At least a quarter of major fish stocks in Canada are in decline, but efforts to rebuild them  — such as closing fisheries or setting catch limits — are often met with strong opposition due to negative socioeconomic effects. Now a new study by University of British Columbia researchers shows the short-term financial pain can lead to long-term gain — and that pain can be eased by providing fishers with social and economic assistance.

The study, published in the September 2020 issue of Ocean & Coastal Management, found the most optimistic rebuilding scenario would lead to economic gains of up to 10 times above the status quo after 30 years for five of the six studied species. The analysis also found the gains would continue to climb over 50 and 100 years.

“If you look at societal, national or provincial problems, the struggle between the short term and the long term is huge. Most of us think of today, today, today,” co-author and professor of bioeconomics Rashid Sumaila said in an interview. 

Sumaila said the First Nations concept of creating sustainability over multiple generations inspired his work. 

“We shouldn’t discount the fish of our grandchildren.” 

University of British Columbia professor of bioeconomics Rashid Sumaila says it’s important to look far into the future when deciding how to manage decline fish stocks today. Photo: Martin Dee / UBC

Rebuilding would result in gains for Pacific herring, losses for yelloweye rockfish

In the study, the researchers looked at six Canadian fish stocks — Pacific and Atlantic herring, Atlantic cod, Atlantic redfish, west coast Vancouver Island chinook and Vancouver Island yelloweye rockfish — under six scenarios. 

The species were selected for their role in commercial and recreational fisheries as well as their importance to First Nations. Apart from Pacific herring, they are all in decline, according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada. (However, groups such as Pacific Wild claim there is insufficient data to say Pacific herring is not in decline.)

The researchers considered if the fisheries were closed or if a low level of catch was permitted and if the fish had fast, slow or expected biological responses. The length of the closures and restriction periods depended on the species and speed of recovery, ranging from a few years to several decades. The researchers then projected the catch for each stock under each scenario for 30, 50 and 100 years and calculated the net benefit. 

The study showed that in most cases, closing a fishery would result in higher economic gains than setting low-catch limits. While closing a fishery leads to higher economic losses at the outset than reducing the catch, when the species rebounds fishers can resume harvesting at higher levels than they could if the fishery was left open to a low catch. 

The Pacific herring fishery showed significant gains in every scenario. Costs associated with fishing for herring are extremely high, so any increase in the population will correspondingly increase profits. 

Chinook, on the other hand, saw negligible economic gains or losses under the different scenarios because the species is slow to rebound and the fishery fetches an estimated $57.5 million per year. Closing the chinook fishery, even for just a few years, means those losses would have to be made up by increased harvests as the population rebuilds. 

“If you leave nature alone, nature will come back … except if you destroy it completely.”

Rockfish showed losses under all of the scenarios. This is because the species has a significantly longer life cycle — about 18 years — than the other species studied. But Sumaila said that “given enough time and patience,” rockfish could recover enough to yield a positive economic benefit. 

“When you have slow recovery, economists will tell you it’s not worthwhile. I really struggle with this,” he said. “If you leave nature alone, nature will come back … except if you destroy it completely.”

Sumaila points to the Norwegian spring spawning herring. In the 1980s, he said the fish population was reduced to “almost zero,” despite a 1970 moratorium being placed on harvesting the species during the spawning season. It took over 20 years for the population to begin to bounce back and now, 50 years later, the fishery is thriving once again. 

Conservation scientist Michael Price said it’s hard to get people to look far into the future but agrees it’s necessary. “You do need to look at these longer timeframes.”

Price studied over 100 years of historical Skeena sockeye salmon data to build a better understanding of how a species responds over time. “There was a sockeye crash in the mid-1950s,” he said, “and 65 years later we’re seeing signs they have increased in abundance, but they’re nowhere near what they were in the 1940s.”

Conservation scientist Michael Price reviewed a century of Skeena sockeye salmon data, some of it contained in these old journals, to better understand how the species responds over time. Photo: Michael Price

Price is now studying salmon populations in Wet’suwet’en territory in northwest B.C., incorporating economics into the study in hopes it will have more impact with decision-makers. He said applying economic analysis to a conservation issue is “a step in the right direction.”

Economic modelling isn’t without limitations, Sumaila admitted, adding that there could be additional losses not accounted for, such as the loss of processing facilities and markets for species that aren’t harvested. 

Fish stocks in urgent need of rebuilding 

The six species in the study are all vitally important for supporting socioeconomic well-being in Canadian Pacific and Atlantic communities, according to the authors. The three Pacific fish species are particularly important as they play a key role in the social, cultural and food practices of First Nations. 

However, they all face a range of threats. While the analysis assumed that fishing is the primary factor driving exploitation of fish stock populations, climate change, plastic pollution in oceans and industrial development both upstream in watersheds and on the coast are responsible for additional pressures on numerous fish species. As The Narwhal recently reported, Fraser River sockeye are currently experiencing one of the lowest returns on record. 

The importance of starting to rebuild Canadian fisheries now can’t be overstated, Price said. 

“We’re having a hard time making a dramatic shift and saying enough is enough,” he said. “It’s almost like we’re waiting for the final blow to make that call. And then what else are you going to do except say there’s no fishing because there’s no fish?”

Fisheries and Oceans Canada slow to implement rebuilding plans

In June 2019, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) made a suite of changes to the Fisheries Act, including mandating that depleted fish stocks require rebuilding plans. 

According to the federal agency’s 2018 Fisheries Sustainability Survey, only 58 of 177 major stocks assessed were at healthy levels.  

In an emailed statement, the federal agency told The Narwhal its focus is on rebuilding stocks for the 19 species listed as critical on the survey, including Pacific and Atlantic herring, Atlantic cod and yelloweye rockfish.

Yelloweye rockfish was listed as critical on Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s 2018 Fisheries Sustainability Survey. Photo: California Department of Fish and Wildlife

Since the 2018 survey, Fisheries and Oceans Canada has completed rebuilding plans for six species, and a further two have improved to the point where they are no longer in the critical zone. 

“For the remaining priority stocks without rebuilding plans, DFO has specific fishery management measures in place, based on the best available science,” the statement said. “These measures will ensure that the limited fishing of the stocks does not compromise their rebuilding.”

In advance of the changes to the Fisheries Act, the federal government committed $107 million to support the rebuilding efforts. “To contribute to better managed fisheries, these resources will increase scientific capacity for stock assessment of Canada’s fish stocks,” the statement said.

This is important because 41 per cent of major fish stocks in Canada are classified as uncertain, which means experts don’t know enough about them to gauge whether their populations are healthy or threatened. Without additional scientific data, these species will continue to be harvested, albeit on a cautious basis. 

Critics say the rebuilding plans that have been developed fall short, pointing in particular to an absence of legally binding requirements and a lack of specific management strategies.

Sumaila hopes people in the fishing sector can use the information from his study to pressure the government to implement the rebuilding plans that have been mandated. 

He explained that it can be a hard sell to close an entire fishery for an extended period of time, but new organizations like the B.C.Young Fishermen’s Network are willing to listen. 

“A lot of young people say, ‘Look, we want to be able to fish but in this smart, intelligent, sustainable way.’ It meets societal and food needs without wrecking the fisheries.”

Social and economic support for fishers key to rebuilding stocks 

More than 5,000 fishers — about 12 per cent of all Canadian harvesters — are involved in the six stocks examined in the study and closing fisheries or setting catch limits can have a range of negative effects on them, from wiping out their income to harming their physical and mental health by eliminating an important food source and cultural practice. 

Both Price and Sumaila warned that continuing to commercially harvest a declining fishery doesn’t ultimately help the fishers in the long term. 

“Are we really doing people any favours by helping them limp along?” Price asked. “For salmon, some years there’s a commercial fishery, some years there isn’t — people are kind of just hanging on life support.” 

Fishing is a vital part of the food security, health, livelihoods and cultural practices of thousands of Indigenous people in Canada. Here, Troy Jack stands in a salmon smoke house in Bella Bella, B.C. Photo: Louis Whitehouse / The Narwhal

But both also agree there needs to be support for the industry. 

To mitigate negative effects, Sumaila suggested the federal government implement economic and social assistance programs to help fishers transition out of fishing or provide them with alternative sources of income during the rebuilding period.

Sumaila said he was involved in a study of Hong Kong fisheries struggling with overfishing and over 75 per cent of the fishers surveyed said they would be happy to transition out of the industry given sufficient support. In that study, the transition model included supporting fishers to launch ecotourism operations and become whale- and dolphin-watching guides. 

