DFO “should establish a strategy to collect and assess data necessary to monitor and report on the status of smaller stocks, and establish and make public a deadline for doing so,” auditor general’s report – Pacific Salmon: Sustainability of the Resource Base, 1997.
On Tuesday – at a press conference at UBC – I told Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc there are 40 small-stock streams from Maple Ridge to Hope that Fisheries and Oceans has failed to monitor and report on 20 years after the Governor General’s direction to do so.
He agreed it was something that needed to be addressed. He also said he’d return a strong Fish Act to DFO officers. Here’s why both of those comments are important.
Wild, Threatened, Endangered and Lost Streams of the Lower Fraser Valley – a document produced for the DFO in 1997 – says these 40 creeks support 80 per cent of the Fraser’s chinook and chum, 65 per cent of its coho and pink salmon.
Its authors wrote: “one of the biggest challenges to resource management agencies such as DFO is the protection and restoration of fish habitat in the Lower Fraser Valley in the face of increasing development pressure.”
From 1947 to 1978, DFO met this challenge with officers who enforced the Fish Act. You could scan one page of a catalogue to see how many pink, coho, and chum returned in any year to any creek.
A DFO officer’s notes told you of any threats to fish and habitat from poachers, polluters, agriculture, urbanization.
But in 1979, DFO stopped counting and monitoring. Today, easily two-thirds of streams don’t get the attention they need.
Today, one DFO officer, “not certified to enforce the Fish Act,” directs two part-time students to count chum – his main focus.
Recently, he told me he’d only counted a few times since year 2,000: (2012) 1,170 chum; (2013) 730; (2014) 188; (2015) 655; (2016) 3,591.
No numbers for pink. Somebody in Kamloops counts coho.
Before 1978, anyone could find out how our vital small streams were holding out. You’d open a catalogue and read it.
Not now; no funds for printing, I’m told.
DFO says search the new data base system called NuSEDS. I have a masters degree in reading, but a maze of zip files made me tired.
“Yes, it could be daunting,” a DFO officer said.
I showed the minister the 1979 catalogue I used when I walked streams to count fish. The Whonnock Creek numbers should help him see the significance for the Wild Salmon Policy he claims to support.
From 1947 to 1978, numbers vary little. Coho returns were from 25 to 750 fish. Even 25 coho is significant when you remember we’re talking about 40 streams.
Chum ranged from 200 to 3,500 fish. Remember, females deposit up to 3,000 eggs. Do the math. Potentially, that’s lots of food for hungry orcas.
Pink salmon, not counted today by DFO, even in return years like 2013, were also abundant – 50 to 3,500 in this magnificent little stream alone.
Citizens recognize small streams are vital to wild salmon survival. In 2011, a fish ladder was constructed adjacent to the berm or channel under the culvert.
DFO didn’t know when or who paid for it, but Dianne Ramage, of the Pacific Salmon Foundation, did. CP Rail – working with Kwantlen FN – paid $700,000 for the ladder and stream outlet repairs. It would make migration a lot easier for salmon. They’d come upstream sooner.
Should the ladder mean even more spawners? DFO numbers from 2012 to 2116 say they’re about the same.
Why?
Have negative human influences upstream – the ones DFO was told to watch for – added to the problems Whonnock Creek already faces from overfishing, climate change, and ocean pollution?
We can’t say without the observations of trained biologists assigned to a Habitat Protection Branch. It’s gone with budget cuts.
Partial numbers of some species of salmon, by two seasonal staff, can’t replace them.
Mr. LeBlanc, streams like Whonnock Creek deserve better, immediately.
Jack Emberly is a retired teacher, local author and environmentalist.