twinwinds
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Salmon returned to streams by knapsack and horseback
Mark Hume
Published on Sunday, Oct. 11, 2009 10:47PM EDT
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ams-by-knapsack-and-horseback/article1320561/
All over British Columbia, small groups of volunteers are trying to restore diminished salmon runs, but few have a more pristine area, less money or more challenging logistics than the Tofino Salmon Enhancement Society.
The Clayoquot Sound Biosphere Reserve, where the group operates, may be the only place in B.C. where salmon volunteers use horses to reach the remote pools where they capture brood stock.
“It's something you might have seen 50 years ago, but you don't expect it now,” says Doug Palfrey, who runs the TSES out of a small building in Tofino.
The TSES operation is so small it doesn't even have a stream of its own. Instead it pipes in water from Tofino's backup drinking-water supply, flushing it through eight aluminum tanks where salmon fry are raised.
Mr. Palfrey and other volunteers – 40 in a good year – collect spawning salmon from some 13 rivers, strip the fish of eggs and raise the young salmon, first in tanks and then in ocean net pens.
When the fish are big enough to survive on their own, they return them to their streams. Sometimes they hike in, with fish in backpacks. And sometimes they borrow pack horses from the Clayoquot Wilderness Resort, a luxurious getaway where a week's stay costs about $11,000.
That is $4,000 more than the TSES gets in funding in a year from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans under the Salmonid Enhancement Program.
It's not much federal money – especially when the job is to save salmon in an area recognized by the UN for its biological importance.
But with additional support from the non-profit Pacific Salmon Foundation and in-kind donations from local businesses (including fish farms, which contribute boats), the tiny salmon-enhancement group does what it can.
On one river, the TSES took the Chinook run from about 40 fish up to 400.
On Tranquil Creek, they started with about 100 spawning Chinook and, over several years, increased it to 2,800.
Because of budget constraints, however, the TSES can't work on all the salmon rivers in Clayoquot Sound every year.
“We do a couple. Build them up and then move on,” Mr. Palfrey said.
Many of those runs flourish for a while, but when stocks start to fall again, the TSES volunteers don't always have the time or money to go back. Over the past few years, salmon survival rates have been falling across the region and some streams have only a handful of spawners.
“We are facing extinction of some of those Chinook runs,” Mr. Palfrey said. “And it's pretty bad to talk about possible extinction in a UNESCO biosphere.”
He said if the TSES had $50,000 annually, it could work on all the threatened streams every year.
That's what is needed, he said, if salmon in Clayoquot Sound are to be brought back.
And Canada has to get the Alaskan commercial fishery to stop killing so many of the Chinook bound for B.C. rivers.
“I think they take half our salmon,” Mr. Palfrey said. “That's got to be stopped.”
The United States is spending billions of dollars on salmon restoration. This year, the U.S. government increased the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund in the Pacific Northwest states to $50-million from $35-million. In addition, under the Northwest Power Act, $207-million is spent annually on fish and wildlife restoration on the Columbia River alone.
In B.C., the salmon enhancement program spends about $3-million of its $25-million annual budget supporting 10,000 volunteers working on 300 projects. It's not much money and it's spread thin.
The front lines are staffed by people like Mr. Palfrey. Underfunded, and on horseback, but never quitting.
“I couldn't give up,” he said of the fight to save salmon. “I love the work. And when you swim a river and see 75 Chinook in a pool, where you've only seen one or two in the past, that's all the reward I need.”
Mark Hume
Published on Sunday, Oct. 11, 2009 10:47PM EDT
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ams-by-knapsack-and-horseback/article1320561/
All over British Columbia, small groups of volunteers are trying to restore diminished salmon runs, but few have a more pristine area, less money or more challenging logistics than the Tofino Salmon Enhancement Society.
The Clayoquot Sound Biosphere Reserve, where the group operates, may be the only place in B.C. where salmon volunteers use horses to reach the remote pools where they capture brood stock.
“It's something you might have seen 50 years ago, but you don't expect it now,” says Doug Palfrey, who runs the TSES out of a small building in Tofino.
The TSES operation is so small it doesn't even have a stream of its own. Instead it pipes in water from Tofino's backup drinking-water supply, flushing it through eight aluminum tanks where salmon fry are raised.
Mr. Palfrey and other volunteers – 40 in a good year – collect spawning salmon from some 13 rivers, strip the fish of eggs and raise the young salmon, first in tanks and then in ocean net pens.
When the fish are big enough to survive on their own, they return them to their streams. Sometimes they hike in, with fish in backpacks. And sometimes they borrow pack horses from the Clayoquot Wilderness Resort, a luxurious getaway where a week's stay costs about $11,000.
That is $4,000 more than the TSES gets in funding in a year from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans under the Salmonid Enhancement Program.
It's not much federal money – especially when the job is to save salmon in an area recognized by the UN for its biological importance.
But with additional support from the non-profit Pacific Salmon Foundation and in-kind donations from local businesses (including fish farms, which contribute boats), the tiny salmon-enhancement group does what it can.
On one river, the TSES took the Chinook run from about 40 fish up to 400.
On Tranquil Creek, they started with about 100 spawning Chinook and, over several years, increased it to 2,800.
Because of budget constraints, however, the TSES can't work on all the salmon rivers in Clayoquot Sound every year.
“We do a couple. Build them up and then move on,” Mr. Palfrey said.
Many of those runs flourish for a while, but when stocks start to fall again, the TSES volunteers don't always have the time or money to go back. Over the past few years, salmon survival rates have been falling across the region and some streams have only a handful of spawners.
“We are facing extinction of some of those Chinook runs,” Mr. Palfrey said. “And it's pretty bad to talk about possible extinction in a UNESCO biosphere.”
He said if the TSES had $50,000 annually, it could work on all the threatened streams every year.
That's what is needed, he said, if salmon in Clayoquot Sound are to be brought back.
And Canada has to get the Alaskan commercial fishery to stop killing so many of the Chinook bound for B.C. rivers.
“I think they take half our salmon,” Mr. Palfrey said. “That's got to be stopped.”
The United States is spending billions of dollars on salmon restoration. This year, the U.S. government increased the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund in the Pacific Northwest states to $50-million from $35-million. In addition, under the Northwest Power Act, $207-million is spent annually on fish and wildlife restoration on the Columbia River alone.
In B.C., the salmon enhancement program spends about $3-million of its $25-million annual budget supporting 10,000 volunteers working on 300 projects. It's not much money and it's spread thin.
The front lines are staffed by people like Mr. Palfrey. Underfunded, and on horseback, but never quitting.
“I couldn't give up,” he said of the fight to save salmon. “I love the work. And when you swim a river and see 75 Chinook in a pool, where you've only seen one or two in the past, that's all the reward I need.”