“If we could help people to find alternative jobs, this could lead to an amazing change, socially and ecologically. Meanwhile, we’re giving out subsidies to help them go farther and deeper,” he said, referring to subsidizing fuel costs for large-scale commercial fisheries. 

Sumaila said closing a fishery for several years or decades will always be challenging, but the rewards are there waiting. “The ultimate goal is to stop harming the fish and their habitat and their ecosystem so they can regenerate year in and year out.” 

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Almost 20,000 Chinook salmon expected to cross the Alaska border into Yukon this summer likely won’t make it — a situation that has prompted an advisory committee to urge nearly all First Nations in the territory to refrain from fishing the species for the rest of the year. 

Based on sonar counts at Pilot Station, Alaska, about 77,000 Canadian-origin salmon were projected to be in the Yukon River this year, said Holly Carroll, summer season Yukon area manager with Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game. But as of Aug. 12, just 29,570 Chinook had swam past the next sonar station, located near Eagle, Alaska, about 30 kilometres from the Yukon border. It takes about one month for Chinook to swim from Pilot Station to Eagle.

“The information at Pilot suggested a Canadian-origin Chinook run of about 77,000, which would translate to approximately 50,000 Chinook at the border but those numbers aren’t materializing at the Eagle sonar,” said Steve Smith, manager of treaties, fisheries and salmon enhancement for the Yukon River at Fisheries and Oceans Canada. 

This summer, 77,000 Canadian-origin Chinook salmon passed Pilot Station, Alaska, while only 29,570 fish have made it as far as Eagle, near the Yukon border. This is well below the minimum treaty-obligated escapement goal for Chinook salmon in Yukon of 42,500. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

Chinook are now at the tail end of their run in the Yukon River drainage area, a migration that started some 3,000 kilometres away at the mouth of the river on the coast. By early September, the run should be over.

As well as being far below Alaska’s predicted return, current counts also fall about 10,000 fish short of a U.S.-Canada treaty-obligated goal of between 42,500 and 55,000 fish crossing into the territory. The annual average by Aug. 12 is 55,017 salmon.

Last year, roughly 42,000 fish passed the Eagle sonar station — about 500 short of the minimum goal. 

Alaska can’t account for such a dramatic drop in numbers

Carroll said it would be “impossible” for Alaskans to have harvested the roughly 40,000 fish that never made it into the territory.

State fisheries were managed very conservatively this year, she said, with multiple closures on Chinook salmon fishing.

“There’s no way that we harvested that many,” Carroll said. “Most fishermen, on top of these restrictions, reported doing really poorly on their harvests because of super high water on the Alaska side.”

“Now, we’re wondering if there’s some sort of en route mortality that’s occurring that we just don’t know how to measure or what would be causing it.”

The department will conduct harvest surveys this fall, she said, which will lift the curtain on just how many Chinook were harvested this season.

“When you fail to meet the goal by over 10,000 fish, that’s not great — that’s terrible,” Carroll said.

“We are always endeavouring to get that harvest share to Canadian fishermen.”

Of the 14 First Nations in Yukon, 13 are affected by the request by the Yukon Salmon Sub-committee to halt all fishing for the rest of the year. Following the guidance is voluntary, as the sub-committee isn’t a regulator, but First Nations are strongly urged to stop fishing. The recommendation only applies to members of First Nations because they are the only people currently allowed to fish for Chinook on the Yukon River.  

“I’m terribly discouraged by it,” said Al von Finster, vice-chair of the sub-committee, an advisory body independent of government. “I would much prefer there were more salmon in the river and those salmon could be harvested by the First Nations.”

Since Chinook salmon migrate through U.S. waters first, Alaska is obligated to take measures, such as fishing closures, to see that goal reached, von Finster said. But there is no penalty under the treaty for not meeting that goal. 

“We were hoping for a late run,” he said, noting that additional conservation efforts, such as reducing the size of nets, were called for in Yukon earlier this summer. “Unfortunately, the run continued to fall.”

What could have impacted the Chinook salmon run?

While somewhat of a guessing game, there are a few factors that could explain why so few fish made it into Yukon this summer.

There was exceptionally high water this year in the river as a result of precipitation and snowpack, von Finster said.

“That’s what those fish have to migrate upstream through and that delays them,” he said. “If their health is a bit dodgy, they may not make it. I think some of the fish basically ran out of steam.”

Chinook salmon migrate some 3,000 kilometres up the Yukon River from the Alaskan coast to spawn in Yukon territory. Kevin Cass / Shutterstock

There was also a patch of warm water when Chinook salmon entered the Yukon River from the Bering Sea, von Finster said, which could slow their progress on the long migration. 

“If they are entering areas of warm water, what they may end up doing is holding in that water until the cool parts of the day. They will not migrate so quickly.”

A parasitic disease could also help explain the decline, said von Finster. Some Chinook could have picked up ichthyophonus, which attacks vital organs such as the heart.

“The fish simply can’t make it,” von Finster said. “They lose energy and they die.”

‘They’re asking our families not to eat’

Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation is entitled to 750 Chinook salmon per year, according to its final agreement, which was established in the 1990s along with the nation’s land claims, with the federal and territorial governments. Chief Dana Tizya-Tramm said citizens have been harvesting half that for years already, recognizing the dwindling numbers of  salmon crossing the border from Alaska.

Tizya-Tramm, said the federal government needs to do more to consult his community of Old Crow, which is located on the Porcupine River, a tributary of the Yukon River. If they listened to his people, he noted, perhaps there would have been more proactive conservation. 

“It is not the southerners who are witnessing these real-time changes,” Tizya-Tramm told The Narwhal. “I question how they are going to address the trajectory of our changing climate, which is already happening with the lowering number of salmon. We need more partnership and more meaningful engagement. Their best bet beyond their sonars are our traditional people who are seeing … the changes.”

Tizya-Tramm said he reached out to Fisheries and Oceans Canada earlier this year, telling officials that their approach to managing Chinook isn’t working, and that Yukon First Nations can’t be expected to do all the work.

“They need to see the severity of changes for the salmon and our people, the slumping, the warming and occlusion of waters,” he said. “They need to see that all of this adds up to more loss, they need to realize the urgency we do.” 

In photos: The fight for the Yukon River’s last salmon

Smith with Fisheries and Oceans Canada said there’s always an opportunity to better consult First Nations.

“In a typical year we are welcomed by the people of Old Crow where we share back and forth information about the salmon runs,” he said. “This year took a turn for everyone with the onset of COVID-19.”

Tizya-Tramm said Chinook salmon are a mainstay of Gwich’in culture. If fishing can’t happen, cultural teachings won’t either.

“When First Nations cease to fish, we are cutting future generations off from their cultural practices and our relationship with these animals. As a Chief, it is the hardest thing to do to tell my people that they cannot fish Chinook out of our waters like their grandfathers and their grandmothers and people before them. This is to feed our families, and our children should always be allowed to taste salmon to keep our roots, our blood and our lands strong.” 

“They’re asking our families not to eat.”

Updated at 5 p.m. on Aug. 14, 2020, to add comment from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, clarifying that only 50,000 Chinook salmon were expected at the Canadian border, not 77,000 as previously stated. Based on sonar readings at Pilot Station, Alaska, 77,000 Canadian-origin salmon were projected to be in the Yukon River this year, but not all of those fish were expected to make it to the Canadian border. 

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Sediment from logging roads is negatively impacting fish habitat, according to the most recent report from British Columbia’s forestry watchdog.

The Forest Practices Board looked at five watershed sites in the province and found that four of them were facing risk to fish habitat due to sediment coming off of logging roads. Those watersheds were the Ainslie (near Boston Bar), the Memekay (near Campbell River), the Owen (near Houston), the Pennask (near Kelowna) and the Woodjam (near Horsefly).

From the results, the board concluded that government legislation is too vague, making it hard to enforce effective sediment management.

B.C.’s Forest and Range Practices Act requires operators to ensure “primary forest activity does not have a material adverse effect on fish passage in a fish stream.”

But board Chair Kevin Kriese told The Narwhal that “material adverse effect” is hard to prove and therefore the regulation is difficult to enforce. He said the legislation should be clear about what is and isn’t required in sediment management. 

“What we think would be much more clear is to say to operators ‘you must minimize the deposit of sediment into streams,’” he said.

Kriese said there is no question that excessive sediment has a negative impact on fish. Sediment buildup can lead to shallower, warmer waters. Road infrastructure, like culverts, can cause sediment accumulation and block fish movement upstream.

(The Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development did not respond to The Narwhal’s request for comment in time for publication.)

