With pink salmon shoals depleting on the West Coast, it's not surprising that thousands of them appeared in Bond Sound on British Columbia's Central Coast this summer. , was a bright spot for salmon. local indigenous people.
Aboriginal elders on the central coast of British Columbia , watching the return of pink salmon. First Nations Wild Salmon Alliance's Bob Chamberlin says the number of rivers flowing into the Broughton Archipelago in the Inside Passage is unlike anything we've seen in decades.
This alliance is one of several conservation groups that have campaigned to remove salmon farms from migratory routes through the group of islands, and Chamberlin attributed to the first removal.
About 200 fish were returned to the Atta River in Bond Sound two years ago, Chamberlin said.
Since then, his first two of his seven Atlantic salmon farms, in the path of pink salmon juveniles that have flowed tidal to the sea, Removed based on agreement between aquaculture companies.
"So after (then) removing these two, lo and behold, two years later, thousands of pink salmon returned to the Atta River, he said.
38} Commercial fishers eagerly await news from the Fraser River trial fishery for sockeye salmon, but they hope it will offer a wealth of opportunities.A place they haven't seen in years.
Some consider it premature to draw a correlation between salmon return and farm withdrawal, but this has been reduced by overfishing. A positive sign for pink salmon stocks: Environmental conditions, including impacts from salmon farms.
Pink salmon, the smallest of the six species of Pacific salmon, spawns in biennial cycles. Juveniles hatched from 2008 spawning spend a year in the open sea before returning to spawning.
Therefore, after farm removals in 2019 and 2020, this year's breeding stock will be
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans did not send an expert in. In an interview Monday, communications staffer Lara Sloan said this year's pink salmon were in the Campbell River on Vancouver Island. Forwarded a background note about the return.
The return of pink salmon to the Campbell River is similar to that of 2020 at this stage. However, the fish are larger in the 2020 breeding season and than those returning in 2021.
Based on improving conditions, we expected a strong return of pink to the Kintham River (a tributary of the Campbell River) during the early oceanic period of their migration (spring 2021).
Watershed Pink salmon returns this year have been sluggish across the West Coast, from Southeast Alaska to B.C.'s North Coast, according to Watch Salmon Society fisheries advisor Greg Taylor.
"So it's interesting to see some fish out there all of a sudden," Taylor said. "That's certainly good news, but it's hard to know what it really means."
Good news for things," Taylor said.
In 2018, the salmon farming company hopes to sustain production by expanding production further south in the Discovery Islands near the Campbell River and further north at its operations off Vancouver Island. did.
The federal government, under former Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan, has begun the process of phasing out coastal corral salmon farming following the Discovery Islands in late 2020.
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However, after aquaculture companies Mowi Canada West, Cermac Canada, and Greig Seafoods won judicial review that Jordan's order violated their right to fair procedure, the process ended. On hold.
The DFO is currently in discussions with First Nations and farm licensees that will run through early 2023 before drafting a transition plan.
depenner@postmedia.com
Twitter. com/derrickpenner
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