Usual suspects in the salmon crisis
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Updated: October 28, 2009 8:54 AM
Listening to politicians in recent years, one gets the impression there is a single threat to Pacific salmon.
That is sea lice, a natural parasite on salmon that some claim has exploded because of offshore salmon farms.
The greatest sea louse of all, conventional wisdom goes, is Premier Gordon Campbell, who’s selling coastal habitat to his pals from Norway, who run fish farms around the world.
This is the Rafe Mair school of thought, and it’s bunk. The evidence is as abundant as the over fished sockeye are rare, but debate at the B.C. legislature looked almost entirely at fish farms, and the theoretical need to get them out of the open ocean.
In response, Campbell appointed the Pacific Salmon Forum in 2004, to find ways to protect B.C.’s wild salmon.
It was the “blue ribbon panel” of independent experts, chaired by former federal environment and fisheries minister John Fraser. Members include Teresa Ryan, a marine biologist from the Tsimshian Nation in northwestern B.C., Christina Burridge of the BC Seafood Alliance, former Campbell River mayor Jim Lornie, veteran fishing guide Jeremy Maynard, Harry Nyce, director of fish and wildlife programs for the Nisga’a Lisims government, and John Woodward of Woodward’s stores fame.
After exhaustive study, the forum’s final report was issued early this year, and largely ignored. One key finding was that sea lice can be managed to protect wild stocks.
The forum’s experts concluded efforts should focus on conditions in the ocean and in B.C.’s rivers, lakes and creeks that sustain this annual miracle. Land farms, not fish farms, along with subdivisions, roads, logging sites and industry have made sewers out of too many streams.
Here’s one example how lousy the sea lice theory is. Through most of its existence it has mostly focused on pink salmon. Apparently pinks didn’t hear they’re doomed, because they are back in numbers rarely seen.
Sockeye are missing, no surprise given how relentlessly humans prey on them. Still, millions went to sea from B.C. and most did not return.
Here’s a clue: Humboldt squid are washing up on beaches. These man-sized monsters chase fish into shallow water and sometimes beach themselves. They’re native to California waters, but in recent years they have hunted in uncounted packs up here. This suggests a profound shift in ocean currents and conditions where the sockeye are disappearing.
Do these squid have a taste for sockeye? Hardly. They eat mackerel down south.
The Rafe Mair school has moved on to a new bogeyman, run-of-river power projects. This is also bunk.
So what is the answer? As the Pacific Salmon Forum has shown, there is no single, easy answer so craved by grandstanding politicians and environmentalists.
The experience of Alaska and Washington states is different than B.C., and I’ll look at that in a subsequent column.
Tom Fletcher is a legislative reporter and columnist for Black Press newspapers. tfletcher@blackpress.ca
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