Comments on: Wild Pacific salmon: Death by a thousand cuts

By: corsets

corsets — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 19:57:13 +0000

Wow I never knew that the illegal harvesting of salmon was such big business!

By: e-cigarette ratings

e-cigarette ratings — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 23:52:33 +0000

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By: Samantha Chilcote

Samantha Chilcote — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:56:59 +0000

Donna,
Great point. I think your examples of habitat alteration along the Fraser are a great example of the types of impacts I was discussing. I also agree with you that fish farms (as well as hatcheries) are a significant stress on wild Pacific salmon populations. Thank you for bringing them up.

I just wanted to let you know that it is our intention to address supplementation issues in a separate blog posting. The direct and indirect impacts of supplementation efforts are varied, wide ranging, and complex. We did not feel that we could adequately address this issue within this posting. We certainly intend to in the future. But, I definitely agree with you that they need to be considered in any comprehensive management strategy at the North Pacific scale. Thanks for your input!

By: Donna Passmore

Donna Passmore — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:28:11 +0000

That’s close – at least she’s looking at multiple contributions, but it’s very American.

The Fraser River has – until fairly recently – been the world’s greatest salmon-producing river. What made it that was the fact that the river shifted significantly from side to side from one year to the next, leaving in the wake of these shifts large amounts of reedy, brakkish water – the best salmon habitat.

Once we started dyking the Fraser to protect human habitat, and then building along the shores of the Fraser, we began losing salmon habitat. Terry Slack, a commercial salmon fisherman who has been “on the river for more than 50 years” and a director of the Fraser River Coalition, says we have less than 11% of the original salmon habitat left in the lower arm Fraser River.

Added to that, the impact of development along the numerous tributaries that feed the Fraser (no better example exists than the proposed Genstar developments in Mission, which will destroy some of the richest spawning beds in the Fraser River or Gordon Campbell’s attempts to put a ‘ruin-of-the-river’ project on the Upper Pitt River).

The lower arm of the Fraser River is critical to salmon, because it is the transition zone between fresh and salt water for migrating salmon. Depending on the species of salmon, they spend a few months to a couple of years in this area before heading into the Pacific.Both chum and coho spawn in the Lower Fraser.

As well, this argument ignores the devastating impact of open net fish farms on wild salmon stocks.

There is a very large and diverse network of groups and individuals coming together toward a shared objective of conserving wild pacific salmon. It can be found on the internet or facebook as Wild Salmon Circle.