No Value In Salmon Says Ottawa!

[IronNoggin]

Received this am from Rafe Mair:

Scientists blast DFO over sockeye collapse

Last night, Simon Fraser University hosted a panel presentation on the Fraser sockeye collapse of 2009.

A group of scientists and field experts had gathered for two days to discuss the causes, impacts, and possible solutions to the salmon crash, and they Were now presenting some of their findings to the public.

I was expecting a polite and slightly sedate discussion among members of the scientific and bureaucratic elite, which I somewhat felt were part of the Problem rather than the solution in the salmon tragedy.

I changed my mind. To my surprise, I found myself participating in a powerful and genuine moment of reckoning.

A chart of the sockeye collapse (see figure below) was projected on the wall which demonstrated that the salmon's demise, although particularly
devastating in 2009, really started 15 years ago in the early nineties.

One after the other, the panel's scientists and members of the public stood up in front of that chart of almost totemic significance and delivered the same message: how in the world did we let this happen?

Particularly powerful was an exchange between former MP and Minister of Fisheries John Fraser, and former DFO top scientist Brian Riddell who
recently resigned from the Department over fundamental policy disagreements.

Fraser, who is retired, was not on the panel but talking instead as a member of the public. All this information about the sockeye, he said, was
available to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans since day one. Why did this not set any alarm bells, why did this not trigger more research? It
poses the essential question of who is in charge at DFO, Fraser commented.
It is incredible that a vast department like this could not explain that something was going wrong. Someone at the Department didn't do anything, he concluded.

Riddell responded for the panel. He said that there was no question DFO knew early on about the collapse. As years went by, he added, I asked myself: can I do more inside or outside of DFO over my career's remaining 10 years? And so I left. Ottawa was asking me: why should we give you more funding for Your salmon research when there is no value in the salmon? (At this point, the room went: gasp.) Ottawa has lost understanding of the value of the salmon, Riddell concluded. The people of BC carry great weight in delivering the message back to Ottawa about the salmon's value, but you are not there yet, he warned.

(Dr Riddell qualified this statement but it was not the fault of DFO and that he resigned because of the failure of Ottawa to take action.)

Mark Angelo, the chair of the panel, pointed out that DFO was invited to participate in the panel's work sessions but had declined the invitation,
Invoking the ongoing judicial review over the sockeye collapse. Angelo commented that DFO's decision was "unfortunate". He did not use the word
Stonewall, but his eyes said precisely that.

A member of the public described DFO as a "moribund" administration.

Many questions of the public were directed at salmon research and why more of it wasn't being done. Angelo's response was yet another ballistic missile fired at DFO: it bothers me, he said, that we don't have specific parameters in place right now to monitor the Fraser sockeye populations. Riddell jumped in: if we had the proper funding, we could get started on the research right away. We could take concrete steps such as tagging the fish. We can work with a lot of bright people across various organizations. But we need the cooperation of DFO on this. For example, the data on the salmon is a public resource, yet DFO will not release that data for 2009.

Translation for those not fully versed in bureaucratic lingo: DFO, you malfeasant bitch, either help us or step out of the way!

Alexandra Morton, who was not on the panel but participated in the two-day work sessions, best captured the spirit of the evening when the panel
invited her to answer a question about the impact of fish farms on the Fraser sockeye collapse. We simply don't know, she said. Fish farms and sea
lice could be part of the Fraser collapse or not, and there could also be many other factors involved such as viral infections. But what matters, she said, is that - finally - we are talking about this in the open and the law of silence has been broken.

I had come to this evening expecting a pasteurized lecture by the scientific and bureaucratic establishment of why it's okay to continue salmon business as usual. Instead, I found myself in the middle of a scientists' open revolt against the system. Life is like a box of chocolates, Forrest Gump used to say.

My particular admiration goes to Brian Riddell who could have decided to finish off his baby boomer career on a rather tranquil note, waiting for
retirement in a DFO corner office and then taking off on an uninterrupted string of oblivious Alaska cruises or whatever else it is that baby boomers do. Instead, he chose to step down, which in his world is the most direct form of civil disobedience.

What we need here is more Brian Riddells.
.................................................. ..................

Major KUDOS for Mr. Riddell. Unfortunately The Dino continues to roar along in it's hell-bent destruction of all that they are supposed to be protecting. It seems they simply will not be happy until Canada is surrounded by dead oceans. Beyond Sad!

