Radical Idea to help Salmon Stocks

[Last Chance]

Ok. We have a problem. Our salmon are dissappearing and we don't know why. Fish Farms probably play a big role, in the 1990's the commercial salmon fleet was taken effectivly off the water, total catch coastwide has gone from 500,000 Chinook a year to less then 100,000 and there are still none..

What has not worked:

Spot Closures
Voodoo Mumbo Jumbo from DFO
More Closures
Rambling Nonsense..
Closing DFO Enforcment Offices.

What Has worked:

Whatever they heck they do in Puget Sound and Washington.

What I see in Washington? Hatcheries.

How do we get them?

Form an Alliance with First Nations

I imagine there has been a mandate handed down to DFO from the Justice Department to the tune of "Give First Nations what they want so we don't get sued".. This probably worked quite well.

Now, I understand that First Nations are in the same position we were 5 years ago. The whales are apparantly starving. DFO Is probably prepared to do what they do best, and that is to restrict fishing opportunities and close sectors. They can slam the rivers shut for FN as well.

The Constitution says that First Nations will have priority access, and be able to use nets, jet boats, harpoons, and whatever. BUT, one thing they have is some pretty good clout. This is out there, but what if an alliance with two common foes when it comes to a property resource happened? They have incredible clout with the government, the rec sector has the chance to organize. If the two sectors joined forces and demanded hatcheries, enhancement, and for DFO to do their job and MANAGE the fishery, and this produced enough fish for everyone, the problem is solved..

No more scrabbling over crumbs. Lots of fish means lots of opportunities and everyone is happy.

What about this?

 

[GDW]

GO SVIAC GO!!

IMO the commercials would be on board with this too. It would be great if hatcheries were stratigically placed so wild runs like the Harrison (chinooks) are not returning to the same place as the hatchery fish. This should help reduce the impact the fish hatchery has on the remaining wild populations. So find a tributary with a minimal salmon return and pump out those hatchery fish!

Edit: added salmon species for Dave.

 

[trophywife]

what a great motion...who's gonna roll the ball back and forth,,, sfab,sviac? this does sound like an effective way to force dfo into hatcheries.. they gonna say no to the fn? no way. the dfo will have to listen.

 

[Last Chance]

There are several groups involved.

 

[Lipripper]

How do we get them?

Form an Alliance with First Nations

It will probably be the only thing that would work...

Hatcheries are not the only things needed though.

Something I put in the fresh section earlier today...

When the front page of the local paper (this week) says "The Cowichan: a river abandoned?" then you know it's time for action.

So today we're kicking off our vote pledge campaign, and hope that you'll consider being part of it.

We want to build a parade that politicians want to get in front of.

To do this, they need to commit to local control of our watershed - giving over real authority to the Cowichan Watershed Board.

And, there's a provincial election coming up, so NOW is the time when politicians are most likely to listen to voters like us.

So we need to send them a signal and this is where the vote pledge comes in.

We're asking local citizens to pledge to vote for local control of our watershed, and the more of us who do this, the bigger the parade.

So please consider doing this right now here, and also in helping to spread the word to your neighbours, friends and colleagues. We are powerful when we come together.

Who you vote for will of course remain up to you. This is a non-partisan initiative.

Cowichan can be a model for BC and for Canada for local control. Please join others in making this happen.

Thank you.

Matt Price

ps. Have ideas for how to make this campaign a success? Please volunteer!



One Cowichan
http://www.onecowichan.ca/

 

[GLG]

There was a time when 7 out of every 100 hatchery smolts returned to the river to spawn.
Today its more like 7 out of every 1000 hatchery smolts return to spawn.
Fix that and we don't need any more hatcheries or other improvements.
There is an experiment going on in Campbell River to address this problem.
The smolts are being vaccinated before being released this year.
It's a five year program and we will not know the results for some time.
If it works we could see this as a standard practice and could help with our low returns.
GLG

add: Fix the rivers like lippy posted.....

 

[GDW]

Hmmm and what are they being vaccinated for? And why do they need vaccines now when they didn't before? Find the spreader of the virus and costly vaccines won't be necessary.

 

[trendsetter]

I agree 100%. I also think we should be looking more closely at what's happening out in the ocean. The Japanese and other fishing fleets have massive factory ships that target salmon in the north pacific. The extraction of millions of salmon before they return to Alaska, BC and Washington waters must have an effect.

 

[Rum Buddies]

and what happens when the hatcheries get turned off? Hatcheries are one thing and a short term solution but long term the only thing that will work is building healthy wild stocks. Hatchery fish are genetically inferior fish and its easy to say just pump them out and everything will be good - its much more complex then that.

 

[Aces]

We had a great hatchery in Port Alberni that produced 8 million Chinook smolts a year but the funding got choked off and now not nearly as many fish return.......go figure. Instead we have a corridor that we have to release them when they are running down the coast that still doesn't help much as per the catch rate at the Labour day derby

 

[Dave]

GO SVIAC GO!!

It would be great if hatcheries were stratigically placed so wild runs like the Harrison are not returning to the same place as the hatchery fish.

Could you expand a bit on this? what species are you referring to, etc

 

[reelfast]

if you think that hatcheries are 'the' solution, you may want to school yourself on the negative impacts of hatchery smolt on wild anadramous fishes. i would suggest you start here: http://nativefishsociety.org/index.php/conservation/savesandysalmoncampign/

a good deal of actual science presented by NFS. this legal action will be in court on the 23rd of this month. messing with ESA listed fish is not going to sit well. you might think of hatchery impacts in the same light you think of the negative impacts of floating net pens.

no doubt this is a complex issue but dumping 200,000,000 smolts a year in the Columbia r. has led to zero recoverd runs of fish. you have to understand that hatchery policy in the US is driven and controlled by the sea food industry. no hatcheries, no sea food industry. over harvest is the major reason no one sees recovery working. now just how succesful has controlling the harvest of anadramous fish actualyl been? we all know the answer to that and can readily see the bycatch being shoveled overboard. unless harvest is reformed, nothing is going to change.

the local Coho hatchery is operating under 'reform' rules. they spawn a total of 100 pairs of fish taking the remainder out of the gene pool and dumping the carcases in the Dungess river as a source of nitrogen for the plants and food for the foraging critters and insects. the capacity of this hatchery is no longer close to be utilized.

