Does this mean hatchery enhanced steelhead and/or salmon will be either cut or reduced further? If so, DFO better reduce the license fee and the cost of those so called conservation stamps. LOL. The trouble of elimination hatchery stocks is that poachers will have no hesitation to take the wild stocks, an undesirable consequence to the endangered wild stocks.
Way back when Mike Harcourt & Moe Sihota tried to cut the hatchery steelhead funding, thousands (including myself) sent letters and petitions to them and I specifically pointed out the hidden danger to the wild stocks. They changed course and restored the funding quickly. I even got a reply letter from Sihota that the NDP government was so overwhelmed with petitions that they realize that it is prudent to keep the funding. Now if there is an organized protest about this new curve ball from the DFO, we should all join in and show the politicians our displeasure.
DFO does not determine the cost of freshwater angling licenses or the supplementary stamps - that is Provincial.
The Mike and Moe show was cancelled 20 years ago and since then there has been a lot of research that contrary to your statement hatchery programs are actually a danger to wild steelhead . That's been widely accepted among fisheries biologists. Some could argue that hatchery enhancements actually offers a massive subsidy to the Sport Fishing business sector. It could be tough for many to cope with the tackle, access cost and harvest limitations a wild fish only strategy may impose but there's no evidence that in it itself poses any danger to wild stocks. Quite the opposite.
There are community hatcheries that raise both steelhead and cutthroat; locally the ARMS/BC Corrections hatchery does or certainly has in the past; The Semiahmoo hatchery does as did the hatchery on the Coquitlam. There may be others.
The Province provides the supervision & paid staffing for the ARMs hatchery. Steelhead and trout have been a Provincial responsibility since 1918 when the Federal government divested itself of responsibility for Inland Fisheries. The Province should be paying for their enhancement.
If it has it's been getting a free ride for 40 years. That's pretty typical though - the Province goes out of it's way to claim credit for the expenditure of Federal money in BC for a long time & then whine it's doesn't get enough from Federal handouts.
It wouldn't surprise me if this announcement was timed to coincide with the current confusion following the Provincial election.