Disgusted,
Nog

[ydouask]

Hey Nog, thank you for doing your part in making this information public. A revolt from within the system is long overdue.

[JCVD]

Soon all we will have is farmed fish...

[Salty]

Soon all we will have is farmed fish...

You must be alot of fun at a party

[JCVD]

You must be alot of fun at a party

I am actually lol, but do you find this at all funny though? I don't..not one little bit. I hate the farms and the over commercial fishing(ex-commercial fisher btw).I hate the useless DFO and the native boats scooping up the salmon before they spawn in commercial boats...how is that traditional anyway? I miss when I was a kid and the ocean was a liquid land of plenty. If you want a hug or a high-five over this you ain't getting one. I'm just being blunt and honest, thats how I am.

[Salty]

Well, I hate a defeatist attitude. "Soon all we will have is farmed fish" - come on, HTF is that going to happen . Huge sockeye problems, yes.

[Ruger.270]

Knowing Dr. Riddell quite well I can say he is a real standup guy, he has helped me personally in deciding my future career (hopefully in environmental law to nail some evil doers in court), was a great guest teacher @ VIU when I was in fisheries there. This is one guy who definately wants to do the right thing, and was quite astute in moving outside of the dfo mess to affect change. its sad when you can't change things from inside the system, but that IS the reality these days. we need to be politically active- how about a more intense sport fishing lobby in ottawa- it seems to work for the trollers up in my neck of the woods!

[Chuck]

I'm surprised its lasted this long, considering what is dumped into the Fraser from upstream. I think it's amazing that they can even find the river anymore. It's a perfect dump imo, with all that turbidity - no one ever need know. I've lived to see the Columbia spoiled, however it has seen some improvement in recent years.

[Jagermeister]

DFO has dropped the ball several times over the years, but I think that there are factors beyond the department that play a role too.
We all know how the Fraser River temperatures play, but I think that the collapse this year may have an external force play out in the ocean and I'm not referring to the fishfarm lice.
There have been quite a large number of Humbolt squid turn up on the beaches of Vancouver Island this year. Humbolt squid are an anomoly for cold water latitudes. Humbolt squid are voracious feeders and I suspect that they played a hugh role in the demise of this years sockeye salmon returns.
Of course I'm not a scientitist, so what do I know about this, but then, what do the scientists know about it either. If they have considered it, they sure have been silent.

[IronNoggin]

More:

Where did the fish go?
Panel unable to pinpoint where Fraser salmon returns went
JEFF HODSON
METRO VANCOUVER
December 10, 2009 4:02 a.m.

B.C. should be prepared for fisheries closures and even the removal of fish farms from sockeye migration routes, a panel of top fish scientists warned yesterday in Vancouver.

The scientists didn’t pinpoint why the Fraser River sockeye returns collapsed, but did agree that climate change was a key factor.

The number of Fraser River sockeye salmon has been declining since the mid-90s and is now at the point where the salmon are in danger of disappearing, meaning that precautions like the closure of fisheries could be the new norm.

This year’s Fraser River sockeye returns were the lowest in 52 years. Only 1.4-million fish came back to spawn in the tributaries of the Fraser, a fraction of the expected number.

A think-tank symposium with 22 scientists and researchers met in Vancouver this week to discuss reasons for the collapse. A federal judicial inquiry has also been called.

SFU professor John Reynolds compared studying the collapse with figuring out a plane crash.

The symposium wasn’t sure why the number of sockeye was so low, but did say the collapse was not due to fishing, which was greatly restricted in 2009.

The problem, they think, occurred as the vulnerable juvenile salmon made their way to Georgia Strait in 2007. One point of consensus, Reynolds said, was that changes in the seas that affected the young salmon were likely the result of climate change.

“Climate was seen as sort of an overarching issue, but the exact ways it was affecting survival are still a bit of a mystery simply because there is not enough research in the coastal marine environment.”

Blocked by feds
Scientists with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (the federal agency responsible for salmon) were invited to take part in the symposium, but the Conservative government did not allow them to participate.
.................................................. ...............................

[IronNoggin]

Another point of view:

Neil Cameron of the Campbell River Courier

Our knowledge of the Pacific salmonids seems to be based on two numbers - what goes out and what comes back. That is understandable, given that both numbers are somewhat easy to calculate. And they are fairly consistent; of what goes out, anywhere from two to five per cent return; some more, some less, but basically that is the equation.