On behalf of the board, a team of three biologists and one forest hydrologist conducted rapid assessments in the five watersheds. Despite the addition of sediment from logging roads and risks to fish populations, the board found operators to be meeting or exceeding legal requirements for managing riparian areas.

However, there are many critics who say B.C.’s legal requirements for logging have been too lenient since Gordon Campbell’s Liberal government relaxed industry regulations in 2004. 

Ecojustice executive director Devon Page previously told The Narwhal, “B.C.’s forestry laws aren’t actually laws. At best, you could call them guidelines.”

Sediment can ‘smother’ salmon eggs

Increased sediment can be caused by human activities and natural occurrences like landslides and wildfires. Elevated sediment in streams can decrease the abundance of plant life, which impacts the fish that feed on those plants. 

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans reported that juvenile coho and Chinook salmon behave irregularly in streams with elevated turbidity (sediment suspended in the water) by surfacing and making themselves more vulnerable to birds. 

Sediment can also be detrimental to salmon spawning beds.

Hotter temperatures and sedimentation combined can kill salmon eggs, or “smother” them, as Misty MacDuffee phrased it. A biologist and program director for Raincoast Conservation Foundation’s wild salmon program, she emphasized the bigger picture of how logging can impact salmon and how clearcut logging impacts stream flow. 

“There are a lot of implications from logging on salmon,” she said. “Sedimentation is just one of them.”

Bringing back the trees to bring back the salmon

Scott Hinch, an ecology professor at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Forestry, said sediment build-up can make streams wider and shallower and even cause parts to dry up. Small pools can be filled with sediment, which Hinch said is especially dangerous for species like coho salmon, which rear there.

Hinch said that in addition to fine sediment being deposited from logging roads, they can also contribute to sediment on a larger scale by destabilizing areas with steep terrain. 

“If you build a lot of roads in a watershed, you tend to have more avalanches associated with these roads that cut across steep terrain,” he said.

Hinch said “there’s no silver bullet” to prevent sediment runoff, but ongoing monitoring to ensure the health of riparian areas that surround streams is key to their protection.

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If all goes to plan, 30,000 Chinook salmon eggs will be fertilized upstream of Dawson City this summer as part of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation’s efforts to increase stocks of the vital fish.

For roughly two decades, fewer Chinook salmon have been swimming into Yukon, spurring the First Nation to develop a plan. Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in has been laying the groundwork to establish a full-fledged egg-rearing facility — featuring the first sonar system wholly owned by a Yukon First Nation — to bolster dwindling numbers of the species along the Klondike River, a tributary of the Yukon River.

“It’s one of our main traditional food staples,” Chief Roberta Joseph told The Narwhal, noting that citizens have been asked to voluntarily refrain from fishing Chinook salmon since 2013.

“Since time immemorial our ancestors have relied on salmon. Not only is it a food staple but fishing them is a time for families to bond and pass on traditional knowledge and stories. It’s a time of healing, of renewing spirituality and connection that our people have with the land.” 

An egg incubation facility is a few years off, though. Gaps in research need to be filled. This is what the community has been trying to do for the last two years: study what works and what doesn’t via an in-stream incubation project. This will help them determine egg-to-fry survival rates, or how successful eggs are at growing into adolescence. They’re also measuring conditions such as water level, temperature and when the fish arrive. From this information they can replicate the ideal conditions for a high survival rate in the incubation facility.

But more time is needed after a poor run of Chinook in previous years has meant numbers for the project aren’t as high as hoped, said Ben Schonewille, a fish and wildlife biologist with Environmental Dynamics Inc., which was contracted by the community to help study the feasibility of the egg incubation program.

They’ve requested an extension to the in-stream incubation project for at least another year. The Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board is evaluating the proposal to extend right now and a public comment period will likely be launched soon, a spokesperson for the board said.

The ins and outs of the in-stream incubator  

Since July 2018, egg-to-fry survival rates have been closely monitored through this project. Eggs are taken from females and are mixed with milt (semen) from males. The fertilized eggs are placed along with sediment into an incubation vector, such as a mesh bag, and then buried in the river. Researchers then dig up the bags and are able to gauge how many eggs inside have survived to the fry stage. This is called a “green egg” process.

Eggs are collected from a Chinook salmon to use as part of the in-stream incubator project aimed at increasing the dwindling population of Chinook in the Klondike River. Photo: Environmental Dynamics Inc.

Broodstock — the group of mature salmon that will be targeted by researchers for egg and milt collection — are located by helicopter at the peak of the salmon run. 

But issues including water clarity and a lack of Chinook have slowed down tracking goals for the project, which follows a separate in-stream incubation effort in Yukon started by Teslin Tlingit Council in 2016.

The Tr’ondëk Hwëch’s project has a goal of planting a maximum of 30,000 eggs per year (to put this into perspective, one female contains roughly 5,500 eggs while spawning). Roughly a third of this goal was hit, or about 10,000 eggs planted, in both 2018 and 2019.

“We just could not catch sufficient broodstock, nor were we comfortable taking more eggs due to the poor returns to the Klondike in 2019,” Schonewille said, adding that while 30,000 eggs is the upper limit of the project, planting less than that hardly deems it unproductive.

According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the number of Chinook salmon that make it back over the Alaskan border into the Yukon to breed — known as treaty-obligated escapements — have been less than the number that left the territory for the past 11 years.

Last year, 42,052 Chinook salmon entered Yukon, said Elizabeth MacDonald, executive director of the Yukon Salmon Sub-Committee. This fell below the spawning escapement goal range of 42,500 to 55,000.

It’s difficult to pinpoint any one reason why fewer Chinook salmon are populating Yukon rivers, but low productivity and changes to ecosystems could be playing a role. MacDonald said salmon that come back from the ocean to spawn are yielding fewer offspring compared to a decade ago.

Impacts to marine or river habitats could also be affecting their productivity.

“Definitely climate change is having an effect, and there’s a lot more people, so anthropogenic effects, not so much in our neck of the woods, but along the B.C. coast with forestry and rural development — industry, let’s say,” MacDonald said. “No one knows for sure. But there’s always a cycle to salmon. Sometimes they do well, sometimes they do poorly.”

Incubation facility hinges on sonar

Critical to Tr’ondëk Hwëch’s salmon incubation facility is the introduction of a sonar system that tracks the number of Chinook salmon in the water. “The unit looks across the river channel and records sonar files which are then reviewed by a trained sonar technician to count the number of salmon that swim past the site,” Schonewille explained.

Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in plans to have the sonar up-and-running by July 1 in Dawson City. It will be the first system of its kind wholly owned by a First Nation in Yukon, said Schonewille, noting that citizens are to be trained in how to operate it.

The goal is to ensure there’s a baseline understanding of how many fish enter the Klondike, he said, adding that it will help to determine the capacity of the watershed in the future for hosting Chinook salmon — and that the aquatic ecosystem isn’t thrown out of balance. 

“It’s really important because it provides a very accurate count of the number of fish that spawned in the Klondike in any given year,” he continued. “Once restoration work begins on a greater scale, we’ll be able to determine how successful it is.”

Salmon are inseparable from Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in culture

The lynchpin to all of this work is a Chinook salmon restoration plan that was first released in 2017. This living document is the basis for all future work regarding salmon restoration in the area. Underpinning it is Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s final agreement with the Yukon and federal governments, a section of which says that the community is responsible for preserving and enhancing the renewable resource economy within its traditional territory. 

Final agreements signal that a First Nation has settled their land claims. Eleven of 14 Yukon First Nations (including Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in) have done so. They can create and enact laws, for example, and have far more jurisdiction than First Nations in southern Canada, most of which fall under the Indian Act. 

The restoration plan’s message is clear: salmon are inseparable from Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in culture.

“Culture camps that bring Elders and youth together are a venue that allows traditional knowledge to be shared and passed on to the next generation,” the plan says. “These camps include activities that focus on all things salmon — harvesting techniques, preserving your catch, setting nets and special or traditionally used camping areas along the river, as well as spiritual practices, stories and songs that teach youth respect for the salmon.”

“Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in citizens are physically, culturally and spiritually connected to the Yukon River salmon fishery.”

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We live in an era — the Anthropocene — where humans and societies are reshaping and changing ecosystems. Pollution, human-made climate change and overfishing have all altered marine life and ocean food webs.

Increasing ocean temperatures are amplifying the accumulation of neurotoxic contaminants such as organic mercury (methylmercury) in some marine life. This especially affects top predators including marine mammals such as fish-eating killer whales that strongly rely on large fish as seafood for energy.

