Wow, the level of stupidity being displayed with some of the comments on this thread truly scares me. Yes we are all angry about the restrictions (my wife hears my venting everyday) on fishing . But looking for an easy out here, by blaming foreigner fisherman , immigrants, first nations, governments, pinheads, ENGOs etc., is just ignorant.
The reality is that we are all to blame, “we” as in "mankind" are slowly killing our oceans, I see salmon as the canary in the mine here. Don't get me wrong, I have strong opinions on pinhead culling, herring fishing, salmon farms (sorry James), habitat rehabilitation, and fishing in the rivers for spawning fish. But there are much bigger problems for our salmon, we are killing our oceans through, climate change (which we ignore for economic reasons), polluting our waters, and ocean acidification (changing PH levels of the ocean through CO2 emissions).
If we fix the local issues related to the health of wild salmon stocks that will certainly extend the availability of wild salmon for fishing and food, but for how long. My first questions is do you care if there are salmon for future generations and if you do at what economic cost?
So many on this forum see ENGOs as the enemy or as extremist. Generally speaking, these groups are made up of people committed to trying to save the planet from ourselves. My view of these groups are they have good intentions, but need be realistic and take a balanced approach if they want to get support of the general public. The reality is that ENGOs have the best chance of leading to the changes we need to make, if we want to save our oceans and our salmon. Global changes will take a long time, if ever to happen. So coming full circle, I see it as our responsibility to fight for the things that will keep our salmon around long enough to see those global changes that can lead to the long-term sustainability of wild salmon.