"Damn near extinction:" Interior steelhead run expected to be very small

IronNoggin · #1 10-18-2021, 11:38 AM

"Damn near extinction:" Interior steelhead run expected to be very small

In the past, the federal government has declined to pursue an emergency listing of the Interior steelhead as endangered under the Species At Risk Act, citing the adverse impact of widespread fishery closures on First Nations, recreational and commercial fisheries.

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-...-be-very-small

Smoky buck · #2 10-18-2021, 12:48 PM

Salmon and steelhead have been slowly run into the ground for a long time and I don’t see any improvement coming

britman101 · #3 10-18-2021, 01:06 PM

I have also heard that the Skeena/Bulkley waters have been closed to Steelhead fishing since October 16th I believe. Quite a blow to the local fishing stores and lodges that depend on people coming up North for this fishery.

Penner · #4 10-18-2021, 04:02 PM

Figgen Walleye...

Albertadiver · #5 10-18-2021, 04:04 PM

https://www.alaskajournal.com/busine...Ty7s4MRvyf-E7g

A related article. BIG problem.

Sundancefisher · #6 10-19-2021, 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Albertadiver

https://www.alaskajournal.com/busine...Ty7s4MRvyf-E7g

A related article. BIG problem.

Scary. So many reasons to think salmon fishing will stop down the road. At least harvest.

IronNoggin · #7 10-19-2021, 12:36 PM

Hooton's Take: http://steelheadvoices.com/?p=2715#more-2715

Jayhad · #8 10-19-2021, 10:13 PM

IronNoggin, every time you drop these articles it breaks my heart. I fished the Thompson in my teens, from 89-96. I fished a bundle of steelhead waters back then, my son will never touch one from many of these spots.

IronNoggin · #9 10-20-2021, 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jayhad

IronNoggin, every time you drop these articles it breaks my heart. I fished the Thompson in my teens, from 89-96. I fished a bundle of steelhead waters back then, my son will never touch one from many of these spots.

Sorry about that. Know well what you are saying...

When we moved down here from the Western Arctic I went into semi-retirement mode. Built my lifestyle around the winter runs of steelhead. Then, they were many. Just got things set up to allow me to fish them for 3 full months every fall & winter, and the precipitous decline started. Within a few short years, they were in such low numbers it was no longer worthwhile to pursue them. Today, it is even worse. The few Buddies I have that still hunt them count their catches for a full season at the same level I considered a decent day back then. Terribly frustrating.

Topping that off is the understanding (retired marine biologist here) that were things to be handled differently / properly, this did not have to be the case. Between the complete foundering of the feds, and pretty much the same from the province, the level of sheer incompetence is overwhelming. Tough to take when you know full well how much better their situation could be.

And hell yeah, I (among many) write letters and pound on the door of both the local MLA & MP. All to no avail. These people are not worth the air they breath IMO.

Sadly,
Nog

deschambault · #10 10-20-2021, 03:08 PM

We used to fish a tributary of the Taku every year for the chinook run and then one year the salmon run pretty much quit. I suspect there is a correlation between the steelhead and salmon recruitment and it is a huge loss. I hope someone can figure out the cause of the decline and possibly remedy it.

Drewski Canuck · #11 10-20-2021, 05:07 PM

In the US, the fisheries managers on the Columbia have taken to do sein netting of salmon at the mouth of the Columbia. The salmon are then put in tanks on barges, and they tow the barges UP RIVER beyond the point of the nets, the seals, etc.

Then, the salmon are placed into the Columbia to swim to the spawning grounds.

That is how the US mangers have successfully kept the Columbia salmon runs going.

No need for cooperation from any of the FN groups, and apparently no cooperation was ever given the by the FN groups either.

Drewski

Serengeti Charters · #12 10-21-2021, 02:21 AM

Sad what has happened to the steelhead. And while some salmon runs aren’t doing well many others are. In the strait of Georgia almost every single run is above the 15 year average for Chinook returns. Makes ya wonder why some are good and some bad. Or maybe that’s just how it has always been?!

Penner · #13 10-21-2021, 06:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deschambault

I hope someone can figure out the cause of the decline and possibly remedy it.

Your not serious are you? Square hooks, predators with and without fur/feathers, poaching, and habitat impacts. All could be resolved if the desire was to do so however too many Karen’s would let you hear about it if anything of substance was done.

surhuntsalot · #14 10-21-2021, 08:22 AM

Years of conservation measures, and efforts made inshore can be all but wiped out by what happens offshore. All aspects need to be considered, from predators to quotas, and definitely illegal offshore fishing. The fish need to survive offshore to even be able to return to the rivers…
https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/s...egal-driftnets

IronNoggin · #15 10-21-2021, 12:31 PM

"The time has come people. We either go to the wall here and now or we fold our tent and abandon any notion that our elected governments understand the word conservation. Everyone has to be held accountable, regardless of ethnic origin and the politics of the moment. The only immediately available option to deal with the IFS crisis today and the Skeena situation almost certain to follow is to eliminate gill nets. If SARA is the only avenue to make that happen then governments must be forced to make that call. None of the other fluff we’re promised will happen is ever going to produce a detectable additional steelhead in less than 5-10 years, even if all the stops were pulled immediately. IFS do not have the luxury of time. Besides, what sense does it make to spend millions in attempts to sustain populations whose potential spawners will swim into gill nets before they ever see gravel?"

http://steelheadvoices.com/?p=2731

CardiacCowboy · #16 10-21-2021, 01:36 PM

Pretty scary stuff. Once things reach the "tipping point" there is no turning back the clock. I was just a kid when the cod fishery was closed. All these yeas later there are cod but no recovery to previous numbers. 40+yeasrs later

Salmon are even more fragile. After spawning they die so even if you don't kill any fish they can only reproduce once so numbers may not grow at all.

deschambault · #17 10-21-2021, 01:45 PM

The good news about a salmon run is it takes a very small percentage of returning fish to fill the run. The run we fished was full to overflowing with 2% returning fish but the ocean returns dropped to below 1%. Penner is obviously way smarter than me because I don't know why the ocean recruitment dropped from 2 to 1% or less. Is it warming waters which move bait fish, is it someone trolling along the Aleutians or something else. All I know is that was a great run of fish that now isn't and it's a crying shame.

