Government must protect orca habitat: court

[IronNoggin]

seines have not been able to harvest chinook for almost the last decade. From what i understand chinook have been designated a sport fish.

Better start increasing your level of "from what I understand" then...

Seaners have been Active, DIRECTLY targetting springs for that decade you mention in the Alberni Inlet.
So much so in fact, they have several times threatened the required level of escapement.

Nog

 

[Englishman]

High Five, I think all Reelfast and others are saying is that in terms of spawning success, returns for the dollar and genetic diversity, hatcheries are not very effective. Therefore, in an era of limited resources we should focus on protecting and enhancing the wild runs. In the States this includes dam removal on smaller rivers. There is nothing wrong with hatchery fish as such. I too enjoy catching either wild or hatchery fish. But if we can get it right and protect the environment (no fish feed lots, no water diversion projects/dams, no clear cut logging right to the stream side etc.) then the salmon will take care of themselves and provide food for Orcas and the entire ecosystem including us.

 

[GLG]

FYI if you want to look who is catching all the Chinooks you might want to look at this website
http://www.psc.org/publications_tech_techcommitteereport.htm#TCCHINOOK

FYI I will do some of the math for you, 195,091 springs caught by BC commercial fishermen in 2010.
(quick on the back envelope math so could be + or - a few)
Numbers seem to be higher for the previous 10 years there fish4all.
GLG

 

[Seafever]

I thought the study they did a while back, they said the Orcas don't reproduce very well anymore because the levels of toxins in their bodies affects their reproductive organs. And this is why the numbers are dropping.

So what do the Orcas live on between November and May......when there are no runs coming through?

So Orcas turn there nose up at Coho, Pinks,Chum, Sockeye....and will only only eat Chinooks?

Well...hmmmm....we know they like baby Grey Whale tongue.


We all know that if Herring were allowed to return to historic levels, all species that feed on them would benefit.


Does an Orca care whether it's a hatchery raised Chinook or not? I doubt it.

 

[profisher]

Survival numbers (%) of the eggs of wild and hatchery fish were quoted a few posts back and I would suggest you have the numbers backwards. Hatcheries will have a 70% rate of survival from the egg stage to a smolt, were as wild fish would be down around 20%. Here is a something I found online to back me up. "From beginning to end of this process the Mossom Creek Salmon Hatchery can incubate eggs and raise young salmon in a safe, nuturing environment, which leads to a very high survival rate. The hatchery maintains a survival rate from fertilization to fry in excess of 90%, compared with less than 10% in nature. This means that with only a few eggs, salmon hatcheries can produce a relatively large number of adult fish, allowing hatcheries to accelerate the process of salmon stock regeneration."

The problem as I see it with our present hatchery systems is that they will do in a terminal area fishery. Lets use Port Alberni as an example. Robertson Creek in it's heyday saw Chinook numbers exceeding 100,000 adults returning into the Barkley Sound/Inlet areas. These fish provided an excellent sport fishery and the crowds were there to catch them. Anyone who fished the area especially in the early 90's will know how busy a place the area was back then. The problem was that the wild runs from rivers like the Sarita, Franklin and Namint which were struggling to maintain a viable population were negatively impacted by the big numbers of boats fishing. If Robertson Creek marked 100% of their output, you could have a marked fish only fishery from the surf line down to Alberni and not only still have a productive sport fishery but also truly protect the areas wild populations. Cost is and has been the issue, maybe its time the sport fishery pays to mark 100% of these fish so we can continue to have a fishery and also allow wild stocks to rebuild.

 

[cheech]

How come there is no mention of seals and sealions. They eat salmon too and, their numbers have exploded since the seventies. Wouldn't culling some of these competitors help 'save the whales'?
Sporties are only out on the water a small portion of the year and, trolling with rod and reel is the most ineffecient way to catch salmon. Plus hunting and fishing rights are enshrined in our constitution.
I can't see freighter, ferry, and other vessels of commerce re-routed because of whales.
Nothing is going to change.

