Consultation – Mission Accomplished!
The report depicted below has been the subject of a fair amount of discussion among those of us interested in the future of wild salmon. Last night was the final opportunity to attend one of the few face to face interactions with some of the panel members that prepared it. I attended, mostly because I was curious to know just what the meeting format would be and how the public interaction would be handled. I also fantasized it might be useful to raise the steelhead flag and see if anyone saluted. I had already done that in writing but with little confidence it would ever receive consideration. The same message delivered in person might be harder to ignore.
It was difficult to estimate attendance because the room was more or less v-shape and I couldn’t see how many people were seated behind, towards the ends from where I was. A figure of around 200 seems reasonable though. The energy and enthusiasm of the attendees was impressive. Passionate is a worthy descriptor. Half of the 14 member Advisory Council, including both co-chairs, were seated at the front of the room. Premier Horgan sat in the front row of the audience for most of the session.
The procedural agenda was unannounced until the meeting commenced. What unfolded was a clear set of instructions from the meeting facilitator. There was the welcome and acknowledgement of the First Nation on whose traditional territory the session was being held. That was followed by panel members introducing themselves and then a brief address by the Premier. By the time all that was done, 35 of the 120 allotted minutes were consumed. The facilitator then advised that about 25 people who signed at the door indicating a wish to make comment. She instructed that left about 4 ½ minutes per speaker (my calculator says closer to 3 ½) and that she intended to have a stopwatch and a hook ready. There was no opportunity to question or comment on anything anyone said.
Closing in on the 2-hr mark, all the originally registered speakers had done their thing. That left a few minutes for a half dozen more audience members to provide comment. The clock struck 8:00 and the meeting was adjourned.
Here’s the main messages I heard:
- Pinnipeds are the major problem but DFO is a serious contender for top spot. Fish farms are not far behind. Handing over management of BC origin salmon to the province is a strongly supported idea. (I doubt that proponents understand how that would look under the present provincial government structure whereby the Ministry of Agriculture reigns supreme.)
- Southern resident orcas are starving but no one admitted that might have something to do with chinook harvest by anglers. Focus on those pinnipeds and marine traffic noise. Throw in the whale watchers as a force of evil while you’re at it.
- Hatcheries (not necessarily mega DFO style facilities) are the panacea. The hatchery card was played more frequently than any other. How that squares with the title of the report (Options for a Made-In-BC Wild Salmon Strategy) just never entered the consciousness of anyone who spoke. The jaw dropper for me was the use of the following figure by one of the more prominent self anointed salmon saviours who claimed to know the real solution to our collective fish shortage problems.
Here’s where the process flaws really showed up. That figure was used entirely out of context by the speaker. It appeared in the WSAC discussion paper as well, in slightly more appropriate context, but that obviously escaped the speaker. My sense was the hatchery friendly audience hadn’t read the WSAC strategy paper or, if it did, the context of this figure escaped them. They applauded the speaker’s comments vigorously.
The mischief is that figure originated in a report by the North Pacific Anadromous Fisheries Commission. I first saw it in January, 2017 and referenced it on this blog on Feb 1, 2017. The scientists that authored the report in which the figure appeared used it to emphasize the urgency of recognizing the ocean rearing habitat limitations. Evidence of the problem surrounds us, especially for chinook – lower numbers, declining age, declining size at a given age, reduced fecundity. Instead of commenting appropriately on the figure, the speaker chose to present it as evidence Canada was far behind those successful Alaskans, Russians and Japanese and needed to catch up by augmenting hatchery output dramatically. Here’s the original figure again:
So much for injecting any reality into the perceptions of the meeting attendees.
Continuing,
- We can fix a lot of the broken habitat, although protecting it should also be top of mind. No one seemed to appreciate the limitations of restoring habitat on a scale large enough to measurably improve the abundance of preferred species like chinook and coho.
- Stop fishing herring. Strong support here as well and not all from fish/fishing consumers.
Steelhead were mentioned exactly once. That came when I took the stand for my 3 ½ minutes and reminded the advisory Council members that the genesis of their mission was the speech given by Green MLA Adam Olsen (who wasn’t in attendance last night) in the legislature on Feb 19, 2018. Olsen addressed Minister Donaldson with specific questions around the status of Thompson and Chilcotin steelhead. Their exchange was documented here on Feb 20, 2018. Here it is again:
http://steelheadvoices.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/video-steelhead-going-extinct.html
Four months later, MLA Olsen stood silent beside Premier Horgan at the podium when the announcement of the WSAC formation and objective was made. The word steelhead was never uttered, nor did we ever see or hear any further mention of steelhead from MLA Olsen or anyone else. I finished my steelhead minute by asking Premier Horgan, sitting directly in front of me, “what happened?” With the agenda organized as referenced above, there was no response. I also tried to suggest to all present that the single most influential item us people can control is our own harvest. That remark was made in the context of all wild salmon, not specific to steelhead. Lastly, I tried to remind the council there were many people directly affected by the output of this council who were never given the opportunity to comment, other than in writing. Terrace, Smithers, Chilliwack……..
At the conclusion of the meeting I approached one of the Council members with the question of what drives people to believe there is a fish culture solution to current salmon circumstances and why has the emphasis on “wild salmon” been allowed to fade from view? I also raised the issue of a complete lack of steelhead profile. That evolved into a discussion about the Thompson and Chilcotin which eventually became an exchange over the efficacy of hatchery intervention. The suggestion was made that the Pacific Salmon Foundation could be pivotal in seeking resources and expertise for a hatchery “fix”. I countered that it made no sense to follow that route unless and until gill nets were out of the Fraser River. If the patient is suffering from life threatening blood loss, why would you hook him/her up to a continuous blood transfusion until you at least stopped the bleeding? I forgot to bring it up at the time but, on the drive home, I recalled the ongoing hatchery facilitated efforts to recover Sakinaw and Cultus sockeye. It would be highly instructive to see the ledger on those programs as a barometer of what to expect by subjecting the last 150 Thompson steelhead to anything similar. (Both those sockeye stocks must be worth many thousands of dollars per returning fish. Someone please correct me if I am wrong but I think Sakinaw has been down to zero at least once.)
The consultation process on the council report is over. Good luck Thompson and Chilcotin and please forgive us Nahatlatch, Stein, Bridge and Seton.
Bob Hooton