I found this in yesterdays province . Story on the sockeye. Interesting read.
Where have all the sockeye gone -- and why?
Brian Lewis, The Province
Published: Thursday, July 26, 2007
One of Mother Nature's annual summer miracles in B.C. is the return of sockeye salmon to spawn in fresh water after spending most of their four-year life-cycle in the ocean.
But modern development along major sockeye rivers such as the Fraser, together with years of overfishing, are putting B.C. sockeye stocks in danger -- and updated test-catch statistics released recently show that this disturbing downward trend may be accelerating.
Following the regular monthly meeting of its Fraser River Panel, the Pacific Salmon Commission issued the following, terse statement on Tuesday:
Conservationist Craig Orr of the Watershed Watch Salmon Society says Fraser River sockeye are suffering from too much stress.
****"Test-fishing catches of sockeye have remained at low levels. The return of four-year-old Fraser sockeye thus far this season continues to track far below pre-season expectations."
I asked the chief biologist, Michael Lapointe, to expand on the salmon commission's announcement.
"We've been test-catching for about 10 days now with very, very low catches relative to expectations," he responded.
In the first of the four components that make up the annual sockeye return -- the early Stuart run -- Lapointe said the expectation was for a "very small" return of about 45,000 fish. "It now looks like less than half of that number will return -- perhaps only 10,000 to 15,000 fish," he added.
Similar preliminary numbers are showing up for the second component, the early summer run, which is just beginning.
That forecast was for 690,000 fish to return and by now about 50,000 of these fish should have arrived. "So far we've only seen about 5,500," he said.
Not surprisingly, the entire Fraser Panel area, which covers all of Juan de Fuca Strait, the Strait of Georgia and the Fraser River, is closed to commercial and recreational fishing for sockeye. Only very limited native fishing is allowed.
However, the big question is whether or not the much larger remaining two components, the summer run and late summer run, will show equally low returns.
"Sometimes the early and late sockeye runs correspond fairly well, but sometimes they don't," Lapointe said.
"We're also seeing low returns in Barclay Sound and the Lake Washington run in the U.S.," he added.
With the two early runs well below expectations, the 2007 forecast for a total of 6.3 million returning sockeye may be well beyond reach already.
Lapointe also said water temperatures and flows in the Fraser are good for migrating salmon but that warmer than usual ocean temperatures are thought to be one of the major culprits here.
However, conservationists such as Craig Orr, executive director of the Coquitlam-based Watershed Watch Salmon Society, says sockeye stocks are declining due to environmental pressures and overfishing.
"These fish are encountering increased stress and we have to account for that in terms of our sockeye-management regimes," he says. "And the first thing we must do is reduce fishing capacity."
If total catch numbers are not reduced, Orr says, sockeye declines will accelerate to the point where the fishery will have to close permanently, like the Maritime cod fishery several years ago.
"The cod closure should be a lesson for everyone here on the West Coast," he warns.
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