Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum
Fishing in British Columbia => Fishing-related Issues & News => Topic started by: IronNoggin on June 17, 2022, 12:11:13 PM
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Terry Glavin: Alaska's salmon bounty coming at B.C.'s expense
But Canada's foreign affairs department remains clueless
There’s a diplomatic disaster unfolding on the Pacific Coast right now, and don’t be shocked if you haven’t heard anything about it. Joly certainly hasn’t made a fuss, and it’s not clear whether she’s even aware that it’s going on, even though Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray has seemingly handed off the file to Joly.
Last summer was Alaska’s third most productive salmon season in history. A big part of the Alaska catch was chinook salmon. Almost all the chinook caught in Alaska — 90 percent of them — were chinook bound for rivers in B.C., Washington and Oregon.
Fisheries Minister Murray’s primary policy response has been just that — keep B.C. fishermen tied up at dockside to “conserve” the runs the Alaskans are catching, and stop sports fishermen from catching chinook in B.C.’s rivers. And now the Alaskans are planning a fishing season with chinook catches a third higher than last year’s quotas, according to biologists with the Watershed Watch Salmon Society.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/terry-glavin-alaskas-salmon-bounty-coming-at-b-c-s-expense
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A Canadian Threat to Alaskan Fishing
Alaskan's Have No Say in Industrial Development of Salmon Rivers that Originate in Canadian Waters:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/opinion/sunday/a-canadian-threat-to-alaskan-fishing.html
these issues are close to 50 years old & it is nothing new. The US states have sole jurisdiction over their fisheries resources and the US Government cannot bind them to international treaties.
I remember corresponding with the media person in the Alaskan Governor's Office back in the 90s and they basically refused to acknowledge their activities posed any threat to salmon bound for spawning rivers further south. However they did recognize Canada's ability to destroy spawning runs in the Stikine and other Canadian streams that run over a few km of Alaskan territory before entering saltwater.