Port Alberni-Chinook numbers/managment

Charter Tofino

Well-Known Member
I posted earlier in the politics section but feel not many read it and this is an important issue. The area 23 managment has boggled many including myself over the last few years. They seem to have their own agenda which conflicts with actually protecting and managing the runs effectively like their job is supposed to entail.

The runs a fraction of what it once was and is continuing its trend downhill. The last few years the front end and main component of the run was decimated with a late push (not enough) saving a collapse. These late fish rocket through and are difficult for sporties to target which is who brings most of the money to port alberni.

I chose this as an econ policy project and hope to bring it to the attention of more people. A few more cycles getting the snot pounded out of them is likely going to kill the fishery. I wanted to start a discussion on what the problem really is and how can it be solved.

Ps is the last count still 21,000?
 
Two years in a row we are not going to hit bare minimum escapement goals, well under again this year not quite as bad as only 12,000 or so last year though what a embarrassment that was just gill from the river mouth out for $1.25/pound lol.

At least last year there was a bumper crop of coho to save the sporties interest in fishing port alberni.

Wonder if they might think about moving the iconic labor day weekend derby back not that it would change anything if the late run of chinook have one thing in mind and that's to get to the upper river and do there business.

Not much you can do when the people who are in charge of managing and protecting salmon stocks are the same ones destroying them [V].
 
tourists and sportsfishers were innocent and wanted to catch springs while the manager of area 23 and Jimmy P. unleashed seiners to wipe out the early Somass chinooks the last several years. [?]

I don't think that Port Alberni chinook numbers will reach to historic levels anymore. Sockeye/coho fishing sure saved the town and its' economy. Opimistic!
 
That's what I don't understand I realize it's the DFO that has the final say in it unfortunately but the mayor or the town council has to realize how much revenue is generated by people coming into port alberni to fish.

They are spending money on food, gas, tackle, boat launch, campgrounds, and hell some even keep their boats in the marina and that is big money per month.

As someone who lives in port alberni we really have very little going on so many people travel threw here and drive right threw to tofino etc. Why stop in port when you have tofino or ukee for spectacular off shore fishing especially with such dismal returns in the inlet recently for big sport fish.
 
Simple DFO has just micro managed the spring run to JUST enough females to keep the bare minimum egg take happy , plain and simple ~Coho are also boosted by 30% by the feed fry with Local FN funding without any CREDIT so remove 1/3 of the hoes if left to DFO ~~~~ What we see now is the new Status QUO for returns to Alberni A bare minimum for the hatchery and not enough for natural spawning . My 2 SCENTS ~~~ Please prove me wrong

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Steely makes some good points, but there are other factors at work here as well.....a little background......

The Robertson Creek project began as a spawning channel in 1959. When officially opened in 1960, it was the largest artificial spawning channel in North America. The project was designed to introduce pink salmon into the Somass River system, and although 1.6 million pink salmon eggs were planted in the gravel, very few pink salmon returned as adults to the channel.

In 1971, a successful pilot operation on Robertson Creek led to construction of a full scale salmon hatchery. Production began with chinook and coho runs in the fall of 1972. Steelhead trout were later introduced. An expansion of the facility in 1975 increased the rearing capacity by two ponds. A second expansion in 1980 increased incubation, rearing and adult fish handling facilities and added a water cooling system for the summer months to reduce stress and disease among rearing coho and steelhead fry.

The important thing to remember here, is that the natural runs of salmon & steelhead on the Stamp were very low. Salmon topped out somewhere between 3-5000 fish & steelhead only numbered in the 100's. Only after 1975-76 when the first of the enhanced returns of fish began showing up did the fishery we know today start to take shape. As funding grew through the 80's, upwards of 16 million eggs were being taken for the hatchery & the robust returns of chinook became commonplace through the late 80's & early 90's. From around 1998 onwards, the number of smolts being produced began to be reduced to the levels we now see of only 7.2 million for this year. Although escapement goals this year were set at a lofty 57.2 million eggs ( 34,000 fish ) 50 million of those were supposed to be for natural spawn in the system, which has historically only contributed about 5% to the overall return. The big numbers come from the hatchery production every year & the steady decline in smolts produced has lead to the sharp decline in adult returns. The numbers over the years tell the story...if you want more springs, then increase the smolt production back to pre 90's levels & keep in place the tight restrictions on commercial fishing in the canal that were implemented this year.
 