 

[profisher]

If seals and sea lions could understand and respond to what you just said....do you think it might be something LWTF...what you talking about human!!! LOL

 

[reelfast]

Survival numbers (%) of the eggs of wild and hatchery fish were quoted a few posts back and I would suggest you have the numbers backwards. Hatcheries will have a 70% rate of survival from the egg stage to a smolt, were as wild fish would be down around 20%. Here is a something I found online to back me up. "From beginning to end of this process the Mossom Creek Salmon Hatchery can incubate eggs and raise young salmon in a safe, nuturing environment, which leads to a very high survival rate. The hatchery maintains a survival rate from fertilization to fry in excess of 90%, compared with less than 10% in nature. This means that with only a few eggs, salmon hatcheries can produce a relatively large number of adult fish, allowing hatcheries to accelerate the process of salmon stock regeneration."

let me restate what i said, above. study after scientific study has demonstrated the following:

- hatchery returns are 0.8-1.0% of the number of smolt released (100 smolt equals maybe 1 returning adult)
- spawning success of hatchery fish is from 10-20% success rate (hatchery to hatchery or hatchery to wild) and when hatchery to wild fails, you have just altered the gene pool dramatically. how many generations does it take to alter that gene pool? ONE!!!!
- spawing success of wild fish is around 70%(wild to wild)

the ROI for hatchery fish is simply not there, never has been, never will be. the arguement that you can release more smolt from a hatchery with a better egg survival rate is spacious as an arguement as very few survive to return. even with a lowered natural egg survival for wild fish, the return rate is so much higher, wild fish win out each and every time and the cost in dollars has everything to do with habitat protection not hatchery overhead.

with the ESA in force down this way, we are seeing a slow but steady movement to reduce hatchery production. the closest hatchery to my home is now producing about 50% of their estimated capacity. the next one down the river system is shuttered, out of production completely. these hatcheries are coho and chinook hatcheries, respectively. the chum hatchery on hood canal was completely closed last year.

it is a demonstrated fact, some excellent science here, that hatchery fish displace wild fish by sheer numbers, thereby guaranteeing that the ESA listed fish cannot compete and survive as the 'space' on any eco systems can only sustain so many fish. if you still believe that hatcheries are THE solution, look south to learn much more.

 

[Shermanater]

Reelfast i don't know where your getting all your numbers from but many don't apply to rivers and hatcheries up here. For example it does not cost 8-15 dollars to raise a chinook smolt here. If that was the case there would be no way the hatchery i work for could raise over 700,000 chinook each year. Survivals are 0.8-1%????? For where??? maybe the river that the study was done on yes but you can't say that for every river on the coast. Things are different down there. I was told by our fish food sales guy that just 1 hatchery in the states buys more fish food in a year than all of the ones in bc combined. That alone shows you how much different our hatcheries are than the ones down south.
I understand that hatchery fish are not the best solution but it’s really the only one we have. I’m not saying we need a bunch of mega hatcheries but we do need to improve what we have in bc right now. Wild stocks are not going to recover the way things are going so its hatchery fish or nothing in the future. Pretty sad what things are coming to.

 

[Little Hawk]

I disagree Sherm. Wild fish runs that are not yet extinct can be saved with the sagacious investment of stream rehab & reconstruction dollars. This kind of investment pays huge returns down the road AND same as hatchery fish, produces a tremendous 'ripple-effect' throughout our economy. Yeah, we may wait a few years or maybe even a generation but who cares, isn't the important thing that we all get on board here to 'slap government and the fish-farmers up the side of the head' to let them know that our kids & grandkids have the same right and privilege that we did? That we will not sit on our collective-duffs while our corrupt and inept government squanders this priceless resource and tries to pound it into our heads that 'fish-farming' is as or more important than Pacific salmon?

I SAY - **** YOU HARPER!

I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS ****!

BC's rivers & streams still have and always have had the capacity to produce enough salmon to feed all of us, our whales and the Yanks combined!

All we have to do is get back down to the business, like GLG said, of paving the way for their return.

I also understand - like Reelfast is sayin' - that protecting wild genetic diversity is paramount and reliance on hatchery fish can destroy genetically distinct runs of fish. But hatchery fisheries also have economic spin-offs not measured in small percentages of returning fish.

