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[Hung]

Anyone read the article "Where have all the salmon gone?" by Stephen Hume on the Vancouver Sun Wednesday?  Sorry it's not avail online anymore unless you're registered.  It basically said illegal netting could not explain the lost of 2 millions fish.  His argument:  disposition of such a large amount of fish would create noticeable paper trails, whether trucking across the border or over to Alberta, or an incredible amount of new refrigerators purchased.  His math made sense to me, but I wonder if anyone has a better argument?

[reach]

I read that too.  But he is taking the argument to the extreme.  His numbers assume ALL the missing salmon went to the natives.  It's more likely it was a combination of high mortality due to environmental conditions (hmm, I seem to recall dire predictions of this sort of thing back when Alcan was applying to reduce water flows to the Nechako...) AND illegal fishing.

The "paper trails" to which he refers probably exist, but I don't think they get much further than the cold storage/shipping companies and the shipper.  I doubt whether US customs and DFO collaborate much.  I think it would be plausible that a smaller amount of fish could have been shipped out and/or stored without anybody noticing.

We know there was some illegal fishing going on, with some people buying out of the backs of trucks, some ending up in native freezers and whatnot.  But what is lacking is accurate estimates of how much was taken illegally.

This all brings us back to the big issue that everyone seems to agree on:  we need more enforcement.  Then we could rule out, or at least quantify, native poaching.  We might or might not like where the blame might shift next, but that's another story.

[The Gilly]

Bottom line is that the fish are gone and DFO has some explaining to do.

[Sam Salmon]

Hume is notorious for as mentioned taking things to the extreme.
His constant refrain of "bad news! bad news" means many people now have a skewed idea of the state of Salmon stocks.
I came home recently and laid a nice Coho we'd taken off Ambleside out on the grass as I was emptying my truck.
A woman walked by and said "I thought all Salmon were gone now that's what I read in the paper".
So I took 10 minutes to inform her that in many places this year we've had record returns-but I'm not sure she understood how big BC is and how many different runs there are.
No thanks to Hume-who doesn't even fish Salmon.

[The Gilly]

It's only one run, but if it brings attention to the whole province then I think it's good.  You're correct about the lack of knowlegde of BC.  Some people have lived in the lower mainland and never ventured north.  My jobs have taken me all over BC since 1987 and I feel priveledged to have seen so much and met so many people.  I still have only seen a fraction of our great province and probbably will never see it all.

[Sandy]

I have had the same experiences in the interior of B.C.as Gruman,I've worked in North and South America,Africa ,U.K., Middle East, and B.C. is pretty hard to beat for people,and scenery. 
I wonder about the "lost runs" of salmon, I wonder how much a factory stern trawler can catch.Poachiing certainly can account for a fair amount, but I have to think that those fish never entered the near shore or rivers or someones math is about as bad as my spelling .   

[rerigger]

i don't believe trawlers cause much damage to salmon stocks as they are not targeting salmon and the by catch is low . i believe i saw 2 chum salmon in our nets during my time working on a dragger.