Good issue to highlight. Summer Steel's review of the situation at
Robertson Creek is right on.
I would like to add that the natural productive capacity of the Sommass system, including the estuary, is something doesn't get enough attention. We know from thermal marking that only 5% of the chinook production is natural in spite of the potential of around 50 million of eggs in the gravel each year. Why are is there not a better return from these natural spawners?
The chinooks produced in the hatchery have an easy early life there (i.e. high survival), but once they leave they need good habitat to improve their chances as they move from fresh to saltwater. The Somass estuary has been trashed and needs help.
What is the condition of the salmon habitat in the entire system and what can be done to improve it? The answer to this should be part of turning this situation around.
 
Get the seiners out from in front of the river mouth YEAR after YEAR and we will have some fish back. For the last 6 years that I know of they have hammered these fish so nothing gets up the river to spawn. The same twisted mentality existed again last summer with the sockeye.. DFO only wanted approx 400 000 fish in the lake, when that was reached they unleashed the sieners, possibly adding to wiping out the late run sockeye in the future.
Nature will look after itself if man (DFO) does not screw it up.
This insn't rocket science but APPEARS to be for Port Alberni DFO!

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quote:The important thing to remember here, is that the natural runs of salmon & steelhead on the Stamp were very low. Salmon topped out somewhere between 3-5000 fish & steelhead only numbered in the 100's.

Does this include sockeye, Summer Steel? I other words is the whole run basically created from almost nothing?
 
I am not so sure about the run of Salmon in the Somass, Stamp and Sproat being a small run in the early 70's unless that is all that was left then. I have seen pictures from my Grandfather of him and my Father and Great Grand father catching lots of Chinook and large ones. Multiple 40 and 50 pounders on the same day. And they were not runs from farther down the inlet as they only had a row boat. I also once say an old video of a Comercial boat from i would say the late forties where they would be hundreds of fish dropping out of the net on to the ship deck. Now the documentery said they were Chinook but to me they looked like Sockeye. I also remember as kid growing up on Sproat Lake in the mid 70s fishing in the small creeks that drain into the lake and seeing 100s apon 100s of Coho in the water.

Autumn Ty-ee
 
quote:Originally posted by tubber

quote:The important thing to remember here, is that the natural runs of salmon & steelhead on the Stamp were very low. Salmon topped out somewhere between 3-5000 fish & steelhead only numbered in the 100's.

Does this include sockeye, Summer Steel? I other words is the whole run basically created from almost nothing?


The sockeye situation is a bit different....the run has been there for many years, but in significantly smaller numbers than what people expect today.They were largely untargeted for years because most people thought that they could only be caught by commercial fishermen & simply wouldn't bite on sport gear. A few enterprising anglers seem to have figured it out, [:p] & now you have an integral part of the Port Alberni overall fishery. The biggest key to increasing the sockeye numbers was the implementation of the fertilization programs in Sproat & Great Central lakes. By increasing the abundance of the particular type of food the emerging fry feed on, it has been possible to ensure more food is available for the fish as they feed & grow to a bigger & healthier size as they make their way to the ocean. More bigger, stronger fish heading out has equated to more adults making it back to spawn. The impact of the fertilization was realized almost by accident when one year, they changed the type of fertilizer they were using & sockeye numbers began to fall in subsequent years cycles. They discovered that the new fertilizer was in fact increasing a type of food that the sockeye fry didn't feed on & therefore they had to make do with essentially naturally occurring levels in the lakes.Once the error was realized & corrected, ( the old fertilizer was reinstated ) numbers began to increase again. So, it's not really fair to say the run was created from nothing, rather that it has had quite a good helping hand to increase to the numbers to what we are now used to seeing. The down side to that is people now expect those big numbers every year & that puts an incredible amount of pressure on the fish to satisfy all the needs of the user groups demanding more & more of a share of the harvest. DFO's actions in regards to the commercial & FN's share of the harvest this year would seem to support that they still haven't learned to put fish first & err on the side of caution. From allowing unrestricted in river netting in May, essentially hammering the early part of the run to pieces , to this fraudulent & mythical belief that moping up surplus fish will somehow help to prevent "overspawn" & therefore benefit the fish is absolutely laughable. Back before there were any net fisheries of any kind, millions & millions of salmon spawned in rivers all over B.C. without any disastrous consequences related to "overspawn" Mother nature takes care of her own pretty well.....things didn't start to go bad until man stuck his stubby fingers into the mix & created the mess we have today.
 
