Fraser River Chum Update from DFO

This would be a good one to report to the ORR line....lots of illegal sales taking place over FB market place and other internet sales. DFO Fish cops can't do anything to help curb this without our help. The more we report the better it demonstrates the scope of the problem and we might actually get more officers hired and assigned to the problem.
I called it in to the ORR line and email it to them.
 
I called it in to the ORR line and email it to them.
Outstanding!! Wish more folks would be watching social media sites and reporting those ads. A lot of black market sales going on. DFO should actually dedicate 1 officer to monitor and investigate all these.
 
Who cares...it's a wash. It doesn't matter anymore. BC just accepted UNDRIP. Yes, the province, the first to do so. What do you think that means for all other fishing sectors? No one cares to think about the UN and what I warned about for over ten years...well, here it comes. I warned everyone. I pleaded to every sector to please develop a dialog in order to help create some form of partnership between all sectors. Now we have politicians involved, with BC as the forefront province in all of Canada. What Now? Am I the only Indian who ever cared about what may happen to all the other sectors?! Hmmm.
What's wrong with sitting down and co-managing the resource as equals? Seems to me that reconciliation is all about having both indigenous and non-indigenous communities sitting together as equals managing our resource. In many communities we are either well invested into Harvest Round Tables, or developing those as a simple mechanism to open respectful dialogue between all sectors to manage our mutual fisheries. Early days and a lot to learn and build, but better to work together than battle it out in the courts.
 
And you believe that I asked for anything different over the past ten years?! Wow! Originally you commented in the beginning very differently as did many others. Thing is, it will not be what you think...that opportunity has past. It will get worse before it gets better for some, but it is only for a short time while everything begins to mesh and come into a fine balance. :)
oh my, aren't you just a bundle of compliments today with all the "I told you so's".
 
Morton VS Hooton

Check out the comments

https://steelheadvoices.com/?p=1285#comments

  • October 27, 2019 at 12:11 am
    You should get these fish genomically profiled – it is non-lethal for the fish and it would tell you what their immune systems are dealing with from warm water, to low oxygen, viruses, starvation… Why guess when you can ask the fish.

    REPLY
    • 1eb84563931abeba5d6b434c22a26a75
      Bob Hooton
      October 27, 2019 at 4:50 am
      Thanks for the suggestion Alexandra. I don’t know how much attention you have been paying to IFS but the sample size now available is pathetic (e.g. two steelhead was the cumulative total for all three DFO test fisheries this year). There is one immediately manageable cause for the demise of these internationally renowned fish. It isn’t warm water, low oxygen, viruses, starvation or any combination of those factors. Its gill nets, gill nets and only gill nets. If you think fish farms are an uphill struggle, try weaning the Lower Fraser First Nations off in-river set nets and drift nets.

      I’ll add that I’m just the messenger. No one sponsors or pays me so genomic profiling is not exactly something I can just up and do even if there were enough fish to sample at a level that might mean something. Besides, that’s just one more science trap that proliferates the status quo. By the time the jury was in on what you are suggesting, the last IFS will have succumbed to monofilament.

      REPLY
  • ce3010ab15ef743a521b4b140b60168a
    Alexandra Morton
    October 27, 2019 at 2:47 pm
    That’s too bad. So many wealthy people love to hook steelhead in rivers, I would think it wouldn’t be too hard to raise funds to figure out why they are dying. When the salmon farming industry arrived in BC the Steelhead Society was one of the strongest voices against import of Atlantic salmon, for fear of the import of viruses. Now that that has happened, the voices are silent. I don’t understand what silenced them. I raise funds to test wild fish and I go to steelhead derbies and sample the catch and I also test the farm steelhead both in the market and in Lois Lake. You have a virus problem. I keep thinking that is fishing was the entire problem the fish should be increasing as the commercial fishery is reduced. Wishing you luck in keeping these fish alive. AlexandraMorton.ca

    REPLY
    • 1eb84563931abeba5d6b434c22a26a75
      Bob Hooton
      October 27, 2019 at 4:15 pm
      Might I ask which steelhead derbies you have attended and sampled?. Only wealthy people fishing our rivers???? (The IFS supporting rivers are all long since closed so there are no anglers left on them. Besides, they never were the heartland of the wealthy even in their heyday.)

      I’m well aware of the much reduced impact of commercial net fisheries. Too little too late but whatever relief has come there has been more than offset by steadily increased in-river First Nations net fishing. I humbly suggest that the SSBC has been and continues to be much more active in the anti-fish farm arena than you are in the harvest management arena. Please remember what I have said repeatedly. If there is one, immediately manageable factor seriously impacting IFS, it is in-river gill nets.

