Emergency Assessment concludes that BC's Interior Steelhead Trout at risk of extincti

[IronNoggin]

COSEWIC sends the matter up to the Environment Minister calling for Emergency Listings (SARA).

https://www.newswire.ca/news-release...673950263.html

"The main threats include inadvertent bycatch of adults by net fisheries targeting Pacific salmon and poor ocean conditions."

Going to be interesting to see how Justine & Climate Barbee deal with the FN net issue...

Background Documents:

http://registrelep-sararegistry.gc.c...ocumentID=3290

Cheers,
Nog

[IronNoggin]

It Shouldn’t Be This Hard
by Bob Hooton

Ever since the current British Columbia government took office and got itself organized in mid-2017 the steelhead advocacy community has been vociferous in its push for clarity on the question of which of its Cabinet Ministers spoke for steelhead? For those not familiar with the British Columbia and Canadian government linkages and problems therein, here’s a simplified picture.

The Federal Government voice for steelhead is the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. That organization has domain over steelhead in tidal waters which, of course, includes all the commercial fisheries that intercept steelhead bound for rivers such as the Thompson, Dean and Skeena. DFO also leads all decision making regarding First Nations fisheries, both in tidal and non-tidal waters. The provincial government is responsible for the freshwater recreational fishery only. However, the steelhead jurisdiction issue is confused by a provincial government decision of 1999 that gave one of its Ministries (the Ministry of Agriculture or MAg) command of all interaction with DFO on the commercial fishery steelhead interception file. That agreement remains in effect and it is the one now targeted by the steelhead advocacy community. MAg is responsible for licensing all the processors of commercially caught fish and also for marketing seafood (including farmed fish). That leaves the other provincial agency (Ministry of Forests Lands Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development or FLNRORD) to deal with the steelhead that make it beyond the nets and enter the non-tidal waters recreational fisheries upstream. Neither of the two provincial agencies has any role in FN fisheries that have grown dramatically in recent years. Remember that point in particular when contemplating the discussion below.

Numerous letters have been written to the highest levels in the provincial government over the past many months. The consistent theme has been to establish FLNRORD (or, better yet, a new derivative of it) be confirmed as the one and only voice for steelhead provincially. In other words, get out of town MAg! I should add that MAg is a co-conspirator with DFO in sanctioning the fisheries targeting Fraser River chum as “sustainable” under the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification process. Think about that in the context of the endangered status of Thompson and Chilcotin steelhead that are clearly the victims of the net fisheries focused on chums being harvested purely for their roe. Most of those nets are no longer being fished by licensed commercial fishing vessels.

With all this firmly in mind, there was a milestone exchange in the provincial legislature in Victoria yesterday. It focuses on the Thompson/Chilcotin steelhead crisis of the moment, justifiably, but it brackets the pervasive issues above equally. Thankfully it is all on YouTube so I don’t have to say anything more than the clip itself does. Have a look and read on afterward.

video-steelhead-going-extinct

There is was, finally. The FLNRORD Minister responding to the question of who speaks for steelhead answered plainly – “I do”. Sounds good, right? But, notice the recommendation to Minister Donaldson that his companion agency, MAg, rescind its support for the MSC certification of the chum fishery as sustainable. That point was carefully avoided in Donaldson’s response. Note also the references to the FN chiefs up in the Thompson River country. What about the 14 FNs between the mouth of the river and Yale, far downstream from the Thompson, where all the damage to steelhead is really being done? Then there is the same old same old implication that it’s the commercial fishery that is solely responsible for the endangered status of those Interior Fraser Steelhead. Personally, I’m growing weary of that naivety (negligence?). Here’s some clarification around that. It comes from a presentation made by a senior member of DFO’s Conservation and Protection Division (i.e. the fish cops) to an assemblage known as “The Fraser River Aboriginal Fisheries Secretariat” one month ago.

The most interesting item in the early going of the presentation was the rationale for increased DFO enforcement presence during the Johnstone Strait chum fishery. That was all about demonstrating a defensible compliance rate for that fishery lest the MSC certification of that fishery be placed under the microscope. To quote the presentation: “Will provide a defensible compliance rate for this fishery which assist with MSC certification and make increase market price” (grammar exactly as it appeared). By the way, the compliance inspections for those Johnstone Strait fisheries indicated 32 of 69 seines exhibited issues sufficient for warnings, if not charges. For gill netters the figure was 122 of 129 inspections. Good luck steelhead!

As for the remainder of the report, here are a few highlights based on the breakdown of enforcement effort, in hours, expended by DFO officers in the three areas of concern to Thompson and Chilcotin steelhead - the South Coast, the Lower Fraser and the Interior Fraser. The figures were organized for individual fisheries each year between 2014 and 2017. There was no information presented to allow me to translate hours of patrol effort into something more instructive like man days or person years. The hours figures left me thinking there would have been a lot of time between patrols or, in other words, more days that weren’t patrolled than were.

1. Fisheries that are exclusive to First Nations received the lowest level of enforcement monitoring in 2017 relative to any other year..

2. Recreational fisheries in the lower Fraser River received five times as much enforcement patrol effort as did commercial fisheries.

3. Over 100 illegal gill nets were seized by DFO officers patrolling the lower Fraser in 2017. I’ll go out on a limb here and assume the large majority of those nets were set by FN fishers. The fact that no charges were referenced for those seizures lends support to my assumption. There were 69 recreational anglers charged for fishing with barbed hooks over the same areas and times.

4. Ninety illegal gill nets were seized by DFO officers patrolling the Fraser between Chilliwack and Hells Gate. Apparently 15 of these seizures resulted in charges but there was no mention of consequences.

5. DFO noted that compliance among Interior Fraser First Nations was “relatively good for the sockeye fishery except for one community near Lillooet that protested and harvested approximately 13,000 summer run sockeye.” There was no mention of any consequences there either. One wonders how many Chilcotin steelhead may have ended up dead in this fishery.

6. Finally, and most importantly, here we had a senior DFO Conservation and Protection Division staff member at the podium addressing The Fraser River Aboriginal Fisheries Secretariat right in the thick of the emergency review of the status of those endangered Thompson and Chilcotin steelhead and the word steelhead never appears in his 32 slide Power Point presentation.

One thing is certain from all of the above. The parts are not connected either within or between governments. How much of that is deliberate and how much is senior officials in both camps not being properly informed is perhaps debateable. Either way, a British Columbia treasure is being victimized.

Bob Hooton | February 20, 2018 at 5:46 pm | URL: https://wp.me/p7Sp4e-dE

[Fred1]

yes very interesting stuff!

[bottles]

Those numbers are brutal; from the number of fish to the number of illegal nets.

[IronNoggin]

And the government does what it does best - create another study while doing nothing else beyond paying the matter a little lip service.

http://steelheadvoices.com/?p=864#more-864

They are done.
Nog

[Walking Buffalo]

Within First Nations actions to regaining control of resources, allowing wildlife/fish populations to become "endangered" is an accepted course.

Don't be fooled into believing First Nations are being ignorant of the situation/consequences.

These moves are part of a multi-generation long battle that has just begun. This is intentional.