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Originally Posted by wind drift
You’re maybe not considering that the Species at Risk Act is federal. Canada can impose oversight on provinces and territories, and their criteria for definition of status is what counts. Occupied range is one important factor. Species don’t “retract” like it’s some kind of planned rearguard tactic. They are eliminated, first from the less suitable outer edges of their range, then the core. Range reduction is a bad thing. Alberta doesn’t have the autonomy to say that a species at risk will be sustained in one small area, so, Canada, don’t worry about all the other loss and leave us alone.
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What makes you think these species are being eliminated?
Have you read the reports that state that many of these populations are stable or even improving?
Here I will make it easy for you.
http://aep.alberta.ca/fish-wildlife/...gementPlan.pdf
The very best part is the summary.
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In general, bull trout populations have responded to the zero harvest (catch-and-release) regulation with mixed results - a few populations have experienced substantial recovery, while the majority have fluctuated in size, with a few showing a very weak trend toward recovery. Some populations have shown limited or no evidence of recovery under the zero harvest regulation, and are suspected to continue to suffer from high levels of habitat degradation and fragmentation, competition from introduced species, and accidental as well as illegal harvest.
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So the first step wasn't these closures. It was changing angling to C&R which only affected some of these rivers. That right there was a far more significant change to angling mortality then these closures will be and the fact that they didn't have obvious results on a number of these waterbodies just goes to prove that the other issues(habitat destruction, introduced species, poaching etc) are the main ones.
Fisheries knows what is wrong with these waterbodies, they have repeatedly told us this a number of times in these reports. The frustrating thing is that the issues being reported are the same ones that were known decades ago. Lets stop researching the problems we have already diagnosed and go out and actually fix them. If our biologists traded their pen and paper for a shovel many of these waterbodies would have likely already been fixed by now...
As I keep saying lets address these issues first before we take the drastic step in closing these fisheries. Closures create multiple issues and as these reports hint will likely have little effect on these rivers.