This then leaves 95 per cent of the run unaccounted for. When you consider that a run of fish can run into the millions and that fully 95 per cent of them die, there appears to be somewhat of a large gap in our knowledge, calculations and understanding of Pacific salmon. Where does that 95 per cent go? Why do so many of them die?

I will focus this on the Strait of Georgia. Over millennia this ‘inland sea’ has been the recipient of salmon from countless rivers and streams. Virtually billions upon billions of young salmon entered the waters each spring. They left their natal waters and some went far afield to rich feeding grounds to the north. Yet a lot of them also stayed within the confines of the Georgia Basin. And, as stated, fully 95 per cent of them failed to return to their stream to spawn. They died some how, some way.

Given the sheer mass of their numbers it would, I think, be safe to say that this immense biomass put them in the top three of aquatic species in the Strait – or at least in the top five. And since 95 per cent of them died (albeit some within their natal stream itself) we could conclude that this biomass became an intrinsic part of the food web within the Strait.

They fed birds, seals and other fish, ling cod, rock cod, halibut etc. And they fed other salmon. Their deaths also undoubtedly contributed protein to crustaceans and lower organisms, the foundations of the food chain. They contributed these incredible energy resources to a biomass from the top of the food chain to the bottom. This massive infusion of protein into the food web must have been easily responsible for one third of its richness. And it would be like a slow spreading fertilizer, strong and rich at the outset, then dissipating - but contributing to the food chain throughout the year.

Resident Chinook, coho, cutthroat trout and steelhead have virtually disappeared from the west side of Georgia Strait. However, those numbers seem to be better on the coastal eastern side, where streams there haven’t been as adversely impacted by logging and development as have the East Coast of Vancouver Island streams. The runs of Pacific salmon on the east coast side of the Strait, while not near historic levels, are still in much better shape than their counterparts across the way. And their runs therefore contribute more to the local food chain. And that local food chain is vital to residential salmonid life.

That is why if you want to catch a cutthroat trout or dolly varden of any meaningful size, you take a boat over there. The cutthroat trout is like the proverbial canary. Find a stream that produces a good run of salmonids and you will find the cutthroat.
That is why places like the Quinsam River and the mouth of Campbell River buck the trend, because the hatcheries there help replace the historic natural runs of salmonids.

There are other avenues of thought along these lines. But I would like to be as succinct as possible. At first it is an obvious conclusion, but how we get to that conclusion is different than what I think current Pacific salmon managers are thinking.

The conclusion? Pacific salmon numbers are down in the Strait of George because, well, Pacific salmon numbers are down. Fewer fish back on the spawning bed means fewer fish going out and coming back. But we must take it to the next level and understand that the number of fish returning may not be as important as the number of fish going out.

Mother Nature is pure science. It doesn’t study things, it doesn’t calculate, it peer reviews itself in the most ultimate form. So why would 95 per cent of a salmon run be destined to die before coming back to spawn? Billions of them. Well there’s a reason. They are destined to die because in doing so they fulfill the purest form of science. Those salmon die for a reason. And reason would dictate that they die to provide for a food chain that they themselves rely upon. And the other fishes, and the other crustaceans and the mammals – the circle, as it were.

But this important part of the food chain in the Georgia Basin has been decimated. In Bright Waters, Bright Fish Roderick Haig-Brown estimated that by 1975 runs of Pacific salmon were about half of their historic levels. It hasn’t gotten better since. Which means this integral part of the food chain has been diminished to a percentile of its original input.

No wonder the blue backs are gone. No wonder the resident Chinook are gone. No wonder herring numbers have plummeted. No wonder the euphasid shrimp blooms are so few and far between. No wonder, no wonder, no wonder.

We have taken out and caused to be taken out a vast and integral amount of the food chain of the Strait and we continue to do so. It’s a downward spiral that will end as a pathetic remnant of what once was. Unless we change our thinking.

Fisheries managers today take over fisheries and manage to the levels of last year’s or the last cycle’s returns. If they achieve that, they are happy. Yet they don’t realize that they failed, abysmally. Their scientists will warn them about genetic integrity, that supplemental programs will degenerate the stocks and cause irrevocable harm and extinction. Yet the reality is, if we follow these scientists and biologists, the stocks will, eventually and, as has happened already and continues to happen, they will be gone anyway.

Where does that leave us? It doesn’t have to leave us. It should lead us to a realization that because we invested money in a run of a million fish and only two per cent came back, all was not lost. We have to learn and re-learn the value of that portion of the run that the ultimate scientist dictated had to die. We have to have confidence in knowing that 95 per cent of the salmon run didn’t go to waste – that they do have value, perhaps more so than the fish that return.