quote:Originally posted by Autumn Ty-ee

I am not so sure about the run of Salmon in the Somass, Stamp and Sproat being a small run in the early 70's unless that is all that was left then. I have seen pictures from my Grandfather of him and my Father and Great Grand father catching lots of Chinook and large ones. Multiple 40 and 50 pounders on the same day. And they were not runs from farther down the inlet as they only had a row boat. I also once say an old video of a Comercial boat from i would say the late forties where they would be hundreds of fish dropping out of the net on to the ship deck. Now the documentery said they were Chinook but to me they looked like Sockeye. I also remember as kid growing up on Sproat Lake in the mid 70s fishing in the small creeks that drain into the lake and seeing 100s apon 100s of Coho in the water.

Autumn Ty-ee


You have to put the two things into perspective.......Native runs of salmon never trended much above 5000 fish....they know this from the research done in the 50's when the idea was first floated to enhance salmon on the Somass River. Chinook & coho weren't deemed to be present in significant numbers to justify the number of years it would take to create a much larger return, so they chose pinks instead. With a start of 1.6 million eggs, they were hoping to get a minimum return of 2% or aprox. 32,000 fish & build from there. Problem was, pinks, not being native to the Somass, just didn't take & the attempts were later abandoned for the less plentiful but more likely to succeed native chinook & coho. The results are the numbers you see today.....even though drastically reduced for the last 6-7 years, still far above what was originally there. Essentially, RCH is the salmon run now.........without it, the natural spawn simply wouldn't be able to carry the types of numbers that people have become used to & quite frankly, demand. The idea of wanting to put 30,000+ salmon on the spawning beds is noble, but hopelessly flawed. History has shown over the years that chinook survival from natural spawn contributes less than 5% to the total return. If they were to take 8 of the 50 million eggs they want in the river & put them into the hatchery, they could achieve significant returns in one cycle. It seems easy, so why don't they do it?? Simple, money. It's easier & cheaper to throw millions of eggs in the river & hope for the best than to raise them in the hatchery. Like I said, noble, but flawed......the chinook have two major factors working against them....geography & timing. Firstly, there is only so much spawning gravel in the upper river....90% of the fish spawn in the upper section from GCL down to Money's. With thousands of chinooks trying to spawn in such a relatively small area, they do quite a good job of digging up each others eggs & hurting their own cause.....throw in somewhere between 20-60,000 coho all spawning in the same small area after the chinooks are done & both summer & winter steelhead in the following spring, & you have a good case for not being the best thing to go first. It's a bad situation for the chinook, but it does have an upside.....the washed out eggs feed an array of animals & other fish...especially summer run steelhead. They are voracious feeders on the endless numbers of eggs washing downstream & provide an excellent fishery between mid October through till the end of November. When you put it all in perspective, the Stamp is doing exactly what Mother Nature designed her to do.....providing a natural salmon return of around 5000 fish....pretty much the carrying capacity for how nature designed the river. The kicker is, since man has artificially enhanced the run far beyond what nature designed the river to support, we have become used to years of big returns that can only be supported by the production from RCH. When those numbers go down, so does the return, & no amount of natural spawning is going to bring them back. Quite simply, if we want more chinook, we are going to have to either convince the Feds to pay for it or find ways to raise money for the hatchery through other means.
 
Just a quick update......as of yesterday, RCH has met it's chinook egg take goal of 7.2 million....they in fact collected an extra 72,000 for a grand total of 7,272000 for this year. Coho are up next, then summer run steelhead.....there are also already about 100 hatchery steelhead in the pens that will be released sometime next month back into the lower river.
 
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