All in all, my hat is off to the Yanks as they are miles ahead of Canada in their recognition of the priceless value of Pacific salmon and they are 'doing' not just 'talking'.

Now, if we could just get them to stop eating the farmed salmon that is messing up things up here, we could put the Norwegians and Harper out of business.

 

[cheech]

what a dick!

 

[GLG]

Reelfast i don't know where your getting all your numbers from but many don't apply to rivers and hatcheries up here. For example it does not cost 8-15 dollars to raise a chinook smolt here.

He was not saying that.... He said that when you add up the cost that amount was for a returning hatchery adult.
I have read the same numbers in other studies.

The way I look at it we should be investing in the streams to produce wild fish.
If we can make a hatchery obsolete then we have done our job.

Will we get there? I don't know as we need to protect salmon thru there entire life cycle.
That means looking at all the things we have control over and doing no harm.
GLG

 

[reelfast]

Now, if we could just get them to stop eating the farmed salmon that is messing up things up here, we could put the Norwegians and Harper out of business.

i tried that was well. since i my understanding is that your farmed fish are treated with SLICE it seemed pretty obvious to me. any product treated with SLICE can not be marketed for human consumption in the US. so i contacted our state attorney general, the guy who now wants to be governor. after a couple of weeks went by i got a written statement saying he understood but it was not his problem! WTF!!!! so there you go, he is in bed with big business as well.

thanks to all of you for clarifiying my less than total explainations. unfortunately, the numbers i posted are repeated by any number of studies done all over the PNW in a variety of river systems from puget sound to the olympic pennisula to the columbia river. hatchery supplementation seems like a nice easy solutoin but in fact does zero to reestablish runs of fish. the latest NOAA studies published in january of 2011 document the exact opposite happens, hatchery fish displace wild fish. that is one of the reasons the fight for the Elwha is so important. if we can keep the local tribe from endless suplementation, we might just see that river system colonized by pioneer fish. of course WDFW would have a fit it that happened because it would blow their hatchery program right out of the water, '...sit back and let the fish do what they have done for millenia...' might be the new, best management solution possible.

and for those of you who doubt this can occur, remember when st helens blew up? the toutle river was a moving mass of concrete. when that settled after a couple of years, WDFW was astonished to find chinook and steelhead already in residence. it was only after a bunch of 'sports' complained that they couldn't fish there that supplementation was put in place, next thing, no more wild chinook or steelhead. recolonization works, the fish know how to do this, mankind is clueless with regard to how any of this works. time to admit that and stand back. just think of the major dollars that could be redirected from operating useless hatcheries to improving habitat.


http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/a...ribe-olympic-national-park-sued-over-hatchery


if you have a few bucks, log onto their web site and make a contribution. this is a critical fight to stop the tribes from running over the rights of all citizens as well as protecting wild fish.

 

[IronNoggin]

Court ruling compels Ottawa to protect killer-whale habitat
MARK HUME | Columnist profile | E-mail
VANCOUVER— From Monday's Globe and Mail
Published Sunday, Feb. 12, 2012 7:14PM EST

It’s time for the federal government to respect the law – and get serious about saving killer whales.

That’s not the view of a bunch of woolly headed environmentalists, but of the Federal Court of Appeal, which has declared that the Minister of Fisheries acted illegally by ignoring provisions of the Species at Risk Act designed to protect critical habitat.

“Ministerial discretion does not legally protect critical habitat within the meaning … of the Species at Risk Act, and it was unlawful for the minister to have cited provisions of the Fisheries Act in the killer whales Protection Statement,” the court found.

Not just wrong-headed or short-sighted – but unlawful.

The ruling, issued on Feb. 9 means the government of Canada has got to start protecting habitat vital to the survival of killer whales on the West Coast. And that means a whole lot of ocean has to be managed differently – with everything from fish farms, to new docks, to tanker traffic seen through a different lens.

“We feel really good about this ruling,” says Gwen Barlee, policy director of the Wilderness Committee, which was one of nine environmental groups that pursued the case with the help of Ecojustice, a non-profit law organization.

“It’s a strong decision, a unanimous decision by three judges, and we are hoping the government will now stop dragging its feet and will start protecting killer whales and all the other endangered species in Canada,” she said.

