Fraser sockeye run's future is fishy

Deana Lancaster
September 13, 2009
North Shore News

Today's forecast: plenty of sunshine, a few clouds and a jubilant celebration of wild salmon.

The 30th anniversary of the Coho Festival kicks off this morning with a 14-kilometre run from Kitsilano to Ambleside Park, intended to symbolize the incredible journey that the fish make from ocean to river for spawning. The festivities continue at the seaside park with live music and kids' games, capped off with a much-loved salmon barbecue: a tasty fish dinner for just $14.

But should today's celebration be quite so gleeful? Of late, the headlines about wild salmon have been dismal, and there are rumblings about the future of the Pacific Coast's favourite fish.

Is it doomed?

At the end of July, the Fraser River sockeye run was critically downgraded. What was supposed to be an incredible bounty of adult fish making the run up the river was a bust. They simply didn't show.

The past two summers, sockeye salmon failed to make it back to the Fraser River in large enough numbers to support commercial fishing, but their poor turnout was expected: when they went out as smolts to sea in 2005 the ocean was too warm and feeding conditions were poor.

But 2009 was supposed to be the year that turned it all around. This year's run was the marine equivalent of a private school grad class -- they had received all the advantages in their youth. There had been a good escapement from the fishery in 2005 (the number of fish that made it back to spawn); winter conditions for the embryos were good; the hatchout was better than anticipated; and before they left for the ocean, the smolts were observed to be large and healthy.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) predicted that 10.6 million sockeye would come back to the Fraser River this summer.

Less than 10 per cent have turned up.

"We have to be very, very concerned," said Grant Snell, general manager of the B.C. Salmon Marketing Council. "If this pattern repeats again -- if four years from now only 10 per cent of the run returns -- that will be 100,000 fish. It's pretty much all over for them. 

Read the full story in The North Shore News

Read background news stories on the crash of the Fraser River sockeye