Now the combination of mercury pollution, climate change and overfishing are conspiring together to further contaminate marine life and food webs. This has obvious implications for ecosystems and the ocean, but also for public health. The risk of consuming mercury-contaminated fish and seafood is growing with climate change.

Mercury rising

Regulations have lowered global mercury emissions from human-made sources, such as coal-fired power plants, between 1990 and 2010, but mercury is still present in the marine environment.

Methylmercury builds up in the muscle tissue of fish across the food web, “bioaccumulating” in larger and high trophic level predators. This is why larger pelagic fish (for example, tuna, marlins, billfishes and sharks) — those that eat a lot of fish — are in general considered riskier to eat than smaller ones.

Seared tuna. Photo: Taylor Grote / Unsplash

In humans, mercury can lead to neurological disorders. Children who are exposed to mercury during fetal development and childhood have a greater risk of poor performance on tests that measure attention, IQ, fine motor function and language.

Climate change can amplify the accumulation of methylmercury in fish and marine mammals at the top of their food webs due to changes in the entry and fate of mercury in the ocean and the composition and structure of these marine food webs. A warmer and more acidic ocean may increase the amount of methylmercury that enters the food web.

Overfishing can also exacerbate the mercury levels in some fish species. Pacific salmon, squid and forage fish, as well as Atlantic bluefin tuna and Atlantic cod and other fish species are susceptible to increases in methylmercury due to rising ocean temperatures.

Our modelling research work shows that Chinook salmon, the largest Pacific salmon species and main prey of endangered southern resident killer whales, is projected to be exposed to high methylmercury accumulation due to changes in its prey that are driven by climate change.

Under a worst-case climate-change scenario, where greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase and global temperatures reach between 2.6C and 4.8C by 2100, Chinook salmon will see a 10 per cent increase in methylmercury. But under a best-case scenario, where emissions are low and global temperature rise is in the order of 0.3C to 1.7C at the end of the century, mercury levels would increase by only one per cent.

For forage fish, such as Pacific sardine, anchovy and Pacific herring, which are key ecological and commercial species in the Pacific Rim ecosystem, the methylmercury increase is projected to be 14 per cent under the influence of high emissions and three per cent under low emissions. Here again, this increase is driven by dietary shifts and changes in the food web composition due to warmer oceans.

A school of sardines. Photo: Klaus Stiefel / Flickr

Fishing down the food web

Atlantic cod stocks were over-exploited along the northeastern coast of Canada during the last century. Chinook salmon stocks from the northeastern Pacific Ocean are also dwindling because of natural factors and environmental stressors, including predation, habitat loss, warming oceans and fishing. The combination of these pressures can make Pacific salmon more susceptible to methylmercury bioaccumulation.

When one species is overfished, fishing fleets expand and adjust their targets, often fishing down the marine food webs. The cascading effects lead to changes in prey and foodweb composition for the remaining species, likely altering the transfer of organic contaminants such as persistent organic pollutants and methylmercury in top predators.

Aquacalypse now: the end of fish

When fish are removed from the food web, larger fish and top predators may be forced to consume more or different prey, or smaller fish than they usually do. These fish can be highly contaminated with mercury.

The combination of climate change and overfishing are further shifting the composition of fish in the ocean and where they are found. They are also altering the way these species are exposed to pollutants, increasing levels of methylmercury in Atlantic cod and Atlantic blue fin tuna — fish that are often eaten by humans.

Protecting health and the planet

Based on this evidence, the public health community should revisit and revise fish consumption guidelines for those who are most likely to be exposed to mercury (coastal communities) or experience negative effects (pregnant women, infants and children).

Our simulations show that the projected methylmercury concentrations in forage fish and Chinook salmon will surpass Canada’s mercury consumption limits this century, as well as the consumption advisory level issued by the World Health Organization.

In our human-dominated world, it is imperative that we consume fish and shellfish that come from sustainable fisheries and make efforts to reduce ocean pollution. International and national environmental policies, such as the UN Sustainable Development Goal to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, marine resources and fisheries (SDG 14) and the Paris Climate Agreement, can conserve marine species and protect our blue planet for generations to come.

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Conservation groups are calling for the immediate closure of the herring fishery in the Strait of Georgia following the release of new federal government data showing a four-year population biomass decline of almost 60 per cent.

“We’ve been systematically overfishing these stocks and the Gulf of Georgia fishery is the last one left,” Pacific Wild co-founder Ian McAllister told The Narwhal.

“Now we’re finding out that it’s already in a state of collapse.”

Herring once spawned en masse in bays and inlets along the B.C. coast, turning waters chalky with eggs and milt in one of nature’s spectacular events.

Today, largely due to overfishing, the only remaining area of spawn is between Qualicum Beach and Comox. 

B.C.’s last great herring fishery

“The entire B.C. fishing fleet is now directing all of its efforts on this one population in the Strait of Georgia,” said McAllister, whose organization has been sounding the alarm bell about herring decline for years.

Herring are a primary food source for endangered Chinook salmon, which in turn comprise 80 per cent of the diet of highly endangered southern resident killer whales. 

“What we can’t understand is why they [the federal government] are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in recovery efforts for both salmon and whales while they’re liquidating their main food supply,” McAllister said.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) data revealed the herring population biomass in the Strait of Georgia dwindled from about 130,000 metric tonnes in 2016 to about 86,000 metric tonnes in 2019. DFO predicts the population biomass will drop to just 54,200 tonnes in 2020. 

The new data also discloses that the returning herring population will consist of smaller and younger fish with lower reproductive capacity.

Herring fishing boats in the Strait of Georgia. Photo: Pacific Wild

Last year’s herring quota was about 21,000 tonnes, noted McAllister.

“People don’t really understand how much fish is taken out,” he said. “That’s the equivalent in weight of the largest class of B.C. ferry, full of fuel, oil and cars. That’s how much fish is taken out of the Strait of Georgia in just a one-week period.” 

The seine and gill net fishery, which begins at the end of February or early March, usually lasts one week to 10 days. 

Herring, a silvery fish that typically grow to just over 30 centimetres in length, spawn repeatedly  — unlike salmon, which spawn only once.

“That’s one of the reasons why the fishery is so unsustainable,” McAllister noted. 

“They’re killing the fish and extracting the roe [for sushi] and the rest of it is going to feed farmed salmon, feed lots and garden fertilizer. But the fish never gets to spawn again. It’s hugely unsustainable in that regard.” 

Herring during the 2018 spawning season in British Columbia. Photo: Pacific Wild

McAllister said the new data contrasts sharply with federal Fisheries Minister Jonathan Wilkinson’s assurance earlier this year in the House of Commons that decisions about the commercial herring fishery are based on the “abundance of the stock that exists there” and grounded in science. 

“And then we find out months later that they’ve had to reassess their estimates dramatically and we find out that, even when they didn’t reach their entire quota, they still over-fished the stock.” 

Pacific Wild, along with Conservancy Hornby Island, the Association for Denman Island Marine Stewards and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, is also asking the federal government to create a Pacific herring recovery program for the Strait of Georgia. 

“If we allow them to rebuild, it would have a profound impact on the recovery efforts of wild salmon groundfish, bottom fish, whales, dolphins, so many species that are literally starving right now,” McAllister said.

Grant Scott, chair of Conservancy Hornby Island, said if the herring fishery isn’t closed it “could be a disaster for other species,” whose numbers are already greatly reduced from historic populations.

“This is the time to shut this thing down,” Scott told The Narwhal. “Let it recover.” 

“All the other creatures that live around the whole Gulf of Georgia, the seabirds, the salmon, the cod, the halibut, the humpback whales, everybody out there in the whole ecosystem relies one way or another on herring.” 

Wolves on the B.C. coast feed on herring roe. Photo: Pacific Wild

Female herring can lay up to 10,000 eggs, each the size of a grain of sand. Photo: Pacific Wild

According to the four conservation groups, the herring population in the Strait of Georgia has suffered from years of excessive quotas based on biomass calculated using a post-industrial fishing baseline. 

The 2019 quota was set based on a predicted return of 122,000 tonnes, but the groups say they were told by DFO that fewer than 86,000 tonnes returned.

“Fisheries ended up catching 25 per cent of the population — exceeding the 20 per cent harvest quota once again,” the groups said in a joint press release. 

According to McAllister, B.C. business magnate Jimmy Pattison owns the majority of the herring fishing fleet and the majority of processing facilities.

“So Pattison might lose a few million dollars but I don’t know how much sympathy there would really be for that considering how endangered these whale and salmon populations are.” 

The Pattison-owned Canadian Fishing Company did not return a call by press time.