Ecojustice has been working on the case for years, first winning a decision in the Federal Court of Canada in 2010, and then having that ruling reinforced when the government went to the Federal Court of Appeal.

When SARA was enacted in 2002, it required the government to issue plans to protect any species at risk of becoming extirpated or extinct.

In British Columbia, two populations of killer whales – 85 southern residents and 205 northern residents – fall into that category.

One section of SARA requires the government to identify the critical habitat of endangered species, and to set out how that habitat will be protected.

But Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield sought to dodge that requirement, arguing that the Fisheries Act already provided him ways to protect marine species and that he had discretionary powers to use those regulations, rather than SARA.

However, the court said the government can’t do that – SARA is not an act that can simply be swept aside at a minister’s discretion.

“I do not accept the minister’s interpretation of the SARA. … Its intent was to provide for compulsory and non-discretionary legal protection from destruction for the identified critical habitat of listed endangered or threatened aquatic species,” stated Mr. Justice Robert Mainville of the Federal Court of Appeal.

Environmental groups argue Ottawa has been trying to avoid identifying critical habitat because once it has done that, it has to take steps to protect that habitat.

On the West Coast, that means among other things that the government will have to ensure that a proposed increase in oil-tanker traffic doesn’t damage critical killer-whale habitat.

The proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Project, which would see a new twin pipeline running from near Edmonton to a port at Kitimat, would result in some 225 tankers a year plying B.C.’s North Coast. And yes, killer whales live there.

“What would it mean if we had an oil spill?” asks Ms. Barlee.

As uncomfortable as it is, that’s a question Ottawa must now answer. And it must have killer-whale experts provide that answer, not politicians.

After the Exxon Valdez ruptured its hull on a reef in Prince William Sound in 1989, killer whales were seen surfacing in the oil slick. Over the next year, 14 of 36 whales in that pod vanished.

Under the court ruling, the government must produce a plan to save killer whales on a coast where there are increasing development pressures. Protection from oil spills and acoustic disruption, particularly in key breeding and feeding areas, must be among the things assured.

In short, the government’s got its work cut out for it – and the courts say it is unlawful for Ottawa to shirk that responsibility.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...-protect-killer-whale-habitat/article2335762/

 

[Whole in the Water]

Thanks goodness the courts are forcing the corrupt DFO to do its legal duty. When regular citizens fail to compley with the law we get tried in court and fined and/or sent to prison. DFO bureaucrats and Ministers just get lots of time to figure out how to comply, or weasal out of it, while they collect their large salaries .

Now it will be up to us regular citizens to be persistent in monitiring this to ensure that the DFO follows through with it's obligation.

 

[notmebud]

Dont be suprised if they close salmon in the inside waters.!!

 

[tigerprawn]

They don't just eat Chinooks

I thinks with this ruling, DFO must protect food for the orcas and this will include all salmon and if they take out the dam on DeMamiel Creek, DFO will be destroying a food souce the the Orcas.
It would be interesting to see a Head Line DFO Charges DFO for destroying Fish Habitat and a food source for Orcas

 

[beemer]

They don't just eat Chinooks
--------------------------------------
It is pretty well established that the Southern Resident group eat 90% chinook and 10% chum. They have and will starve themselves to death if chinook are not present. The northern residents have proven to be much more adaptable , even taking halibut and groundfish. What most people don't want to talk about is the mathematical eventuality of the extinction of this group. When you crunch the numbers of mortality rate , age of fertility and number of males the picture is very gloomy. Unfortunately we are witnessing the last 30 years of this group and no matter what efforts are put forward the result will be the same , extinction. bit of a downer I know.

beemer

 

[Big Green Machine]

Be interesting to see if this as any bearing on the Gateway pipeline proposal.

 

[Gunsmith]

I don't think so but I do expect the Enbridge effort to fail. Remember what I say, the oil will be shipped another way to market and it won't be by pipeline.
Back to the subject at hand the court ruling could be a way of twisting the DFO's arm behind their back and forcing them to comply with protective measures. And again they are pros at stalling and wasting time.

Be interesting to see if this as any bearing on the Gateway pipeline proposal.