Old news - but cowichan fish can't catch a break

Unbelievable!!! Who says crime doesn't pay! Wouldn't hold my breath if I was the Zurich insurance company on getting any of my money back!
 
Yes the fish struggles and not surprising article..You haven't seen nothing yet if any of you come up here have a look at our river...My god never seen it so low...Its scary. very concerned with this years stocks...
 
Lived here my whole life and started fishing the Cowie when I was 12 years old (39 years) and have never seen it this bad.
Saw the FN's canoeing down the river below the Silver Bridge yesterday morning,spear in hand hunting anything that
possibly made it upstream.I wish that just for once they'd give them a frickin' break!
 
That's weird I heard Cow tribes was backing off spearing...... I am thinking the seal situation in bay is probably not helping ether...
 
That spear fishery won't end until the salmon are extinct
 
Did I miss something?
We are expecting a good run this year on this river.
The real issue here is the lack of water, not the adult returns.
I'm more concerned for the salmon fry that are in there right now trying to survive.
The spawners have until sometime in October to do there thing.
We need rain......
Oh and remember that these folks have a right to food fish and frankly we should support that.
As far as I know the return numbers should green light a food fishery.
We need a healthy ecosystem and that ecosystem includes FN.

Carry on....

Added: I also very concerned for the folks that work at the mill.....
 
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Fishtofino said:
At least they have to bite for sports fisherman to catch them as opposed to the bag fishery and spears in a dirt low river. Give your head a shake
Click to expand...

we all play a part in this. weather you catch them in the river or on their way down it still contributes to the problem.
 
GLG said:
Did I miss something?
We are expecting a good run this year on this river.
The real issue here is the lack of water, not the adult returns.
I'm more concerned for the salmon fry that are in there right now trying to survive.
The spawners have until sometime in October to do there thing.
We need rain......
Oh and remember that these folks have a right to food fish and frankly we should support that.
As far as I know the return numbers should green light a food fishery.
We need a healthy ecosystem and that ecosystem includes FN.

Carry on....

Added: I also very concerned for the folks that work at the mill.....
Click to expand...

Gill that wasn't the point. The point is the river is far to low and zero water. Usually its Ok but what is going on is they are totally stuck lower river and its ether spears or seals right now...I just think FN should be smart about it and lay off until there is more water......Otherwise they will sit there for weeks and get picked of one by one... As for returns. I wasn't aware there is a record run here I don't have the numbers in front of me.. BTW since your in the know what is the return data you spoke of....?
 
SpringVelocity said:
Gill that wasn't the point. The point is the river is far to low and zero water. Usually its Ok but what is going on is they are totally stuck lower river and its ether spears or seals right now...I just think FN should be smart about it and lay off until there is more water......Otherwise they will sit there for weeks and get picked of one by one... As for returns. I wasn't aware there is a record run here I don't have the numbers in front of me.. BTW since your in the know what is the return data you spoke of....?
Click to expand...

This is the first wave of fish going up the river. If the seals don't get them there will be plenty more to come. I was looking for my copy of the 2014 salmon outlook but I can't find it. Not sure what happened because I usually have a copy handy. I did find a printout of a slide show from last spring that said the outlook was the same as last years outlook. The number on that slide said 4000. That number maybe to low and I would recommend using numbers from Cowichan Fisheries Roundtable. They are the ones that really know whats going on. I watch from a far as what happens there affects us here in area 14. I have also been asked to check some of the numbers with CWT on Cowichan Chinook. I don't mind as it seems that some of those CWT have my name on it.

Here is some info from the IFMP.....

Taken from the 2013/2014 IFMP


Page 146
4.1 Conservation / Sustainability Objectives
NOTE: The objectives shown in bold below is the wording from the 2013/14 Integrated
Fisheries Management Plan.
4.1.1 Lower Strait of Georgia Chinook
The objective for Lower Strait of Georgia (LGS) chinook in 2013 is to reduce fishery
exploitation in known areas of significant impact.
The Cowichan River is the primary indicator of marine survival and exploitation for the
LGS fall chinook
In 2013, the natural origin component of the adult escapement (3,681) remains below the
target of 6,500 and has been below the goal since 1986 and less than half of the target
between 2002 and 2012. Spawner levels have seen improvements since historic lows in
2009, and returns in 2013 were slightly higher than the previous year suggesting that the
rebuilding seen recently is continuing.
Since the low escapement in 2009 (214 hatchery origin and 571 natural origin chinook
adults) there has been an increasing number of chinook returning to the Cowichan River.
In 2013 the escapement was 6,904 chinook of which 437 jacks and 910 adults were
hatchery origin and 1,876 jacks and 3,681 adults were natural origin. 39 jacks and 185
adults were collected for broodstock. 2,274 jacks and 4406 adults spawned naturally.
The overall exploitation rate estimated for 2012 was 62.8%, of which 56.6% was in
Canadian and 6.2% in United States fisheries. The average Canadian exploitation rate
was 53.0% from 2000 to 2011. It should be noted that the estimated number of CWT
tags used for the analyses was 3,352 compared to 1,948 in 2011. The 2013 exploitation
rate estimates will not be available until June 2014.
Click to expand...