A herring fishing boat in the Strait of Georgia. Photo: Pacific Wild

McAllister said the groups are meeting with DFO and “imploring them” to pursue a precautionary approach to herring management. They are hopeful DFO will initiate a closure for next year to allow stocks to rebuild, he said.

“There is money that could go to fishers for mitigation and transition out of this industry. It’s simply not sustainable to be harvesting so many tonnes of a foundation fish, of a critically important forage fish.” 

The federal government is expected to release its plan for the herring roe fishery in early December, following consultation with herring industry representatives and some First Nations. 

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There was a sight for sore eyes in late July off the coast of Tofino, when a Dutch-built, Vancouver-registered 30-metre barge, Salar, was towed out of Clayoquot Sound waters, hopefully never to return.

The vessel — looking like something out of Terry Gilliam’s fantasist movie Brazil — was brought to Tofino to battle infestations of sea lice, a persistent by-product of industrial salmon farming that attacks farmed fish and, incidentally, wild juvenile salmon.

That the name, Salar, is derived from the species name for Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar, may seem a rude irony to some on the West Coast where the fabled Oncorhynchus, or wild Pacific salmon, are endangered by the industrialization of salmon rearing not just in Clayoquot Sound, but in the Broughton Archipelago on the east side of Vancouver Island.

Meares Island, immediately to the east of the resort municipality of Tofino, is among the most iconic locations on Canada’s West Coast when it comes to the protection of rare old-growth coastal temperate rainforests.

It was here that the ritual of clear-cut logging was slowed 35 years ago. The Meares Island blockade in 1984 lit a fuse that blew up into a full-scale War in the Woods that dogged successive provincial governments — Socred and NDP and Liberal alike — until much of Clayoquot Sound was “protected,” as were large swaths of Haida Gwaii and, eventually, impressive tracts of the so-called Great Bear Rainforest.

Where there was a War in the Woods, now there’s a War on the Waters.

A view of Clayoquot Sound near Tofino. Photo: Shayd Johnson

To summer tourists who savour the “eco” tourism that has taken the place of some, if not all, logging, the uncut slopes of Meares Island, and a gorgeous necklace of inlets and islets on glittering inshore waters, perfectly disguise an environmental catastrophe that constitutes, literally, a pestilence on our coast.

Parked this summer (one hesitates to use the term “moored”) in sight of the Fourth Street dock in Tofino, the Salar supplemented the onshore processing plant of Cermaq, a Norway-based salmon farming company owned by Mitsubishi that operates in Chile, Norway and Canada.

Farmed fish, packed together in their thousands in pens, like battery chickens, are subject to disease, including outbreaks of a Norwegian strain of piscine orthoreovirus, or PRV — something Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans refused to screen for before a federal court ordered it to do so.

Farmed fish are sitting ducks for sea lice, too. Industry has struggled to contain the sea lice menace.

Last year, Cermaq took to sucking afflicted fish out of their net pens and bathing them in a solution of pesticide designed to dislodge the lice. The fish went back into their pens (and eventually made their way into the mouths of consumers), the chemicals were dispersed into the marine environment and life went on.

But some lice developed an immunity to drugs used to remove them.

This year’s “solution” was to deploy the Salar, or what industry calls a “hydrolicer” that was built to pressure-wash lice to dislodge them rather than use chemicals, making it “100 per cent pollution-free and thus environmentally friendly” according to a soothing review in Fish Farming Expert.

But at least farmed fish get a shake.

Wild smolts — which have no choice other than to migrate past open net pens — pick up lice in such numbers that they cannot survive.

Clayoquot Sound wild smolts covered in sea lice, May 2019. Photo: Tavish Campbell

Regulations require industry keep parasite levels below a certain threshold. During this past spring and early summer three of Cermaq’s farms exceeded sea lice levels in violation of federal rules.

During the early summer wild salmon migration season in Clayoquot Sound, I watched filmmaker and naturalist Tavish Campbell document juvenile salmon covered in sea lice.

Sometimes ten lice clamped to one tiny smolt — fish so young they have yet to develop scales and thus are defenceless against parasitic attacks.

On an excursion for the Cedar Coast Field Station on Vargas Island, Campbell, perhaps best known for his short film Bloodwater, said, “the focus has been on the Broughton, but it’s even worse out here.”

“Clayoquot Sound is close to the point where there’s just not going to be any wild fish any more,” Tavish Campbell told me, looking up for a moment from filming chum salmon smolts he sampled.

Sea lice on a wild salmon smolt recovered in Clayoquot Sound, May 2019. Photo: Tavish Campbell

Bonnie Glambeck, a director of the conservation group, Clayoquot Action, told The Tyee, “At one point during the out-migration, sampling of smolts at the Cedar Coast Field Station found 100 per cent of the juveniles were infected with sea lice.”

Mack Bartlett, research coordinator at the Cedar Coast station, told me the effect of sea lice on wild salmon was devastating. “We have [wild fish] returning in their tens, when there used to be thousands. We could see the disappearance of chinook salmon in Clayoquot Sound if we don’t come up with a solution.”

In an open letter in the Tofino-Ucluelet Westerly News Cermaq’s managing director, David Kiemele, admitted the company was “unable to effectively manage sea lice populations for a variety of reasons” during the critical wild salmon migration period from March to June.

So much for Salar.

Sea lice on a juvenile wild salmon in the Broughton Archipelago. Video: Tavish Campbell

You would think that Fisheries and Oceans Canada would shut down Cermaq’s operations pronto, but instead, the Government of Canada announced it was “moving forward on developing an action plan to address the enforcement of sea lice regulations in coastal waters.”

Which brings a tired laugh of disbelief from Homiskanis Don Svanvik, elected chief of the ‘Namgis First Nation, in Alert Bay.

“One of the biggest issues is that people don’t believe that our government would not be telling us the truth, or would not be doing all they can to help wild salmon. And in fact, they’re not.”

Svanvik’s people have been at the forefront of attempts to get fish farms out of their waters in the Broughton Archipelago, and onto dry land — as with the band-owned Kuterra land-raised salmon enterprise that has shown it can be done.

Open-net pen fish farms, Svanvik told me, “are this staging place for disease and sea lice that were never (previously) in place for the wild salmon returning and going out to sea. The logical place for those is on land, where they cannot impact wild fish.”

“They’ve got to go. Let’s get them out. Let’s not have any risk to our salmon up here.”

The key to getting fish farms out of open waters, Svanvik believes, is “when the population says no, that’s enough. You can’t do this anymore.”

Back in Tofino, in an echo of the Meares Island logging blockade a third of a century ago, signs of the salmon farming’s denouement are evident.

In late June, a new generation of protesters joined with holdovers from the War in the Woods as about 200 protesters took to local waters in the wake of the R/V Martin Sheen, a sailboat operated by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which has taken up the fight against salmon farms. A flotilla of small craft motored to and circled Cermaq’s farm on Warne Island.

The R/V Martin Sheen, a research vessel used as part of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s ‘Operation Virus Hunter,’ a campaign to document the impacts of open-net fish farms on the B.C. coast. Photo: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation member Tsimka Martin, one of the organizers of the flotilla, co-founded a group called the Nuuchahnulth Salmon Alliance that is determined to see fish farms — 27 of them, operated by three companies — evicted from Clayoquot Sound.

“These are cess pools, we need to remove them from our waters,” she says in a video posted on the alliance’s Facebook page.

There have been public marches, a rally outside Cermaq’s plant, boardings of Creative Salmon farm operations, an Indigenous talking circle — all chapters in the textbook endgame for an industry that has worn out whatever welcome it had in the first place.

Because there are jobs involved, of course politicians will have a say.

Unlike Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington State who is clearing fish farms out of the Salish Sea and vows to keep them out, Premier John Horgan has been hesitant to make significant changes.

Indigenous political leaders are meanwhile divided. While some communities benefit economically from the aquaculture industry operating in their traditional waters, others argue the protection of wild salmon should be see as critical to both reconciliation and efforts to free Indigenous nations from their economic dependence on extractive industries.

But time is running out for all — to save salmon from going the way of the East Coast cod.

“The salmon can be a messenger,” Don Svanvik says. “When we start doing things better, they’ll be coming back more. Then we’ll know we’re headed in the right direction.”

And then perhaps the people of Clayoquot Sound — indeed all over Vancouver Island — can get back to fighting the War in the Woods, which, it turns out — a third of a century later — isn’t really over after all …

Bringing back the trees to bring back the salmon

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Clouds hang low over the hills and a sporadic, warm rain slicks the docks at the Pacific Gateway Marina in Port Renfrew.

