OldBlackDog
Well-Known Member
Steelhead Voices
2 hrs ·
Here's a call to arms for anyone who knows and loves British Columbia's rapidly diminishing anadromous fish resources, especially steelhead. This is a message sent by Saanich resident Eric Reesor, a well informed, highly experienced veteran of the steelhead and salmon fishery scene in this province. It was sent following a recent post in which I noted our Premier's dismissal of Deputy Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, Mark Zacharias. That story can be found further down on this page.
Eric's message was directed to Acting Green Party leader Adam Olsen, Minister of Agriculture Lana Popham, Eric's Member of Parliament Randall Garrison, Cheknews and Global TV. It is a chilling reminder of where we find ourselves in the space of less than a single human lifetime. His passionate plea for action deserves our attention. Get organized. Make some noise people. Surely we can do something for those that follow.
"With the recent firing of a dedicated BC public servant who is also an advocate for better fisheries management practices in BC, I think it is about time that we fisherpersons start doing serious documentation of the actual returns on the Fraser and elsewhere. Regardless of the causes and without finger pointing. Real scientific data and nothing else pure and simple.
We need some good people to reliably photo document the anadromous fish runs up past McBride and up to Mt Robson and to reliably report on the actual returns and the local stream conditions. We need good people to document the returns up to Fraser Lake and up to Tackla Lake. Then we need good people to also photo document and record the actual chinook returns up past Kamloops on all streams that had chinook on the entire Thompson system. The Adams sockeye run may or may not be good but the truth will also need to be photo documented there as well. Including all the rivers and creeks down all the way to Vancouver.
The Skeena is another story but it also certainly needs a co-operative push to document by all concerned.
The same thing goes for all the rivers on Vancouver Island.
The provincial government has abrogated the responsibility and the federal government is essentially useless at anadromous fisheries management oversight. This cowardly nonsensical 'pass the buck" management of the fisheries of British Columbia must stop and now. It is indeed nonsensical with the fisheries to blame each other for the management problems we all share.
If we all pull together and share documentation of the ongoing systematic neglect at both levels of government about the management of the once incredible and naturally resilient aquatic habit resources of this magnificent province then perhaps the public will finally wake up and start to care about what we are losing that need not be lost.
We are all responsible for the unabated destruction that has occurred mostly within our short lifetimes and in so doing we have already brought to extinction many crucial local strains of the species Oncorhynchus. Any other attitude toward this issue is less than truthful and will show us to be as a peoples of no backbone and poor of character to our children who will inevitably watch the final extinction of anadromous west coast salmon.
We start to act as genuine stewards of our river and ocean ecology now, or we will lose the chance to act at all. We must make an industry of ecology and make stewardship of it meaningful and gainful employment in environmental restoration and oversight an industry of great value to all of us. The payback will be a wonderful future for our descendents if we have the courage to change the way we treat our environment rather than piling on the destruction of habit in a false sense of progress.
I write this as very concerned constituent of the riding of Saanich South who deeply values and understands our shared fresh water, anadromous and diadromous fisheries and does not want to see them destroyed by our neglect and indeed cowardice on these crucial issues to the future environment of the entire province of British Columbia."
Eric Reesor
2 hrs ·
Here's a call to arms for anyone who knows and loves British Columbia's rapidly diminishing anadromous fish resources, especially steelhead. This is a message sent by Saanich resident Eric Reesor, a well informed, highly experienced veteran of the steelhead and salmon fishery scene in this province. It was sent following a recent post in which I noted our Premier's dismissal of Deputy Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, Mark Zacharias. That story can be found further down on this page.
Eric's message was directed to Acting Green Party leader Adam Olsen, Minister of Agriculture Lana Popham, Eric's Member of Parliament Randall Garrison, Cheknews and Global TV. It is a chilling reminder of where we find ourselves in the space of less than a single human lifetime. His passionate plea for action deserves our attention. Get organized. Make some noise people. Surely we can do something for those that follow.
"With the recent firing of a dedicated BC public servant who is also an advocate for better fisheries management practices in BC, I think it is about time that we fisherpersons start doing serious documentation of the actual returns on the Fraser and elsewhere. Regardless of the causes and without finger pointing. Real scientific data and nothing else pure and simple.
We need some good people to reliably photo document the anadromous fish runs up past McBride and up to Mt Robson and to reliably report on the actual returns and the local stream conditions. We need good people to document the returns up to Fraser Lake and up to Tackla Lake. Then we need good people to also photo document and record the actual chinook returns up past Kamloops on all streams that had chinook on the entire Thompson system. The Adams sockeye run may or may not be good but the truth will also need to be photo documented there as well. Including all the rivers and creeks down all the way to Vancouver.
The Skeena is another story but it also certainly needs a co-operative push to document by all concerned.
The same thing goes for all the rivers on Vancouver Island.
The provincial government has abrogated the responsibility and the federal government is essentially useless at anadromous fisheries management oversight. This cowardly nonsensical 'pass the buck" management of the fisheries of British Columbia must stop and now. It is indeed nonsensical with the fisheries to blame each other for the management problems we all share.
If we all pull together and share documentation of the ongoing systematic neglect at both levels of government about the management of the once incredible and naturally resilient aquatic habit resources of this magnificent province then perhaps the public will finally wake up and start to care about what we are losing that need not be lost.
We are all responsible for the unabated destruction that has occurred mostly within our short lifetimes and in so doing we have already brought to extinction many crucial local strains of the species Oncorhynchus. Any other attitude toward this issue is less than truthful and will show us to be as a peoples of no backbone and poor of character to our children who will inevitably watch the final extinction of anadromous west coast salmon.
We start to act as genuine stewards of our river and ocean ecology now, or we will lose the chance to act at all. We must make an industry of ecology and make stewardship of it meaningful and gainful employment in environmental restoration and oversight an industry of great value to all of us. The payback will be a wonderful future for our descendents if we have the courage to change the way we treat our environment rather than piling on the destruction of habit in a false sense of progress.
I write this as very concerned constituent of the riding of Saanich South who deeply values and understands our shared fresh water, anadromous and diadromous fisheries and does not want to see them destroyed by our neglect and indeed cowardice on these crucial issues to the future environment of the entire province of British Columbia."
Eric Reesor
