe even the problem now They did say predation is a "limiting factor" fisheries are "threats"
Don't worry tho Searun they pretty much said the IFS steelhead won't be listed because of "social and economic reason" So no recover plan will be implemented and No addition funding will be allocated towards these fish but guess what there will still be ****** no fishing closure recreational and commercial fishing windows in the river.
yay!
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OldBlackDog
Well-Known Member
OldBlackDog
Well-Known Member
From Bob Hooton
After listening in on DFO's pathetic version of public consultation, aka "webinar" this afternoon, I'm convinced the only lingering hope for what remains of Interior Fraser Steelhead is the carnage that gill nets wreak on sturgeon during the in-river salmon fisheries. Rick Hanson is slightly harder to ignore than a handful of steelhead aficionados. This photo just may be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Its making the rounds in high offices, as it should. Fingers crossed!
After listening in on DFO's pathetic version of public consultation, aka "webinar" this afternoon, I'm convinced the only lingering hope for what remains of Interior Fraser Steelhead is the carnage that gill nets wreak on sturgeon during the in-river salmon fisheries. Rick Hanson is slightly harder to ignore than a handful of steelhead aficionados. This photo just may be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Its making the rounds in high offices, as it should. Fingers crossed!
wildmanyeah
Crew Member
To address comment directly this they did say predation is a "limiting factor" while fisheries are "threats"
OldBlackDog
Well-Known Member
Bob Hooton
November 8, 2018 at 4:30 am
Agreed Matt. This was a pathetic illustration of “consultation”. There we all sat, muted, while listening to DFO give a classroom style lecture on all the wonderful things there are doing to protect interior Fraser steelhead. Its a good thing we were all muted. I might have climbed through my desk top to get at those ignorant DFO people and give them a tune up. I received phone calls from two other people immediately following the conclusion of the session. Both were as choked as I was. You can bet the farm DFO will check off their public consultation box and move on though. The only thing left to schedule for the Thompson is the wake. Mind you, stay tuned for DFO to take things a little more seriously now that the sturgeon slaughter is emerging and Rick Hanson is making noise. He’s a tad more difficult to ignore than a handful of steelhead junkies.
And the Fat Lady began to sing.
November 8, 2018 at 4:30 am
Agreed Matt. This was a pathetic illustration of “consultation”. There we all sat, muted, while listening to DFO give a classroom style lecture on all the wonderful things there are doing to protect interior Fraser steelhead. Its a good thing we were all muted. I might have climbed through my desk top to get at those ignorant DFO people and give them a tune up. I received phone calls from two other people immediately following the conclusion of the session. Both were as choked as I was. You can bet the farm DFO will check off their public consultation box and move on though. The only thing left to schedule for the Thompson is the wake. Mind you, stay tuned for DFO to take things a little more seriously now that the sturgeon slaughter is emerging and Rick Hanson is making noise. He’s a tad more difficult to ignore than a handful of steelhead junkies.
And the Fat Lady began to sing.
searun
Well-Known Member
Interesting research findings on various selective fishing methodology. Not all fishing/harvesting is bad. Not all commercial and FN in-river harvest is bad. Note the study results are focused on Chinook and Steelhead release mortality. I think if we truly wish to shift in-river fishers toward more selective and sustainable fishing methodology, we won't get there by a "close all fishing" approach. More effective if we adopted a science based approach to influence a shift to selective and sustainable harvest.
https://thefishtrapjournal.org/the-fish-trap-moves-forward/?utm_source=Water
Here's the quick and dirty summary:
In 2016 and 2017, WFC biologists evaluated post-release survival of Chinook salmon and steelhead from an experimental fish trap. The research proved promising – with the results demonstrating great potential for fish traps to reduce bycatch and hatchery impacts in commercial salmon fisheries.
Gear Chinook Survival Steelhead Survival
Gillnet 0.520 0.555
Tangle Net 0.791 0.764
Beach Seine 0.750 (0.710 – 0.790) 0.920 (0.820 – 1.000)
Purse Seine 0.780 (0.720 – 0.850) 0.980 (0.930 – 1.000)
Fish Trap 0.995 (0.925 – 1.000) 0.944 (0.880 – 1.000)
https://thefishtrapjournal.org/the-fish-trap-moves-forward/?utm_source=Water
Here's the quick and dirty summary:
In 2016 and 2017, WFC biologists evaluated post-release survival of Chinook salmon and steelhead from an experimental fish trap. The research proved promising – with the results demonstrating great potential for fish traps to reduce bycatch and hatchery impacts in commercial salmon fisheries.
Gear Chinook Survival Steelhead Survival
Gillnet 0.520 0.555
Tangle Net 0.791 0.764
Beach Seine 0.750 (0.710 – 0.790) 0.920 (0.820 – 1.000)
Purse Seine 0.780 (0.720 – 0.850) 0.980 (0.930 – 1.000)
Fish Trap 0.995 (0.925 – 1.000) 0.944 (0.880 – 1.000)
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chromatose007
Well-Known Member
Nuf said...
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