It should be a good day for anglers around the small southern Vancouver Island community, which advertises sports fishing as its specialty, attracting British Columbians and tourists from around the world who want to catch salmon and halibut.

But, despite the impending long weekend that would normally see anglers flocking to Port Renfrew, more than half the marina’s slips are empty and the remainder are occupied by charter boats sitting idle, unused fishing rods pointing skywards.

In April, after most spring and summer fishing charter and local accommodation bookings had been made, Fisheries and Oceans Canada announced sweeping restrictions to commercial and recreational Chinook salmon fisheries around B.C.’s south coast due to plummeting stocks.

“Chinook are the driving force here,” explains John Wells, owner of Port Renfrew’s Hindsight Fishing Charter.

“It’s a daily income for the town … This has a ripple effect on everyone from sports stores to the marina operators,” he says.

“We rely on this. It’s our town and our livelihood and we care about this and we don’t want to lose it.”

Fishing rods sit idle at the Pacific Gateway Marina in Port Renfrew, following new federal restrictions on Chinook fishing. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

The changes mean that Chinook caught this summer must be released and the total annual limit has been reduced from 30 to 10 Chinook per person. The commercial Chinook fishery is also closed until August 20 instead of opening in June as it usually does.

The restrictions are part of a federal government effort to reverse drastic declines in Fraser River Chinook populations and make more fish available for endangered southern resident killer whales, whose preferred diet is Chinook.

But they’ve left Port Renfrew, a village of 150, struggling to reinvent itself after earning a reputation as the fishing capital of southern Vancouver Island, with “some of the best salmon and halibut fishing in North America,” according to the town’s website.

Crab traps are a common sight on the weathered docks of the Pacific Gateway Marina in Port Renfrew. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Locals call this the Marge Simpson Rock. The waters around the rock have traditionally been a favourite fishing spot for Chinook. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Clients cancel as effect of Chinook fishing restrictions takes hold

Sports fishing for other species remains open, but the large Chinook are the lifeblood of the industry, and, in Port Renfrew, charter cancellations started immediately after the announcement, with customers making it clear they did not want to pay thousands of dollars to go home without a salmon.

A survey of 364 businesses and companies, 82 per cent of which are linked to the fishing industry, conducted for a coalition of 17 Vancouver Island chambers of commerce, found 71 per cent had cancellations after the Chinook restrictions, with 22 per cent saying bookings were down by more than 50 per cent.

A total of 96 per cent said they are losing customers and clients, with 37 per cent expecting to lay off staff and 27 per cent saying they will have to close their business this season or next.

Dan Quigley (left) is a director of the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce who has been fishing in the area for 40 years. Quigley heads out on the water with Nolan Fisher but they won’t be bringing home Chinook due to new rules that aim to help save diminishing stocks. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Boat owners are now scrambling to explain that catch and release provides a great West Coast fishing experience, even if the fish must be returned to the ocean, and that other species also provide good sport.

But Alberta resident Jean Pigeon, throwing lines off the marina dock after returning from a guided fishing trip, says he and his friends will not pay for a fishing trip if they can’t take fish home with them.

“We almost cancelled the trip when we got the information that we couldn’t get Chinook,” Pigeon tells The Narwhal.

The group was told that fishing for species such as halibut and ling cod remains open and there are areas further afield (and more expensive to reach) where Chinook can be retained, meaning the trio is returning to Alberta with Chinook and halibut.

Port Renfrew attracts visitors from around the world. These fishermen from Alberta and Quebec almost cancelled their trip because of confusion over new fishing rules that mean Chinook caught this summer must be released. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

On the water near Port Renfrew, conversations revolve around the restrictions. Some such as Nolan and Sandy Fisher, who, enticed by good fishing, built a waterfront home in Port Renfrew, say they are satisfied to catch other species, even though they feel the federal government should be looking at bigger issues such as fish farms and cruise ships.

“I love halibut and cod and maybe we’ll get more mussels and cod,” says Sandy Fisher.

As Nolan Fisher manoeuvres his boat around the inlet, the depth sounder shows shoals of fish. “They are probably Chinook which means we could catch them, but we have to let them go,” he says wistfully.

Port Renfrew resident Sandra Fisher misses catching Chinook but says she is content fishing for halibut and cod. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Trust with DFO ‘has been broken’

Few dispute that Fraser River Chinook are in trouble, but, in a community where so many livelihoods are linked to recreational fishing, there is a visceral distrust of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and a general belief that anglers are being singled out as easy targets.

Sports fishermen say the federal government, instead of paying attention to those living in coastal communities, is listening to environmental groups or fish-farming companies, the latter of which — in a rare point of agreement — are widely believed by both conservation organizations and anglers to be negatively affecting wild runs by spreading sea lice and pathogens.

“The trust with DFO has been broken,” says Dan Quigley, a Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce director who has been fishing in the area for 40 years. “We had hoped to build some alliances, but they stomped all over that and the communications have not been good.”

Dan Quigley says trust with DFO has been broken. He believes Port Renfrew’s fishing industry can survive if people start thinking differently about fishing. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Members of Port Renfrew’s fishing community believe they are scapegoats for decades of salmon mismanagement even though the province’s recreational fishery catches less than 10 per cent of all salmon species, contributes $1.1 billion to the provincial economy and provides 9,000 jobs.

“We are the low-hanging fruit with government making it look good for the general public,” says Wells, pointing out that, when thousands of SNC-Lavalin jobs were at stake in Quebec, the federal government was anxious to take action, but DFO appears unwilling to save fishing jobs in B.C.

John Wells, owner of Port Renfrew’s Hindsight Fishing Charter, says the Chinook restrictions have had a ripple effect on businesses ranging from sports stores to marina operators. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Charter boat operators say their data shows most Chinook caught in the area are either hatchery stock or U.S. fish.

“Ninety-nine per cent of the Chinook that we intercept are American fish,” says Brent Story of Pacific Pro Charters, who says he’s seen a 20 per cent drop in bookings, forcing him to put business expansion plans on hold.

“We know what rivers the fish are from and have the data to back it up.” he says.

Pacific Chinook salmon are in ‘a critical state’

But data can be collected in several ways and Greg Taylor, fisheries advisor with Watershed Watch — a science-based charity that advocates for the conservation of B.C.’s wild salmon — says data used by charter boat operators looks at the catch across 12 months instead of the critical months when endangered stocks are passing through the area.

“The science is provided by DFO based on DNA. [Charter boat operators] actually have a significant impact on the stocks of concern — the spring and summer chinook that are endangered — when those fish are migrating through their fishery,” says Taylor, who spent 30 years in the commercial fishing industry and is a member of the marine conservation caucus, a group of nine conservation organizations mandated to provide advice to DFO.

“They are intercepting a significant proportion of those fish that are passing through in the months of May, June and July,” he says.

An added concern is the mortality rate of fish that are caught and released. While DFO estimates that 15 per cent do not survive, a recently released paper puts the mortality rates much higher, Taylor says, adding he would like to see a complete closure of chinook fishing during the critical months.

But the hard truth is that populations of Pacific salmon are shrinking and it is unlikely that the glory days of sports fishing will return in the foreseeable future.

The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada has found that 12 out of 13 Fraser River Chinook populations are at risk. Fisheries Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, announcing the restrictions, said stocks must not knowingly be put on the path to extinction.

“The science is clear: Pacific Chinook salmon are in a critical state. Without immediate action, this species could be lost forever,” Wilkinson said.

Hammond Rocks at the edge of Port Renfrew’s bay has traditionally been a rich fishing spot for Chinook. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

The ‘dragon’ of Port Renfrew. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

The quest to reinvent Port Renfrew

Quigley is one of a group of businessmen and residents leading a push to look for new directions for Port Renfrew. While he believes the fishing industry can survive if, in part, people start thinking differently about fishing, he says new strategies are needed to keep tourists in the area.

“Not everyone wants to retain a salmon. What they say is ‘the tug is the drug.’ It’s getting the fish on and releasing it. A lot of the guides now have purchased new, rubber-coated nets that help the salmon so they can take a picture of it without harming the fish,” says Quigley, a retired federal administrative judge.

“It’s a new mindset that it’s not just a meat fishery, it’s an experience. Coming out to Renfrew and enjoying the fight with the fish and then letting it go. Seeing some whales and seeing the West Coast Trail and those sorts of things,” he says.

“We’ve got to get the word out that fishing is not closed. It’s far from being closed.”

A fishing boat at the Pacific Gateway Marina in Port Renfrew, a town now striving to re-invent itself. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Paul McFadden, vice president of Mill Bay Marine Group, which built Pacific Gateway Marina four years ago, agrees that a partial solution is changing angler attitudes.