CardiacCowboy · #18 10-21-2021, 01:51 PM

I did some research on the cod collapse and found this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egkky6vqeN0&t=479s which I found very interesting. Even compares Canadian and Norways response to collapse.

IronNoggin · #19 10-21-2021, 03:35 PM

Episode 32: A Beginner’s Guide to Extinction - A Look at BC’s Steelhead Crisis

https://www.thecutbanksconversations...64-7zlct-xshar

Bushrat · #20 10-21-2021, 06:34 PM

Been mourning the steelhead ever since they closed my steelhead hole probably 15 years ago. It will be very tough act to bring them back now.

CardiacCowboy · #21 10-22-2021, 09:10 AM

One thing that can give us hope is that if other factors are figured out numbers can then be increased using hatcheries. Steelhead are ocean run rainbows the facilities and tech already exist if the natural barriers are corrected then you could supplement numbers quickly.

3blade · #22 10-24-2021, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IronNoggin

"The time has come people. We either go to the wall here and now or we fold our tent and abandon any notion that our elected governments understand the word conservation. Everyone has to be held accountable, regardless of ethnic origin and the politics of the moment. The only immediately available option to deal with the IFS crisis today and the Skeena situation almost certain to follow is to eliminate gill nets. If SARA is the only avenue to make that happen then governments must be forced to make that call. None of the other fluff we’re promised will happen is ever going to produce a detectable additional steelhead in less than 5-10 years, even if all the stops were pulled immediately. IFS do not have the luxury of time. Besides, what sense does it make to spend millions in attempts to sustain populations whose potential spawners will swim into gill nets before they ever see gravel?"

http://steelheadvoices.com/?p=2731

Be careful what you wish for. There is pretty open talk among the square hook types that the best thing to do is to wipe out wildlife via their “rights”, then things get closed for everyone, and when recovered only they will have access/sole jurisdiction.

Thanks to the worthless bottom feeders in the supreme court of eastern canada.

You wouldn’t just lose salmon/steelhead - you wouldn’t be able to fish at all.

Sad situation.

IronNoggin · #23 10-25-2021, 12:29 PM

You Can’t Make This Up

Staring us in the face we have the most obvious and critical conservation issue in recorded history facing Interior Fraser Steelhead (IFS). The predictability of that scenario has been as reliable as any that has ever been made for a salmon or steelhead return on the coast of British Columbia. Think Nass, Skeena and Dean for openers. Then throw in the Columbia to the south of us. The pattern was consistent throughout. It that wasn’t evidence enough of what would follow for IFS, I can’t imagine what doubters could point to that might offer the most remote possibility otherwise. And what are the people us lowly taxpayers front the cost of managing fisheries doing to address the unprecedented and undeniable conservation crisis?

On October 22 the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) issued an update on the status of the Fraser chum salmon returns. That would be the stock/species that has become the single biggest problem for IFS in recent years because those (heavily enhanced) chums’ return timing overlaps IFS, especially the Thompson component, completely.

Let’s think about this for a moment. The chum return is so poor that it won’t support any fishing, including economic opportunity fishing by First Nations. Two sentences later, though, we see that blank cheque of food, social and ceremonial fishing is good to go for 10% of the worst run in a decade and one predicted to reach only 60% of its escapement goal BEFORE that additional 10% is removed. If you’re a chum salmon or one of the last remaining IFS co-migrants, what difference does it make for the label on the net that kills you? Ah, but DFO has its IFMP prescriptions to fall back on that are supposed to be the salvation for IFS. That would be those now three year old, carbon copied measures like a rolling window closure for 27 days (exactly one third of the run timing period for IFS) and all those totally ineffective tweaks of gill net use that have been loudly criticized by the First Nations most responsible for the fishing that can’t possibly be anything but a further nail in the IFS coffin. The steelhead escapement estimates of the past three years stand as irrefutable evidence in that respect.

What does it take for all the players to recognize a conservation crisis? The situation facing IFS is not some silly allocation debate, it’s conservation in the extreme. Independent of interest group, everyone says they believe in conservation. DFO’s own policy (not law) they’ve trumpeted for a couple of decades now says conservation first, FSC fisheries second and all the rest a distant third. A new federal Minister of Fisheries will be announced on October 28. We need to inundate that person with demands to walk his agency’s talk.

http://steelheadvoices.com/?p=2740#more-2740

fish99 · #24 10-26-2021, 09:49 AM

what about all the seals

Stinky Buffalo · #25 10-26-2021, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fish99

what about all the seals

For sure, that was mentioned in one of the articles that Nog posted. Essentially a social license issue...

IronNoggin · #26 10-26-2021, 11:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stinky Buffalo

... Essentially a social license issue...

Essentially an incompetent management authority (DFO) once again ignoring it's own mandate, and running scared of perceived potential public backlash for what desperately needs to happen.

The Pacific Balance Pinniped Society (I am a Board Member) has had an IFMP in DFO's hands for coming up to four years now. That was drafted cooperatively by the best scientific minds on the West Coast, and senior DFO personnel. Yet they continue to throw roadblocks up at every single juncture.

Madness...
Nog