Sockeye salmon numbers crash as bust replaces bounty on BC coast

David Karp
July 27, 2009
Vancouver Sun

What was supposed to be a bountiful year for the Fraser River sockeye salmon fishery -- the height of the four-year cycle -- is beginning to look like a bust.

Returns are so low for early Stuart sockeye, the first run of the season, that the Pacific Salmon Commission has lowered its estimate by 48 per cent.

Instead of the 165,000 projected before the season started, the commission now expects 85,000, after just 83,484 fish had shown up as of Friday.

The commission has also downgraded its pre-season projection of 739,000 early summer sockeye by 64 per cent to 264,000.

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