In Alaska they are recording record numbers of salmon returns. They have a program that’s called ocean ranching. It sends out billions of salmon into the rich waters there and their returns have defied what any other jurisdiction is experiencing. They have improved their salmonid returns from 390 million in the late 1970s to an estimated return of 130 million this year. Detractors from the program say that turning that many hatchery-raised fish into the wild deprives the wild stock of salmon of food, that the program starves wild stocks, that they adversely affect the food chain.

The opposite, I think, is true. The Alaskans are mimicking the ultimate scientist. They have a program that, by sheer percentages, contributes more to the food chain that it takes away. And that is where British Columbia has to go.

In Campbell River we have the centre for Aquatic Health Sciences studying plankton blooms to better time the release of hatchery fish, specifically coho. It is hoped that timing it well will increase the survival rate of the coho. Something to snack on before heading out to the wild seas. Did the ultimate scientist also do that or did the ultimate scientist design it so that whenever the salmon left their natal streams a rich and vibrant ecosystem awaited them, whenever they went out to live – or die?

A large portion of fish reared in Georgia Strait migrate to the same waters in which the Alaskan fish are enjoying such bounty. But there’s a long way to go for Georgia Strait fish, through a marine environment devoid of even a small percentage of its historic richness. When and if they reach those rich environs, they are undoubtedly fewer in number and only fewer of the original run will have sufficient energy stores to garner the sufficient consumption needed to get back home. And through that perilous journey, many of them face sea lice problems associated with ocean ranching’s biggest competitor – Atlantic salmon farms.

So what if somehow we could replace those local nutrients and thereby allow more salmon to stay local and supply the necessary energy boost to get them to the fishing grounds to the north?

We will never do that if we continue to solely calculate a salmon run’s success by how many go out and how many come back. We have to realize we have been missing the importance of 95 per of our investment. We must feed the sea so the sea can feed itself. We must replenish that part of the food chain which has been lost from our equations. We must be willing to spend money on that which we seem to assume is wasted in death.

We must remember that, in nature, with the ultimate scientist, nothing is wasted and all is crucial. You cannot replace that nutrient mix with guarded estimates that take into account only the top and the bottom of a circle.

[JCVD]

Well, I hate a defeatist attitude. "Soon all we will have is farmed fish" - come on, HTF is that going to happen . Huge sockeye problems, yes.

I don't think its a defeatist attitude, just common sense on watching the world. The countries of the world continue to rape the worlds resources like they will never run out. HTF is that going to happen? Remember the Grand Banks? I listed some examples for you before eg; overfishing,sea lice, ecological destruction and poor management. The countries of the world are not changing their practices and refuse to work together. Its not "how" is this going to happen but when. If you don't believe that, you need to open your eyes and research a bit. Wild pacific salmon as an example are fast becoming a fish of the past. Its huge Sockeye problems now...it will be huge fish problems in general.You do know that we have much less aquatic life in the ocean than even 30 years ago right? Humans as a whole are parasites and are creating many more problems then we can solve. Ever read about this before?Just an example or two.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080128171537.htm

http://www.cep.unep.org/news-and-events/warmer-world-mean-less-fish

[Salty]

Agreed ^^. But I still don't think that "soon all we will have is farmed fish". There are a lot of problems in the ocean to be sure. But its not all doom and gloom.

15 yrs ago we were looking at the iminant extinction of Coho in the North Thompson, and virtually every stream in the Georgia straight. In his own words, then minister Anderson implemented "draconian measures". All Coho fishing was closed on the coast if there was any chance that the endangered fish could be caught. It worked. Coho, for now at least are on the rebound.

Our halibut fishery was in a bad state in the free for all days. A quota system was put in in the 90s. Today the west coast halibut fishery is one that is labeled "sustainable" by even most environmentalists.

I just think its dangerous to make statements that are at all exagerated. And to address each fishery concern one by one. And look at the good news, what has worked in the past, and what hasn't.

[Devilbear]

Then, since the Salmon are gone, we can have "farms" ,owned by foreigners, give all the hunting to the aborigines and SELL POWER and WATER to the USA.....yay, "neocons", WTF, did you think NAFTA was REALLY all about?

JCVD, good stuff and right on, but, we are 40 years too late and the sellout began just after WWII.

