Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Author Topic: Federal government scientists say Upper Fraser Salmon stocks face extinction  (Read 3239 times)

cohochinook

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 21

Federal government scientists told the Pacific Salmon Commission there is a "meaningful chance of extinction" for three salmon runs after the Big Bar landslide:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/big-bar-landslide-salmon-extinction-1.5377632
Logged

cohochinook

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 21

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/fraser-river-the-most-critically-endangered-river-in-b-c-outdoor-council

How many more years do we have to go with non-selective Gill Nets being the destruction of salmon and steelhead on the Fraser River and its tributaries? It's time for Department of Fisheries and Oceans to ban them and provide funding and incentives to move to fish traps which allow for selective harvest like this one on the Columbia River:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHrHKAmFNxY
Logged

IronNoggin

  • Old Timer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1772
  • Any River... Any Time....

Email from a Buddy:

Received this last night.

The Premier’s office organized a technical briefing late last year.

Essentially, about 275,000 fish made it past the slide, mainly by natural passage, with some 60,000 being transported, most of which were unlikely to spawn.

Early Stuart sockeye (<100 spawners out of 21,000), mid and Upper Fraser spring 1.3 chinook are at grave risk of extinction. Early summer and summer sockeye and mid-Fraser 1.3 summer chinook are at “considerable” risk of extinction. The slide is expected to prevent passage for most of the 2020 migration season.

The site is very remote (the slide went unnoticed for more than six months) requiring crews to scale the rock face for access and some 110,000 cubic metres of debris under the surface.

The goal of the Joint Command (DFO, FLNRO and FN) is to restore sustained natural passage. It has taken extensive advice from the Armed Forces, US Army Corps of Engineers, Rio Tinto and other mining and construction companies. Remediation work risks further slides.

With water flow dropping recently to under 600 cubic metres per second, the federal government has just contracted Peter Kiewit Sons ULC to remove rock and debris between now and March before spring freshet makes further operations impossible.

Some limited strategic enhancement took place in 2019 and is under consideration for 2020.

The consequences for all South Coast fisheries are likely to be severe.
Logged

Easywater

  • Old Timer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 997

Just keep blasting the crap out of it until the blockage (old and new) is gone.

I'm not sure they will have fixed it by the time freshet sets in.
Logged