"Damn near extinction:" Interior steelhead run forecast to be small

[Derby]

Subject: "Damn near extinction:" Interior steelhead run forecast to be small | Vancouver Sun


https://vancouversun.com/news/local...erior-steelhead-run-expected-to-be-very-small

 

[Ringo]

“By-catch is the biggest issue for steelhead,” Liberal MLA for Fraser-Nicola Jackie Tegart said at the time. “Steelhead have to be released if they are caught in nets, but if you are a steelhead and you get caught and released four times in the river you won’t have much left to get to your spawning grounds.”

Is this a coincidence that this year’s Fraser Chum run is one of the lowest in the books? If you just watched the “Commercial “ fishing that happened at the mouth of Harrison every fall from 2015-18 there would be no surprises. The interior wild coho and steelhead that were thrown back in the water were already belly up, floating down the river. DFO can and will continue to close the rec sector in this region but the outcome will do the judgement.

 

[Sharphooks]

Yeah....but....but....an extremely knowledgeable poster who is quite active on this Site has repeatedly maintained in the past that due to highly sophisticated changes in gill net hanging techniques and mesh sizing, IFS steelhead are no longer caught as by-catch in FN in-river gill nets when they target chum.... and if by chance one or two do get caught, they are released unharmed... so all is good

 

[Whitebuck]

" Caught and released 4 times"

There is no secondary release....they are dead after being in a beach seine or any other gill net!

Also with chum being on the brink why are we even doing any test fisheries within the Fraser? They are still killing everything in their nets.
At this point every chum is needed back on the grounds.

Also if we can have sonar counts at Mission, Yale as well as above the slide why are we still having the inriver test fisheries?

Maybe its time we stepped away from this archaic test fishery!

 

[OldBlackDog]

In the past, the federal government has declined to pursue an emergency listing of the Interior steelhead as endangered under the Species At Risk Act, citing the adverse impact of widespread fishery closures on First Nations, recreational and commercial fisheries.


SARA, why does this even exist?

If these Steelhead do not meet the parameters to be listed and protected, then this is just a total fabrication that the Government really cares.

In the near future Upper Fraser Chinook will be in exactly the same spot and will not be listed for exactly the same reasons.

 

[Sharphooks]

Sounds like IFS steelhead will no longer be much of a contentious issue in the year’s ahead. There won’t be enough spawners remaining in those systems to wad a shotgun.... nothing left to see here folks....move along.

And meanwhile, the Skeena returns for 2021 augured into the face of a cliff with with very few gill nets to blame....

You’re right, why does SARA even exist?

A bit like the term ECC...why even have the term on the books if you’re still going to unleash the lodges and guides on the few remaining fish as what Victoria decided to do on the Skeena this year despite the ghoulish Tyee Test numbers.

....SARA and ECC seem to be toothless old halloween hags that fishery managers don’t take too seriously ....probably because they have bigger Reconciliation fish to fry....the whole thing is a bit tragic

It’s all the more tragic when people cry “racist!” if someone questions the regulatory sanity of allowing in-river gill nets by the FN’s.......The last remaining spawning pair of THompson River Steelhead being used as sacrificial lambs for a freaking FN gill net chum salmon fishery ......are you kidding me???? Does anyone even give a shiat at how ludicrous that dynamic is???

 

[wildmanyeah]

The problem with SARA is the law makers who wrote it went all in and made it so restrictive it almost guaranteed it would never be used.