[JCVD]

Agreed ^^. But I still don't think that "soon all we will have is farmed fish". There are a lot of problems in the ocean to be sure. But its not all doom and gloom.

15 yrs ago we were looking at the iminant extinction of Coho in the North Thompson, and virtually every stream in the Georgia straight. In his own words, then minister Anderson implemented "draconian measures". All Coho fishing was closed on the coast if there was any chance that the endangered fish could be caught. It worked. Coho, for now at least are on the rebound.

Our halibut fishery was in a bad state in the free for all days. A quota system was put in in the 90s. Today the west coast halibut fishery is one that is labeled "sustainable" by even most environmentalists.

I just think its dangerous to make statements that are at all exagerated. And to address each fishery concern one by one. And look at the good news, what has worked in the past, and what hasn't.

I see your point completely...I do hope that we can save ourselves from ourselves. I just have limited faith in the powers that be. Perhaps I have grown too cynical haha.

[JCVD]

Then, since the Salmon are gone, we can have "farms" ,owned by foreigners, give all the hunting to the aborigines and SELL POWER and WATER to the USA.....yay, "neocons", WTF, did you think NAFTA was REALLY all about?

JCVD, good stuff and right on, but, we are 40 years too late and the sellout began just after WWII.

Sure, we all know that the government is not for the people entirely...I wonder at what the world will really be like for my children when they are my age...

[Schutzen]

Just a couple of observations from the left coast.
I live in P.A., as you prolly know we have a Salmon hatchery here.
When the hatchery does its releases these immature fish have to swim a gauntlet within the river and at the river-mouth/bay of literally thousands of fish ducks/divers and Gulls all in a concentrated area..Salmon Genocide. (Or you could call it a nice little bird feedin program)
Then they have to swim an additional gauntlet of yet again hundreds of Sea Lions and Harbour seals.
If they evade them they then have to survive the multitude of other Ocean Predators till they gain mature sizes and that slows down a bit.
Then there is the little problem of feed scarcity...Herring specifically. These are being commercially fished to low levels.
In the 50's and 60's the Herring were fished right out. The DFO put a complete stop on the Herring fishery. Subsequently the Salmon stocks plummeted too. When the Herring recovered we saw Salmon fishing like we never dreamed of...for a while anyway.
Guys like Jimmy Pattison who own the big packer outfits keep the pressure on to fish herring for the HI profits they get.
Stop the Herring fishing till all the stocks repair?
Common folk who don't get it, won't let the people who do cull or whatever word you like here the over-abundance of predators like the birds and Seals, etc.
Manage these predator species to sane levels?
To give the stocks a chance to rebuild.
Then there are the temperature issues we seem to being seeing more commonly now.
These Salmon need a break but they are not getting it.
Yep the DFO could manage a fishery to collapse, just ask the Maritimers about their Cod fishery.
I have lived to see many travesties here in our Oceans, Rivers and Lakes.
Over those years I did what I could to bring it to the attention of the People in charge, DFO and the like.
All to no avail.
Until someone can figure out a way to make them stop listen and act in a responsible way to manage by science and not politics we will keep seeing the slow to rapid decline that I have been watching for 50+ years.

[spreerider]

the best thing we can all do to help our salmon is to donate time to river resoration and not to buy any salmon, or other fish products, and only buy farmed seafood products ( dont buy farmed salmon if you do not agree with it) like mussels can clams.

One reason i see a decline in the past number of years is that we no longer put our waste into the ocean and now process the waste untill it is devoid of nutrients, so now all the nutrients we extract from the sea as food is taken out forever and not replaced by our waste,
without this nutrients we end up starving the lower lifeforms of food like algea and moving up the scale to isopods and such smaller food for small fish.
The only source of nutrients we put back into the ocean come out our rivers from agriculture runoff (this is deadly to salmon eggs and fry) that concentrates these nutrients into smaller areas causing outbreaks of algea that are too large for algea preditors to eat enough of it, and then it ends up causing O2 drops and toxins get produced.

The oceans are a big mess right now and need a halt to comercial fisheries of all types, but this also means that places that rely on seafood will have to comit more land to farming, causing loss of wildlife lands...
its 6 of one 1/2 dozen of the other all we can really do is shift our impacts untill we cant get enough food and then we starve and limit our own population... i could go on forever tho so i better stop now....

[Johnnybear]

Thank you for this thread IronNoggin. That right up from Neil in CR was a good read.