Place Your Bets
And so it begins………again. Recent forecasts by our federal fisheries managers are worth a word or two relative to my personal interest in the future of fish that are rapidly fading into oblivion. I try and look at this sort of material in the context of that over-used, under-implemented term, conservation, and how steelhead might be influenced. Here are the Department of Fisheries and Oceans forecasts for the species most preferred by all user groups (i.e. commercial, recreational and First Nations fishers). Don’t be concerned or confused over the numbers in the squares. All that really counts is red and green. Notice also, as usual, there is no mention of that other species that spells nothing but grief for DFO and the two other sectors still on the map (commercial and FN).
Think Fraser River here. Alarm bells have obviously sounded long and loud for chinook and, to a lesser extent upper basin coho. Sockeye concerns slipped into the background following the cycle return of sockeye to the Adams last fall. Yes, I know the post script on that sockeye return is all bad. Nonetheless, sockeye haven’t captured much of the conservation spotlight in recent times. Chinook conservations is clearly tied to the southern resident orca scenario which has captured the attention of a large enough public to force DFO to pay serious attention. For every angler and pinniped harvest advocate I’m certain there are a thousand orca supporting voters whose collective voice dominates the big picture political arena.
Chums? Well, the scenario there is about the worst possible if you’re a Thompson River steelhead. The fisheries sector holding all the cards today is the First Nations. Their preferred targets are chinook and sockeye, both of which were abundant enough historically to satisfy all their food, social and ceremonial (FSC) needs. With sockeye back in the conservation spotlight because this is not a cyclic abundance year and chinook being the new and dominant entry in the conservation arena, the FN fisheries for those two species will undoubtedly be constrained to a greater degree than ever before. That leaves chums and only chums to satisfy the FN demands, for whatever purposes they might like (FSC fisheries, economic opportunity fisheries, demonstration fisheries, escapement surplus to spawning requirements fisheries). And, what is the forecast for them? Check out the above. All systems go! Rest easy, though, all you steelhead conservation proponents. Just because the (enhanced) chum run timing overlaps the peak of the Thompson steelhead return 100% in both time and space and just because there aren’t more than two hundred of them left and just because almost four dozen scientists recommended that the only immediate way to augment their escapement is to reduce harvest, we needn’t worry because DFO will ask the FN chum roe fishers whose income earning potential will be redirected from chinook and sockeye to chum to “fish selectively”.
I wonder how that Species At Risk Act listing for Interior Fraser Steelhead coming along? Here’s a prediction of my own. We’ll see spin doctoring such as never before when the feds decide not to list those fish and, instead, publish “a plan” to conserve fisheries while
managing them to conserve IFS. Isn’t that what got us here?
Bob Hooton