True Colours - By Bob Hooton.

[OldBlackDog]

True Colors

Those who acknowledge Interior Fraser Steelhead (IFS) as something to cherish have been encouraged by the standard test fishery results that gave rise to optimism in the early going of the annual r…

steelheadvoices.com

 

[OldBlackDog]

The news of the moment is that DFO is lobbying the province to relax restrictions now in place to conserve what remains of IFS. Those restrictions involve measures such as a 27-day rolling window closure applied to in-river FN fishing during the middle portion of the IFS return period. (Twenty-seven days is exactly one third of the IFS run timing period.) Those rolling closures begin as early as September 26 at the downstream end of the lower Fraser and end as late as October 29 at the upstream end. No such closures exist beyond the upstream boundary of that area at Sawmill Creek. At conclusion of the 27 day periods, when chum roe fisheries are the priority, there are supposed to be measures such as daylight only gill netting and constant attendance of those nets to retrieve and release immediately any steelhead entangled. Most, if not all vigilance around those measures is the responsibility of the FNs themselves. Compliance and success must be 100% if DFO reports not even one steelhead has been killed in the past six years.

 

[OldBlackDog]

One can only assume the relaxations now being proposed originate with the 2022 test fishery results and DFO’s growing commitment to accommodate the demands of FNs. Both the unprecedented Albion chinook test fishery steelhead catch and the newly broadcast Whonnock sockeye test fishery catches of steelhead are undoubtedly being used in that context. We can be certain any caution around the more recent plummet in test fishery steelhead catches is being ignored, as is what may yet surface with respect to the reduction in steelhead abundance estimates certain to follow from the unprecedented in-river fishing that has already occurred upstream from the test fisheries. Remember, IFS have twice been recommended (and ignored) for listing under Canada’s Species At Risk Act (SARA) by the body of scientific experts known as the Committee On the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). In an era when science based decisions are held to be the cause célèbre, how does it happen that conservation is meaningless? Where is the frequently espoused precautionary principle? How does the DFO mantra of conservation above all else apply to IFS? Who ever challenges DFO or those 30 FNs for their impact on IFS?