 

[Jencourt]

If we enter into a full scale " Put and Take " Hatchery/fishery then do we clip all hatchery fish and target hatchery only? Gil nets can't tell the diff.
Do we clip all hatchery fish and rely on sheer numbers to make up the largest % of harvest,thus reducing pressure on wild stocks? Could Timing of FN in river net openings and terminal commercial openings help to aid in avoiding certain wild runs? Do we continue to only clip less than 25 percent and then have some kind of 1 and 1 sport fishery. Again a gill net can't tell the diff.

Are we prepared to pay much more for licenses and tags( assuming that money would go where it is intended) to fund what from what I can see would be a never ending cycle of "Put and Take".

I am not suggesting that we should not work for an increase in hatchery production. I am just throwing out some questions that immediately come to mind wen I consider this.If nothing else it shows that it will not be as simple as pumping fish out if we want to see a long term change for the better. As some one who enjoys a couple trips to the west coast each year I sure have enjoyed having the US hatchery fish to provide some action. I am just not sure what will become of it as production gets reduced more and more each year?

Seems to me that you guys are on to something by suggesting a strong working relationship with all sectors to come up with a workable solution to fight for. I just hope we can find along term solution and not one to fix NOW be damned tomorrow?? Maybe a massive increase in production like the US is the answer? I have no idea as indicated by all my questions.

Just my initial thoughts as I read through a couple threads from today.

It seems I was posting at the same time as realfast, sorry for any redundancy.

Ray

 

[Seafever]

You can't feed a hundred people if you only got 3 potatoes.

How about some HERRING hatcheries......

More Chinook you have...the more they have to eat to live.

Everything eats Herring....so...the more Herring you have, the more fish,Orcas and whatnot will flourish.

In a country that's starving , you don't need more people....you need more food.


Maybe it's time for a massive infusion of Geritol in these coastal waters and the Bering Sea.

I watched a show the other night that said the reason for the bumper crop of Sockeye in the Fraser a couple of years back was beacuse a Japanese volcano exploded and poured out tons of iron-bearing sulphur smack dab in the middle of the Sockeye feeding grounds up there which affected the plankton postively which Sockeye eat.
As a result the Sockeye had a 24/7 smorgasboard going on and every Sockey got big and fat.

 

[Dogbreath]

The Japanese and other fishing fleets have massive factory ships that target salmon in the north pacific.....

Wrong-100% incorrect.

The Asian driftnet fleets were bought put long, long ago and while there are occasional incidents of 'piracy' the situation you postulate simply does not exist.

If you want a bogeyman you'll have to look somewhere else.

 

[trendsetter]

Wrong-100% incorrect.

The Asian driftnet fleets were bought put long, long ago and while there are occasional incidents of 'piracy' the situation you postulate simply does not exist.

If you want a bogeyman you'll have to look somewhere else.

You're thinking of the Japanese drift net fleets that ended in the early nineties. There are others, Japanese and otherwise, out there fishing these days. Some ships come all the way from Norway and northern Europe through the Panama canal to fish the north pacific. It seems like more than a coincidence to me that the year after the japanese earthquake which disabled the majority of their fleet we receive a record number of coho returning to BC and WA waters.

 

[GLG]

There was a PBS TV show on the Nisqually River where they showed the natives separating the wild fish from the hatchery fish at a weir. If they found a way to do it, we can too. Not saying we can do the same on the Fraser but the tributaries are possible. I would think if we clipped all hatchery fish it would be an easy sell to release wild from all user groups. Problem is clipping all the hatchery fish..... that's a big job for sure.

To answer GDW.... here is a link..
http://www.canada.com/Young+coho+shot+unique+program/7665495/story.html

 

[Dogbreath]

You're thinking of the Japanese drift net fleets that ended in the early nineties. There are others, Japanese and otherwise, out there fishing these days. Some ships come all the way from Norway and northern Europe through the Panama canal to fish the north pacific. It seems like more than a coincidence to me that the year after the japanese earthquake which disabled the majority of their fleet we receive a record number of coho returning to BC and WA waters.

You have No Proof none-just anecdotes-I'm ready to be convinced otherwise but you'll need to provide something other than conjecture.

There were monster Spring and Coho returns off WCVI in 2009 and no earthquakes of any significance anywhere.

 

[trendsetter]

You have No Proof none-just anecdotes-I'm ready to be convinced otherwise but you'll need to provide something other than conjecture.

There were monster Spring and Coho returns off WCVI in 2009 and no earthquakes of any significance anywhere.

It's true, I don't have any proof. In fact I don't even remember exactly where I read the info that led me down that path in the first place. But in the absence of concrete evidence that local causes are the entire problem I believe it's worthwhile to look at the big picture. These fish spend much of their lives out at sea and it makes sense to me that the poor ocean survival rates may be related to over fishing. There is an enormous market for seafood in Asia and where there is a demand, there are people willing to do what it takes to supply that demand.

When I can find what it was I was reading about this I will be sure to post it.

Cheers

 

[reelfast]

There was a PBS TV show on the Nisqually River where they showed the natives separating the wild fish from the hatchery fish at a weir. If they found a way to do it, we can too.

amazing what the tribes do when the media are present.