Trends in Chinook Enhancement Spending to Abundance?

[searun]

Putting this out there, looking to see if anyone has historical data to help track historical funding trends for Chinook enhancement from 1970's through to present day. Hoping that there are folks on the forum who are better historians than I, and can point me to data to help determine if there is a correlation between successive government decisions to cut back enhancement funding and chinook abundance. There are a lot of great researchers in the forum community - so hoping to tap into your expertise please. Thanks in advance.

 

[GLG]

Putting this out there, looking to see if anyone has historical data to help track historical funding trends for Chinook enhancement from 1970's through to present day. Hoping that there are folks on the forum who are better historians than I, and can point me to data to help determine if there is a correlation between successive government decisions to cut back enhancement funding and chinook abundance. There are a lot of great researchers in the forum community - so hoping to tap into your expertise please. Thanks in advance.

The numbers for Salmonid Enhancement Program (SEP) are on DFO's website but they only have from the last 10 years.
http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/reports-rapports-eng.htm
You can find them in the Departmental Results Reports. Look for Program 1.4 SEP

I did find something from earlier times (1978 - 1991) here in this paper.
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/f93-228

Otto Langer compiled this info back in 2008 if I'm not mistaken from some report to standing committees in parliament.

 

[SpringVelocity]

Interesting...

 

[searun]

Awesome, thanks for your help.

 

[wildmanyeah]

Id Imagine it will be hard to correlate since a lot of the funding that was cut was picked up by volunteers. Lots of the volunteer hatcheries in the lower mainland were previously ran by the government.

 

[OldBlackDog]

Putting this out there, looking to see if anyone has historical data to help track historical funding trends for Chinook enhancement from 1970's through to present day. Hoping that there are folks on the forum who are better historians than I, and can point me to data to help determine if there is a correlation between successive government decisions to cut back enhancement funding and chinook abundance. There are a lot of great researchers in the forum community - so hoping to tap into your expertise please. Thanks in advance.

Contact DFO and get the Main Board meetings. This was discussed by them and motions made.

Further discuss with Jeremy Manyard as he was chair of Chinook group .

Marilyn was involved as well! So she will have information as well.

The Main Board had a Committee on hatcherys as well. This was due to the cutbacks.

 

[searun]

Its tough digging up 40 years of history, but I have someone who has the data offering to share it! Some very interesting patterns. Follow the money and you see what governments value. I saw in the 1980's we produced over 60 million chinook amoung other things. No wonder our friends to the south think we are light weights today.

 

[OldBlackDog]

Its tough digging up 40 years of history, but I have someone who has the data offering to share it! Some very interesting patterns. Follow the money and you see what governments value. I saw in the 1980's we produced over 60 million chinook amoung other things. No wonder our friends to the south think we are light weights today.

And DFO continued to cut the amount of fish raised in spite of continued feedback from the SFAB not to.

Fish do not convert to votes by the general public.

 

[bones]

SEP, is currently on the chopping block. Funding for program to be removed. Pressure from east coast DFO who say the program isnt on the east coast so why on the west? No hatcheries on the east so why required on the west......this is the second time SEP funding is being targeted. Please right both Dfo and Minister a short letter explaining why the world renown hatchery program is required and should be expanded

 

[california]

And DFO continued to cut the amount of fish raised in spite of continued feedback from the SFAB not to.

Fish do not convert to votes by the general public.

Reductions in hatchery production are not just about budget considerations. Knowledge about the effects of hatchery production on wild stocks have a lot to do with it. Not just here but elsewhere. The 2017 NOAA report on 62 of the hatcheries in the Columbia River basin recommended reduction from 18 million Chinook to 14 million on these facilities to protect endangered wild stocks https://kcts9.org/programs/earthfix/noaa-finalizes-new-plan-columbia-river-hatcheries. The thinking from the 1970s that estuaries and the ocean environment have unlimited carrying capacity has been disproven . From the 2018 DFO publication : REVIEW OF GENETCIALLY BASED TARGETS FOR ENHANCED CONTRIBUTIONS TO CANADIAN PACIFIC CHINOOK SALMON POPULATIONS conclusions
"Conservation of genetic diversity and fitness of Pacific salmon in the natural environment is the highest priority for resource management specified in the WSP. Hatchery production of salmon, while recognized as an appropriate tool for both population conservation and increased harvest opportunity, is a risk factor to genetic diversity in wild populations. A transparent means to balance the trade-off between the potential benefits of increased hatchery fish production and the risks of reduced genetic diversity and fitness in wild salmon is required'

The Cowichan is a river that adheres to this model with a limit of 30% of the run being captured for broodstock, and keeping the hatchery component of the total return at less than 50%. The Cowichan is exceeding those goals, with about 10% being taken for broodstock recently and 30% of the run being hatchery origin. This while reducing the egg take from 3 million in mid 1990s to a target of 700,000 now. There have been investments in habitat rehabilitation to support the goals.

 

[wildmanyeah]

Yeah that may be all true California but cutting hatch productions should actually be built into the pacific salmon treaty then.

Others wise Canada hatchey production will be displaced by Alaska or Washington production.

If any thing needs to be cut I’d look at cutting that Alaska pink salmon production.

Ocean carrying capacity or even something closer to home straight of Georgia carring capacity would need to be analyzed.

Being it back to SRKW how much of their diat is now depended on hatch production? Also it’s not like we can undo something’s like infrastructure like dams that displaced wild run and has been replaced with hatchery production like Capilano hatchery.

 

[uclueletcharters]

Hatchery fish come from wilds these are not man made fish. So long as the selection is diverse mimicking the wild fish partner selection what’s the difference. Until wild stocks make a stronger recovery in some streams it’s a must to keep stalks up. Hatchery fish relieve significant pressure off wild stocks when out at sea. The gov backs fish farms and most likely needs more pressure to start pumping more dollars in to Pacific salmon enhancement. One of the battles for wild stocks is through logging and land development the small rearing channels that run off rivers have been filled in which were extremely important spawning beds. They protected the eggs from heavy floods that rip up river beds destroying eggs. These small channels protect against those types of floods. The amount of small stream restoration and making of small rearing channels in the past few years in our area is fantastic. Exploring the forests I come across new ditch like rearing channels plugged with coho and recent evidence of many restored streams where logs were cleaned up from poor logging practices back in the day. Again seeing returns in these streams now. No body knows about all this work being done by our local hatchery with volenteers along with some funding from the biosphere. I know the main fella who runs our hatchery and leaned all about what there doing and why. I can say it’s working big time. Problem is in some places where cities are it’s to late there’s parking lots and pavement covering those rearing channels that once were thought of as ditches than ran into creeks and rivers but in fact they were very important spawning grounds that extreme flooding couldn’t reck.

 

[bones]

One of the battles for wild stocks is through logging and land development the small rearing channels that run off rivers have been filled in which were extremely important spawning beds. They protected the eggs from heavy floods that rip up river beds destroying eggs. These small channels protect against those types of floods. The amount of small stream restoration and making of small rearing channels in the past few years in our area is fantastic.

I just presented this to the minister, I also included by-catch by seine nets have wiped out most of the small creeks spawning up and down the coastline. This is major amounts of empty gravel that used to support spawning and we will never get it back. Unless citizen's and the gov work together and reseed these streams.