“We don’t have to kill the fish. Look at the Fraser River sturgeon … At the end of the day, it’s time to change the culture of the angler,” McFadden says.

Paul McFadden is vice president of Mill Bay Marine Group, which built Pacific Gateway Marina four years ago as sports fishers flocked to the town. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

The need for an economic makeover is a scenario familiar to long-time Port Renfrew residents who’ve lived through booms and busts before.

The first logging camp was built in the area in 1923 and, for decades, industrial logging provided jobs and wealth, but in 1990 Fletcher Challenge moved operations to Cowichan Lake and Port Renfrew started a sometimes painful transition to a tourism and fishing-based economy.

When the Ancient Forest Alliance started a campaign to save massive trees in the area and promote them as a tourist attraction, it was initially greeted with scorn by long-time supporters of the logging industry.

But, with a growing interest in the vital role of old-growth forests, tourists came to Port Renfrew to gaze at massive Douglas fir and spruce trees and awe-inspiring stands such as Avatar Grove.

The community started billing itself as the Tall Tree Capital of Canada and, combined with fishing and hiking, a tourism economy took root.

However, tourists gazing at trees or visiting Botanical Beach tend to come for the day or stay for one night, while anglers stay longer, either taking charter fishing trips or setting up camp for weeks at a time, Quigley says.

Still waters at the Pacific Gateway Marina in Port Renfrew. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Seagulls perch atop rocks at the Pacific Gateway Marina, waiting for the day’s catch to be gutted. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Some say B.C. government needs to take control of salmon from feds

Quigley believes a partial answer to Port Renfrew’s conundrum is for the provincial government to take control of salmon from the federal government, a change he says would provide more opportunities for local input and for pressure to be put on logging companies to restore habitat.

“The B.C. government needs to get it through their heads that these salmon are born in B.C. They are born in our streams and our rivers and they need to take jurisdiction,” Quigley says.

Quigley’s passion for fishing is reflected in wall art at his Port Renfrew home. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Dan Quigley heads downstairs in his West Coast-themed house in Port Renfrew. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Forest clearcut near Port Renfrew, British Columbia. Photo: TJ Watt

The province has not indicated it is interested in wresting control of salmon from the federal government, but Premier John Horgan said after the restrictions were announced that he was disappointed that “years of bad decisions” have led to the need for such conservation measures and acknowledged there would be a significant impact on communities.

Adam Olsen of the B.C. Green Party agrees B.C.’s wild salmon stocks are crashing because of government policies and he believes the province has played a role.

“For decades the federal government has mismanaged the salmon harvest while the provincial government has mismanaged land-based resource harvesting and now we are paying the consequences,” Olsen wrote in his blog.

Despite the obvious need for regulation, the salmon harvest has continued as if it was the Wild West. Instead of conservation measures being rolled out over the last decade, they were dropped on fishing communities just before this fishing season, devastating coastal communities, he wrote.

DFO spokeswoman Lara Sloan said in an emailed response to questions from The Narwhal that there was consultation about the restrictions and, in February, DFO circulated a letter outlining the need for new management actions for Fraser River Chinook because of the fall assessments and poor 2018 returns.

Restrictions needed to be put in place in April to protect early migrations of the endangered Chinook, Sloan said.

Hatcheries not a silver bullet

From the fishing guides’ point of view, one of the latest slights from DFO was a decision not to fund applications for Chinook hatchery projects, even though the Sport Fishing Institute of B.C. is advocating to protect wild fish by moving the harvest away from threatened stocks and on to hatchery fish.

Sloan said the department is funding new hatchery conservation measures on at least three low-abundance stocks of Fraser River Chinook and additional use of hatcheries may be considered, but would require careful planning and evaluation.

“The ratio of hatchery-produced fish to wild fish on spawning grounds would need to be monitored to ensure genetic diversity is maintained and potential competition with wild stocks would need to be considered,” she said.

Aaron Hill, executive director of Watershed Watch, says hatcheries are needed in extreme  circumstances to keep populations from going extinct, but there is growing scientific evidence they present a risk to wild populations.

“They lower the genetic fitness of the wild populations. They are genetically inferior because they haven’t undergone natural selection and then they interbreed with the wild fish and lower their viability,” Hill says, adding that hatchery runs mean increased fishing and wild fish are then caught as bycatch.

“They also compete with wild fish for food and there’s increasing evidence that that is having a substantial impact on some populations. It’s an increasing concern with climate change because the warming ocean conditions are reducing the quantity and quality of food available  for salmon in the ocean,” he says.

Watershed Watch is asking the federal government to put all new and existing hatcheries through a full biological risk assessment.

“There are conservation benefits to hatcheries, but, if you are just putting those fish out there to catch, it’s not providing a conservation benefit, it’s providing a fishing benefit that might be detrimental,” Hill says.

A lone charter boat fishing in a regulated area far from Port Renfrew. A charter this far out could cost the operator up to $250 in diesel a day. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

First Nations Chinook fisheries continue

Another touchy topic for many Port Renfrew fishermen are First Nations Chinook net fisheries on the Fraser, which boat owners say are pushing a wedge between communities as they are sidelined while fish heading for spawning grounds are intercepted.

“They should be letting those fish get up the river,” Wells says.

However, Sloan said First Nations openings are limited, accounting for approximately five per cent of returns, and must be allowed to meet constitutionally protected rights to harvest small numbers of Chinook for food, social and ceremonial purposes.

Under the constitution, conservation is the first priority, followed by First Nations fisheries, with commercial and recreational fisheries taking third place. Any deviation would likely spark a lawsuit against the federal government.

Murray Ned, executive director of the Lower Fraser Fisheries Alliance, which represents Indigenous communities along the river, says conservation is of prime importance and full communal fisheries are not being conducted this year.

The federal government does give permission for small ceremonial fisheries when a community member dies, in which case about three salmon are taken to feed people at the funeral, or for historical ceremonies honouring the return of the Chinook.

“It is only one person going out for about eight hours to try and capture those fish,” he says.

Mountain biking, ecotourism eyed for economic diversification

The Chamber of Commerce and a new opportunities committee is working with Pacheedaht First Nation on strategies ranging from ecotourism, with fishing guides running trips to view wildlife such as bears and cougars, to promoting Port Renfrew as the new West Coast mountain bike capital.

“Everyone wants to compare us to the next Tofino, but I think we can do much better than that. Our mountains are higher and we have one of the most gorgeous beaches on the planet and wonderful campsites,” McFadden says.

Mountain biking, one of the major growth industries, offers huge opportunities, he points out.

“We can offer trails of 385 kilometres in three different directions and we have the most frost-free days in Canada.”

That optimism is echoed by Karl Ablack, vice-president of Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce, who heads Port Renfrew Management, which owns about 175 hectares in the area.

Ablack envisages a new town centre, surrounded by affordable housing and a multitude of tourism opportunities.

“There is definitely short-term pain … but it now gives us a reason to be talking about diversification and not relying on one industry like fishing and logging,” he says.

Taylor of Watershed Watch points out that “it took a long time to get in this terrible position and it’s going to take us a long time to get out.”

“There’s no easy answer, there’s no magic bullet,” he says. “It’s not killing seals or enhancing fish.”

“The most important, immediate solution we can have is to identify those populations of Fraser River chinook that are classified as endangered and stop killing them.”

Updated June 18, 2019, at 3:12 p.m.: The article originally stated Alberta fishermen were told they could fish for red snapper. The article has been updated to reflect the fact red snapper can not currently be retained.

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Remember that picture of a baby orca flying through the air like she was auditioning for the Broadway musical adaptation of Free Willy?

In 2015 you couldn’t open a Facebook, Instagram or Twitter feed without seeing the image and smiling. This baby orca, initially nicknamed Wiggles, is J-50 — the 50th member to join J-Pod since humans started counting and cataloguing southern resident orcas.

I talked to the photographer, Clint Rivers, just after he took that astonishing shot and he glowed as he shared the day, like he’d witnessed a miracle. This baby had just learned she could fly and she kept leaping — or, to use the boring scientific term for whales defying gravity and our imaginations, “breaching” over and over and over again.

She was Joy. She was Hope. Her photo became the symbol of West Coast whales — especially since this was the famous orca breach birth baby. Elder orcas helped deliver her, using their teeth to assist her mother, Slick (J-16), with the delivery. Slick was 42 at the time — believed to be beyond her reproductive years — so Scarlet truly was a miracle baby.   

