Chinook fishing restrictions increased in effort to protect B.C.’s southern resident killer whales
VANCOUVER—The critically endangered southern resident killer whales may have more chinook salmon to eat this summer, as Fisheries and Oceans Canada announced stricter fishing quotas for British Columbia’s coast on Tuesday.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada — often called the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, or DFO — already reduced harvesting quotas for B.C. chinook by a third last summer, but staff admitted Tuesday that those measures have not been as effective as they hoped.
A southern resident killer whale holds a piece of salmon in its mouth. Chinook salmon make up about 80 per cent of the diet of this particular population of orca. (Astrid van Ginneken / Center for Whale Research)
The DFO is now setting a new goal of reducing chinook salmon mortality to five per cent for 2019. The new restrictions are aimed specifically at protecting the Fraser chinook fisheries.
Current mortality levels for chinook returning to the Fraser River before July are closer to 20 per cent, according to Misty MacDuffee, wild salmon program co-ordinator at Raincoast Conservation Foundation. The southern resident orcas rely heavily on this specific cohort of fish, she said.
MacDuffee applauded the DFO’s new measures but said even more needs to be done if the department is to truly take a “precautionary approach,” as it claims.
“We have been looking for a plan like this for some time now, for at least three years. It’s unfortunate that it has taken such a crisis to implement these measures,” she said, referring both to declining chinook stocks and the weakening southern resident killer whale population.
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“We will end up in the same place, with a real crisis, if we don’t take stronger measures now.”
B.C.’s iconic resident orcas rely on chinook, also known as king salmon, as their main food source. Whale experts say the southern resident orcas are dangerously close to extinction due to starvation and other threats, such as vessel noise and pollution.
The federal government’s new fishing restrictions for spring and summer vary depending on region. Fraser River recreational fisheries will be completely closed for the summer.
In the Johnstone Strait and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, recreational fishers will have to abide by a catch-and-release policy for chinook until July 14 and 31, respectively. After that, daily quotas will increase to one per person. Traditionally, daily quotas have been two chinook per person.
People on the west coast of Vancouver Island will face similar restrictions, with fishers having to release any chinook they catch in offshore waters until July 14.
Commercial chinook fisheries are closed for the summer.
But MacDuffee said she wants to see even stronger restrictions. She hopes the DFO will halt fishing activity for all salmon species in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Strait of Georgia because even the catch and release of chinook can cause mortality.
At this point, the ailing southern resident orcas need all the help they can get, she said.
She is also calling for a decrease in the number of hatcheries — where juvenile salmon are raised by humans before being released into the wild — because human-reared salmon weaken the genetic pool of wild fish, she said.
In December, a panel of independent experts tasked with assessing the health of wildlife in Canada said some chinook salmon populations in southern B.C. could be wiped out in the next 15 to 20 years if no action is taken to help them recover.
The panel found half of the 16 chinook populations assessed by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada are endangered. There are 28 chinook populations in southern B.C. alone.
There are 74 whales left in the southern resident orca population, which ply the waters off the Pacific Northwest.
Aerial photos of the whales taken last fall
showed three of them were dangerously thin. At least one of them appears to be recovering. Researchers at the Center for Whale Research in Washington state saw matriarch J17 last week in healthier condition.
Three southern resident orcas died in 2018.
Wanyee Li is a Vancouver-based reporter covering courts, wildlife conservation and new technology. Follow her on Twitter:
@wanyeelii
