Something’s fishy about B.C.’s miracle salmon run

The sockeye salmon population exploded this year, but why didn’t the Department of Fisheries see it coming?

These are surprising times for British Columbia’s fisheries. For the past three years the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has issued a moratorium on harvesting sockeye salmon because of declining stock, but this year 30 million of the fish swam up the Fraser River, the biggest return in 97 years. It looks like a miracle, but the huge run has caused a lot of anger in B.C., most of it directed at the DFO.

An extensive article by Kevin Libin in the National Post explains that “if anything unites environmentalists, capitalists, and scientists, it's an increasing distrust of the way the DFO has managed the salmon stocks.” The department is caught between “clashing agendas involving First Nations policies, environmentalists, and industry” and no one is satisfied. Environmentalists say the region is overfished, industry believes the opposite, and First Nations fishermen have riled their neighbours by successfully arguing for special fishing rights. The DFO bases its policies on its own estimates of returning salmon populations, but according to its critics, wildly inaccurate predictions in recent years have “demonstrated that (the DFO) has far from a solid understanding of factors influencing salmon returns.”

Given this mismanagement, “you’ve got to wonder whether a review should be ordered into the operations” of the DFO, says the Province. Even their handling of this year’s bounty was bungled according to a recent editorial. After opening up the fishery for a few hours each day last week, the DFO suddenly announced a 32-hour opening on Wednesday. Desperate fishermen worked themselves to exhaustion, staying out for the entire period. “Wouldn't three, 12-hour openings over three days … make more sense and be less dangerous?”

The Vancouver Sun’s Stephen Hume is warning that despite calls for an increased harvest this year, “let's not forget this ‘record’ run, the best since 1913, is no pinnacle of achievement. It's a pathetic remnant of past glory.” Increasing the harvest would be folly, he says. “(L)et's hope fisheries managers have the fortitude to once again withstand the voices of greed and stupidity and manage this stock … by planning long range for future abundance.”