The federal government has been slowly abandoning its responsibility to monitor Pacific salmon since the 1980s, leaving huge data gaps and hampering our ability to effectively manage salmon populations.
Nearly two thirds of B.C. and Yukon salmon stocks that were historically monitored were not counted at all between 2014 and 2023, according to a new Canadian study. This self-imposed blindness is developing into a full-blown crisis when 70 per cent of Canada’s West Coast salmon population are believed to be below their historic average abundance.
I say “believed” because without data we don’t know anything for certain, and no meaningful management strategy is possible. Too often the government’s only conservation solution is to deny the public the opportunity to fish, even when the returns warrant a public fishery.
A lack of data forced our Pacific fisheries to drop out of the Marine Stewardship Council certification program in 2019. It was feared that our fisheries would fail an MSC audit, which would have caused considerable embarrassment to the government.
The researchers found that monitoring of the about 7,000 salmon populations in B.C. and Yukon has been declining steadily since the 1980s.
Worryingly, the government only seems interested in monitoring species that are commercially important. Fraser River sockeye is the only population that has seen increased monitoring over the past decade ending in 2023, in part because Fisheries and Oceans Canada is bound by treaty to report Fraser sockeye numbers to the Canada-U.S. Pacific Salmon Commission.
A lack of data is potentially devastating to Pacific salmon populations, hundreds or even thousands of which may be heading toward crisis without us even knowing. You have to measure it to manage it. We could also be missing fishing opportunities for the public and the commercial fleet due a lack of data on healthy runs.
It is also impossible to tell if conservation and habitat restoration efforts are having an impact.
There is so much that we don’t know.
We can’t know the true impact of commercial salmon farming on wild salmon. It’s difficult to know the effect on salmon of a 1,000-per-cent explosion in seal and sea lion populations beyond anecdotes from anglers and First Nations.
Federal fisheries enforcement on the water is also at a low ebb. In some regions patrol hours have been reduced by 90 per cent compared to just two years ago, leaving sockeye returning to spawn at the mercy of poachers. Day, night, boat, and helicopter patrols on the mid-Fraser have dropped from thousands of hours to virtually zero. The usual $120,000 helicopter patrol budget dropped to near zero.
Perhaps none of this matters if fisheries managers can’t quantify the problem or enforce the rules on the water.
As recently as 2012, the mid and upper Fraser was patrolled by 15 fisheries officers. Today there are just six, including three trainees. Recruitment of managers and officers is proving to be a challenge as staff grow discouraged and quit so quickly.
The government of Canada has wiped out morale within DFO, abandoned the public interest and the conservation of salmon and steelhead on the Fraser. We are seeing an exodus of passionate professionals dedicated to the conservation of salmon and steelhead from the federal and provincial governments. If there ever was a signal that the DFO no longer cares about conservation, this is it.
The study “Monitoring for fisheries or for fish? Declines in monitoring of salmon spawners continue despite a conservation crisis” was published in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences by lead author Emma Atkinson from the University of Alberta.