As you can see the numbers are going up and that's good news.

Ok here is my point...... and it's not directed to you SV
I'm getting tired of the first let's blame the FN then the commercials, fishfarms and last the rec sector.
Do we all have a share? Well yes we do but if we are going to point fingers we should ask the tough question. Is this a sign of the climate change those science guy's have been talking about? You know wetter winters and dry summers. Less snow pack and more rain. I'm seeing the dry summers and the records water temps in the rivers and the SoG. I'm seeing the Ph in the SoG affecting the shell fish and plankton. I'm seeing the percent of smolts to adults dropping. But yet we tolerate people and industries that are the cause of all this. If these trends continue we won't have to worry about a couple of guy's on a bridge spearing salmon to bring home to feed their family.... Yes the optics of FN spearing fishing may not be to good. It may not be PC but as the video said they will close the food fishery if they don't get some rain and start trucking spawners up the river..... Holy frack.....

What can we do..... First we should make it unacceptable to deny climate change in any way shape or form. People should be called out and told there is no place for crap like that. Yes I know you can't fix stupid but they should get the message that it's not acceptable in society. This will take effort by everyone to show these folks where they stand. I'm not happy with how this site treats these deniers and I don't see many folks calling them out. (yes there are a few and that's appreciated) But on a whole most just sit there on there thumbs and say nothing. This has to stop.

What else can we do..... Tell our "leaders" that we don't accept their actions for Tarsands, Coal and LNG to their view point of "Climate Change Light" You know, just this expansion here and this pipeline there and a coal dock over dare. Put that money towards real solutions like helping us get off this carbon path to hell. Civic elections are coming in November, that will be a good time to ask some question on where they stand.

SpringVelocity I sure hope things improve down your way as your ground zero for salmon on ECVI. We have problems here too but not as bad as there. Not sure I can do much help but if you need something just PM me.
 
This water problem is nothing to do with global warming and everything to do with man.
Man damned the river and drew down the water for his usage. He also decided to use it as a toilet.
 
The blame game on why there are so few fish around in the Strait of Georgia is always an interesting one. FN, Commies, Rec, fishfarms, seals, pathogens, habitat degradation, climate change, etc all part no doubt. We can and do spend countless hours blaming each other but for these woeful returns but research in the strait (and cowichan in particular) is showing that the BIG issue is not FN, Commie or Rec fisheries that are taking/harvesting these returning fish. The BIG issues is juvenile mortality. How big? The research teams working on this with tagged juvenile salmon believe it could be around 60-80% mortality for salmon in their first 1-2 months at sea! yes, For every 10 fish that hatch, survive in the river and make it to the estuary we then lose 6-8 at or near the estuary. There are a lot of hypotheses for this and they are being tested this summer. For 2014 alone they are spending hundreds of thousands on research to determine what is causing this massive die-off.

Could be habitat loss (eelgrass), hardening of estuary, seal predation (yes, they eat juveniles too), bird predation, toxins, and whole host of other things. But one thing is for certain, the majority of these tagged fish are not living for long after they enter the salt water. They are not making it out past vancouver island and into the open Pacific and they are not returning as adults to be targeted for sportfishing, commerical fishing, rec fishing, etc.