      REPLY
    • 8f718e051ed3f64ab4eab886811ec218
      Rory E. Glennie
      October 27, 2019 at 6:31 pm
      Ms. Morton, Hmmm… where to begin? As far as recreational steelhead angling goes here on the B.C. coast, while there indeed may be a few “wealthy” individuals pursuing steelhead, the vast majority of anglers are living quite a bit further down the income scale. Not that this point matters much. The passion and caring for the species and its environs is really what motivates the majority of steelhead anglers. Back to the point of wealthy folks not pulling their weight when it comes to instigating good fisheries conservation practices, not so. Perhaps, here in B.C., we are lagging behind the substantial contributions made by the wealthy corporate sector to bolster the Atlantic Salmon fishery in Maritime Canada, but then again, they do have a century and a half head start on us. For sure, we can and must do better.
      As a Past President of the Steelhead Society of B.C. (‘88-‘90) my/our involvement with steelhead issues was constant and unrelenting. What changed significantly during the interim is that bureaucrats, politicians, would-be despoilers of the resources and greedy peoples have learned/invented more effective obfuscation tactics to keep us off balance and quarrelling amongst ourselves. All the while endangered steelhead spiral down to oblivion, i.e. no fish, no problem.

      REPLY
  • b6f26b7ca5870e55067f5193434b330e
    Alexandra Morton
    October 27, 2019 at 4:22 pm
    I have sampled the steelhead at the derby on the Harrison.

    Not sure why you are so angry. I study the impact of salmon farms and try to warn people who are concerned about wild stocks.

    Rage on sounds like you’ve got this.

    REPLY
    • 1eb84563931abeba5d6b434c22a26a75
      Bob Hooton
      October 27, 2019 at 5:23 pm
      There’s a difference between anger and logic. I spent 37 years in the fisheries management business so I’m reasonably familiar with the fish farm scene and your commendable efforts to address its problems. I’m also very familiar with net fishery impacts on steelhead stocks all the way from Alaska to the lower Fraser. That’s why I try and focus on the immediate problems we can actually do something about if we so choose. “Rage” is a bit over the top.

      I pride myself on being in the loop on recreational fisheries involving steelhead but I wasn’t aware of a steelhead derby on the Harrison. I’m very interested in any data you can share on your samples from it.

      REPLY
  • 8059fbf150a1e10a7356d02dc6471f4b
    Benson
    October 28, 2019 at 2:09 pm
    I am mystified, bordering on rage,… Key word there “bordering”, mind you. Why can’t we see the forest?

    Consumption is the flipping cause! Blood money made to satisfy world consumption for “wild” seafood is the flipping cause! Steelhead are caught in the vice. They are caught in a gauntlet of indiscriminate nets from the time they depart their natal rivers until they return to spawn!

    Forgive me, I appear to have elevated to that of a melting snowflake at the moment and must seek out a public funded safe place to regain composure.

    REPLY
  • 8059fbf150a1e10a7356d02dc6471f4b
    Benson
    October 28, 2019 at 3:21 pm
    Okay, composure regained.

    Ms. Morton… I am familiar with Salmon Confidential. Having viewed your movie and traversed your page, the typical consumer is by your design turned off to farmed Salmon. The opening of your movie tugs at the heart stings of the viewer showing Bears, Eagles, Orca, Seals and various other creatures in theory adversely effected by Salmon farms and their detrimental effect upon natural native Salmon stocks. This is all well and good if your science is absolute except there is an unintended consequence I would like you to address.

    Your efforts undoubtedly, inadvertently cause as much damage to native stock as you seek to save. Folks do not stop consuming Salmon because of your conclusions. The market simply consumes WILD seafood instead.

    Even if your science is intact, what you cause is a two pronged attack on WILD Salmon. Respectfully, even if you are 100% certain of your conclusions, might I suggest that you devote half of your media productions to both sides of this issue. Should you not applying equal energies to curtail global WILD consumption?

    I am not angry. I would sincerely like to understand your deliberation related to this concern.
 
She was sampling at mountain bar with first nations this year during the pink run. She's trying to get jaundice salmon and link them to PRV.

She has promised the commercial and first nation industry that fish farms are the cause and they can have a salmon utopia of nets when removed. How could she possibly talk bad about them after promising them all that? No doubt that the site of her sampling is the very same spot where first nations net salmon.

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Her comments are about as accurate as the steelhead derby on the Harrison
The first pink is spawned out and I’m just guessing those other mortalities are from the netting.
Hopefully she was taking video footage of the netting as well..lol

As for steelhead getting tested...I am sure there is a bunch of anglers or tackle stores that would be more than happy to give her some bodies for testing.
 
So it's now been well over a week since I emailed the dis honerable Mr Wilkinson to his official e mail asking to explain the announcement and justify the opening for nets gave him some leway considering the election but have not even received a auto response guess he feels the people of Canada don't deserve an answer
 
So it's now been well over a week since I emailed the dis honerable Mr Wilkinson to his official e mail asking to explain the announcement and justify the opening for nets gave him some leway considering the election but have not even received a auto response guess he feels the people of Canada don't deserve an answer
Well ? Are you going to give up that easily ? I suggest that you phone his office, politely at first asking for a reply, and ramping up the question if you dont get a rely. You need to follow it up. I speak from experience.....
 
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