The iconic image of infant Scarlet leaping through the air raised awareness of the animals. Photo: Clint Rivers

This whale was the magic that people travel to the West Coast of B.C. and Washington to experience. She was named Scarlet — because of the scars from her delivery. Also, I suspect, because The Avengers were a thing and I’m sure Black Widow seemed like a terrible name for a cute baby whale. Although, in hindsight, that was probably the way to go.

Scarlet was born in Dec. 2014 and kicked off the great baby boom of 2015 — which was (no coincidence) about two years after a banner year for Chinook salmon — the primary diet of the endangered southern residents. That year their numbers climbed to 83.

Now there are new pictures of Scarlet going viral. If you’re not familiar with orca anatomy, she still looks adorable — a perfect baby orca. The problem is she’s not a baby and the three-year-old is the size of a one-year-old. And there’s a depression at the back of her neck.

Scientists call that indentation “peanut head” — which is more proof scientists should never be allowed to name anything that might be shared with civilians. Peanut head sounds adorable, which is not the effect you want for a term that means she’s lost so much weight we can see her skeleton.

One of Scarlet’s pod mates, 20-year-old Tahlequah (J-35) just delivered the first live baby in the southern resident population in three years. Her daughter survived about half-an-hour before dying. She never flew through the air. She was never named by humans, though I know someone suggested calling her “Extinction” and I’ve suggested “Pandora” — since she’s even got government agencies thinking outside the box.

Early deaths for orcas aren’t uncommon, but three years without adding another live member to this population is catastrophic.

While the rest of the world watched Tahlequah grieve, orca experts on the West Coast have also been haunted by Scarlet. In most stories about Tahlequah carrying her daughter’s body there’s a brief mention that another whale is in trouble.

Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been following Scarlet around taking breath samples. Her breath and feces contain pathogens — another science word not meant for civilian consumption. It means germs.

Scarlet is starving and she’s sick and she’s sick because she’s starving. She’s lost 20 percent of her mass and as orcas get thinner, they live off their blubber. But the ketogenic diet isn’t a great idea for orcas since their blubber is where they store the generations of toxins we’ve dumped into the water. Orcas burning blubber are feeding off DDT, dioxins and all the other charming poisonous chemicals and plastics that are now primary links in our food chain.

NOAA and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada are looking to “intervene” to save Scarlet by feeding her live salmon and administering antibiotics. The Lummi Nation has live salmon in tanks ready to feed her. Of course, that requires finding J-Pod, who were just spotted again on Tuesday night outside Port Renfrew.      

NOAA has permission from the U.S. government to administer antibiotics and try to feed her. Canada’s department of Fisheries and Oceans announced Thursday morning that they are also cleared to assist Scarlet. But fog and choppy waters may make it difficult to spot Scarlet’s pod — nevermind get close enough to help her. Weather conditions aren’t expected to improve until Sunday.

Scarlet and her mother, J-16, swim together early in her life. Photo: John Durban (NOAA Fisheries), Holly Fearnbach (SR3) and Lance Barrett-Lennard (Vancouver Aquarium) via Flickr

Orca-advocacy organizations that might normally battle anyone looking to interfere with the whales’ lives are offering to help because, even if our governments are turning a blind eye to their environmental commitments, they’re at least finally following the Pottery Barn rule: “You Break It, You Bought It.”

Lynda Mapes, the orca reporter from the Seattle Times, wrote that she’s received private calls from politicians who can’t sleep because Tahlequah’s story is shattering them. Chances are their children and grandchildren are asking what they’re doing to help the whales. So let’s make sure every kid out there knows the flying baby whale they fell in love with is the “other orca” who’s dying.

Let’s make sure Prime Minister Justin Trudeau knows this as he decides whether it’s worth trampling the last of these black and white whales with the white elephant known as Trans Mountain — and as his government decides where to focus the funds being put into assisting the recovery of these iconic orcas.

Let’s take the moment to ask the B.C. government to look at licences for fish farms that have put wild salmon at risk.

Washington Governor, Jay Inslee, just asked his task force to consider breaching the Snake River dam. Here’s his number (360-902-4111). Here’s Senator Patty Murray’s number (206-553-5545). You can also share your thoughts with the task force online. It is accepting comments from Canadians and Ken Balcomb, founder of the Center for Whale Research, is urging us to weigh in.

Yes, there are plenty of things that need to happen to help the orcas, the Chinoook and the ocean that keeps us all alive.

But these whales are almost out of time.  If you think this world is better with the world’s most iconic orcas in it, this is the moment to demand action.

It’s up to us.

What’s the symbol you want for the future of the southern resident orcas — Tahlequah grieving or Scarlet defying gravity?

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B.C.’s approval of a new mine in a transboundary watershed has added fuel to simmering Alaskan anger about the province’s surge of mine development adjacent to the southeast Alaska border.

The province has granted an environmental assessment certificate to Pretivm Resources Inc. for the Brucejack gold and silver mine, about 65 kilometres northwest of Stewart and 40 kilometres upstream from the Alaskan border.

The underground mine, which has not yet received federal approval, will be close to the headwaters of the Unuk River, which flows from B.C. into Alaska. The Unuk is one of Southeast Alaska’s largest king (chinook) salmon rivers and drains into Misty Fjords National Monument, one of Alaska’s most popular tourist destinations.

Brucejack is adjacent to the large Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell (KSM) mine, which received B.C and federal government approval last year, despite strong opposition from Alaskan politicians, fishermen and tribal governments.

“It is too much, too fast,” said Chris Zimmer, Alaska campaign director with Rivers Without Borders.

“It is the cumulative effect of so many mines in salmon-producing areas. There is so much coming at us so fast without any long-term controls and the process is just not designed to look at cumulative effects over a big region.”

According to a Ministry of Energy and Mines spokesman there are 10 advanced mine development projects in northwest B.C. and numerous exploration projects.

Brucejack, with an estimated capital cost of $450 million, would produce up to 2,700 tonnes of ore a day, create 500 jobs during the two-year construction period and 300 jobs during a minimum 16-year operating life, according to a ministry news release.

Appeals from the Alaskan side of the border for a federal panel review of KSM were ignored, so there is little hope the federal government will veto Brucejack, Zimmer said. It is expected that the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency will make a referral to the Environment Minister by late spring.

Tension about the number of mines planned for the transboundary area, close to the Unuk, Stikine, Nass and Taku rivers, was already high when the Mount Polley tailings pond collapsed last summer, confirming the worst fears of Alaskans about B.C.’s mine oversight and permitting process.

The report into the Mount Polley disaster promised that it would not be business as usual, but that has not deterred B.C., said Heather Hardcastle of Salmon Beyond Borders.

One business day after release of a geotechnical report on the causes of the Mount Polley dam collapse, the Red Chris mine opened in the Stikine watershed. Red Chris is owned by Imperial Metals, the same company that owns Mount Polley.

Even though the report recommends that tailings not be stored underwater and behind large dams, Red Chris has started to fill a tailings storage facility that utilizes just that technology, according to Salmon Beyond Borders.

However, tailings from Brucejack will be stored underground and in Brucejack Lake, eliminating the need for a tailings pond and dam.

“This reflects the best-available technology as recommended by the independent panel that investigated the Mount Polley failure,” says the ministry news release.

The environmental assessment certificate has 15 conditions that the province says will ensure there will not be “significant adverse effects downstream from the mine and to the Unuk River.”

B.C has also asked for additional information on the effectiveness of the proposed water treatment plants and more modelling of local groundwater conditions.

That does not mollify worried Alaskans.

“To us it feels as if the pace of these projects in the transboundary region have accelerated, not decelerated,” Hardcastle said.

“We are frustrated. We want to see real engagement happening between B.C. and Alaska and the U.S. and Canada. We are downstream from all these (projects) and we take all the risks with no benefits … We want an equal seat at the table with B.C. and Canada to talk about the effect of multiple projects, not just project by project.”

Several groups, hoping for strong support from Alaska Governor Bill Walker, are pushing for a review by the International Joint Commission, established in 1909 as part of the Boundary Waters Treaty and charged with resolving transboundary water disputes between the U.S. and Canada.

But Canada appears to be balking at that idea, said Zimmer, who is irritated by suggestions by B.C.  Mines Minister Bill Bennett that problems could be addressed by a one-day symposium, bringing all parties together.

Alaskans also responded angrily last fall to Bennett’s message that they would stop worrying if they understood how B.C. mines are reviewed and how much input the Alaskan government already has.

“That’s pretty condescending,” Zimmer said.

“Bill Bennett tells us we just don’t understand and I think we understand too well.”

Image Credit: Brucejack mine camp by Pretivm Resources

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