The low water on the cowichan is another hurdle for any returning fish to deal with and it sucks but it doesn't change the fact that juvenile salmon survival is the biggest issue we can currently tackle. I say currently because if it turns out climate change is the big killer for juveniles and responsible for lower water levels and warmer water then we're pretty much all screwed. ;)

GLG said:
Ok here is my point...... and it's not directed to you SV
I'm getting tired of the first let's blame the FN then the commercials, fishfarms and last the rec sector.
Do we all have a share? Well yes we do but if we are going to point fingers we should ask the tough question. Is this a sign of the climate change those science guy's have been talking about? You know wetter winters and dry summers. Less snow pack and more rain. I'm seeing the dry summers and the records water temps in the rivers and the SoG. I'm seeing the Ph in the SoG affecting the shell fish and plankton. I'm seeing the percent of smolts to adults dropping. But yet we tolerate people and industries that are the cause of all this. If these trends continue we won't have to worry about a couple of guy's on a bridge spearing salmon to bring home to feed their family.... Yes the optics of FN spearing fishing may not be to good. It may not be PC but as the video said they will close the food fishery if they don't get some rain and start trucking spawners up the river..... Holy frack.....

What can we do..... First we should make it unacceptable to deny climate change in any way shape or form. People should be called out and told there is no place for crap like that. Yes I know you can't fix stupid but they should get the message that it's not acceptable in society. This will take effort by everyone to show these folks where they stand. I'm not happy with how this site treats these deniers and I don't see many folks calling them out. (yes there are a few and that's appreciated) But on a whole most just sit there on there thumbs and say nothing. This has to stop.

What else can we do..... Tell our "leaders" that we don't accept their actions for Tarsands, Coal and LNG to their view point of "Climate Change Light" You know, just this expansion here and this pipeline there and a coal dock over dare. Put that money towards real solutions like helping us get off this carbon path to hell. Civic elections are coming in November, that will be a good time to ask some question on where they stand.

SpringVelocity I sure hope things improve down your way as your ground zero for salmon on ECVI. We have problems here too but not as bad as there. Not sure I can do much help but if you need something just PM me.
Click to expand...
 
OldBlackDog said:
This water problem is nothing to do with global warming and everything to do with man.
Man damned the river and drew down the water for his usage. He also decided to use it as a toilet.
Click to expand...

Then how do you explain this.....
The mean annual area of snow cover in Canada has declined by 5.1% from 1972 to 2010 (Chart 1).9
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/16-002-x/16-002-x2012001-eng.pdf

Got an explanation for this?
Across southern Canada (the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence, the Prairies and the South British Columbia Mountains climatic regions) and the west coast (Pacific Coast climatic region), the mean temperature departure trend increased between 0.9 C and 1.7 C over the study period.
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/16-002-x/16-002-x2011001-eng.pdf

We need snow in the winter so that it melts slowly and can supply water through the dry summer until the fall rains come. This is not happening as this data suggests.

Over the study period, the Pacific Coast (-7 percentage points), and South British Columbia Mountains (-18 percentage points) climatic regions experienced decreased precipitation during winter, but data show increased precipitation during spring (+24 percentage points) and fall (+17 percentage points) in the South British Columbia Mountains and during spring (+19 percentage points) and summer (+7 percentage points) in the Pacific Coast as compared to the normal period. The results did not show a significant trend for fall precipitation in the Pacific Coast and summer precipitation in the South British Columbia Mountains.
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/16-002-x/16-002-x2011003-eng.pdf
 
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tincan said:
The blame game on why there are so few fish around in the Strait of Georgia is always an interesting one. FN, Commies, Rec, fishfarms, seals, pathogens, habitat degradation, climate change, etc all part no doubt. We can and do spend countless hours blaming each other but for these woeful returns but research in the strait (and cowichan in particular) is showing that the BIG issue is not FN, Commie or Rec fisheries that are taking/harvesting these returning fish. The BIG issues is juvenile mortality. How big? The research teams working on this with tagged juvenile salmon believe it could be around 60-80% mortality for salmon in their first 1-2 months at sea! yes, For every 10 fish that hatch, survive in the river and make it to the estuary we then lose 6-8 at or near the estuary. There are a lot of hypotheses for this and they are being tested this summer. For 2014 alone they are spending hundreds of thousands on research to determine what is causing this massive die-off.

Could be habitat loss (eelgrass), hardening of estuary, seal predation (yes, they eat juveniles too), bird predation, toxins, and whole host of other things. But one thing is for certain, the majority of these tagged fish are not living for long after they enter the salt water. They are not making it out past vancouver island and into the open Pacific and they are not returning as adults to be targeted for sportfishing, commerical fishing, rec fishing, etc.

The low water on the cowichan is another hurdle for any returning fish to deal with and it sucks but it doesn't change the fact that juvenile salmon survival is the biggest issue we can currently tackle. I say currently because if it turns out climate change is the big killer for juveniles and responsible for lower water levels and warmer water then we're pretty much all screwed. ;)
Click to expand...

Thank you for your input and well said....
 
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