By Lynda V. Mapes
Seattle Times environment reporter

Canada is slashing and closing commercial coastal fishing on more than 100 salmon stocks and permanently downsizing the fleet through voluntary license buybacks in an urgent effort to protect wild salmon from extinction.

Stating Pacific salmon are in long-term decline with many runs on the verge of collapse, Bernadette Jordan, minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, announced Tuesday that bold action is needed now to stabilize and rebuild stocks before it is too late.

Salmon managers on the U.S. side of the border also are taking steps in an effort to respond to dwindling salmon stocks upon which endangered southern resident orcas rely, including increasing funding to certain hatcheries to increase production.

Some of the Canadian reductions announced in a video news conference Tuesday went into effect immediately. The cutbacks are part of a broader $647 million initiative to save wild salmon, including habitat improvements and a reconsideration of Canada’s aquaculture industry in B.C. waters.

The closures and reductions affect commercial salmon fisheries and First Nations communal commercial fisheries.

The need is clear. The last six years have been among the warmest recorded on Earth, and forest fires in B.C. in 2017 and 2018 burned a record number of acres. All of these are further pushing salmon toward extinction, including Chinook, the most prized by people and wildlife alike.

While there are exceptions, most Chinook are in an “unprecedented” decline throughout their range on the West Coast, Jordan said.

“We are pulling the emergency brake to give these salmon populations the best chance at survival,” Jordan said in a prepared statement. “The decisions to implement new long-term closures and permanently remove fishing effort from the commercial salmon fishery were not easy … But with fewer and fewer (salmon) returning every year — disappearing before our eyes — we have to act now.”

Cuts also are contemplated in U.S. coastal commercial and recreational fisheries, to conserve Chinook to benefit the southern resident orcas. Public comment is being taken on the proposed reductions until Aug. 2.

Under consideration is a change proposed by the Pacific Fishery Management Council. Amendment 21 is intended to impose reductions on ocean salmon fisheries during periods of low Chinook abundance to increase prey for the southern residents.

Possible reductions include limits on nontribal commercial fisheries north of Cape Falcon, Oregon, and shifting the quota for the Chinook salmon catch north of Cape Falcon from the spring, when the presence of orcas typically overlaps more with the with salmon fisheries, to the summer. Closures in times and areas when orcas typically are foraging also are proposed.

New research published by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has shown the southern residents rely on Chinook taken out of a broad area, including British Columbia and southeast Alaska rivers and rivers up and down the West Coast. The whales, if anything, have been switching to a more coastal foraging pattern, monitoring of sound recordings of the whales’ travels on the outer coast has shown.

So-called mixed-stock ocean fisheries are problematic on both sides of the border because they typically encounter a mixture of salmon populations — including fish from B.C. and Washington rivers that are not supposed to be caught because they are protected in one or both countries. However inadvertent, these harvests kill fish already at risk of extinction.

To protect these fish, 138 commercial fisheries on Canada’s west coast, from B.C. to the Yukon, are included for closures and reductions. The fisheries target all five species of concern, and all gear types, including those using gillnet gear and purse seine, trolling and other methods.

Some of the closures could benefit southern resident killer whales, such as the closure of the Chinook fishery in the Thompson, the largest tributary of the Fraser River flowing through south-central B.C.

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The buyback program is open to all fishers, and is intended to help fishers exit the industry permanently in what is meant to be a permanent reduction of the pressure on wild fish.

“It’s unprecedented, but the times dictate that, the crisis warrants it and this is an appropriate response,” said Misty MacDufee, wild salmon program director for the nonprofit Raincoast Conservation Foundation in Victoria.

In the U.S., orca specialist Deborah Giles has extensively researched the consequences of nutrition stress on the southern residents through her research with the University of Washington Center for Conservation Biology.

Our oceans are severely being overfished and this is long overdue. Let’s hope this has a measurable impact and fish can return in stronger numbers.

Need to stop killing the salmon's food supply, too.

07/04/021



+1 people tend to view just salmon......herring, candle fish, etc. are being over fished also

If you don't fix the food base, they won't have enough to eat.

I understand herring, sardines, anchovies etc are being fished.

I can’t say I’ve ever seen candlefish (pacific sandlance) for sale as bait here locally or being commercially fished for in Washington.
If there is a fishery for them, where are they currently being fished for and what are they being used for?
Thanks
SF

07/05/2021




SF......Did find the following:

"Salmon are voracious feeders and are constantly on the hunt for sand lance (candlefish) and herring. The sand lance, which are known locally as the “candlefish,” be-cause of their high oil content which pioneers took advantage of and literally used as candles, are an ecologically important forage fish throughout Puget Sound."

At some time in my salmon fishing history, I remember using candle fish as bait. I haven't trolled Puget Sound waters since the early 70's but I'm sure they were a "bait source", at one time.

BUT I could be wrong.....50 years was a short time ago!!!!! Have a good day....

One of the problems faced by salmon, and other resources, is being forced to "diet shift". They may prefer X, say herring, for oil content, calories per gram, and so on. Switch to, say, sand lance or anchovy, may provide the value but less food value (calories, fats, whatever).

Currently, large adult salmon are dieing on their return to the river because the foods they are eating cannot meet metabolic needs. Full stomach, but starving.

You are not wrong about candlefish being used as a bait fish in Puget Sound. During the heyday of the boathouses renting small boats both herring and candlefish were used as bait. One personal memory was at Mukilteo and the Taylor Brothers Cafe (now Ivars) immediately next to the north side of the ferry dock. They had two large bait tanks outside; one for herring and the other for candlefish. As the local boathouses faded into memory so did the large demand for live bait.

I seem to recall seeing a report for the 2020 Puget Sound herring fishery that listed just over 200K pounds harvested. That is a pittance compared to what the other predators consume.

200K pounds may be "a pittance" but what is the amount of spawners?

Per the WDFW website; the PS commercial herring fishery closes by emergency reg when the catch exceeds 10% of the spawning stock.

So? How many spawning stocks are wiped out already? How does the current "escapement" compare to, say, a century or two ago? 10% of a little still leaves just a little.

Are herring showing substantial increases in stock? Steelhead are fished, or were, at 10% and how's that working out?

Most of my fishing in the 60’s and 70’s was out of Pt Defiance.
They obviously sold herring, but I don’t recall them selling live sandlance.
Maybe they did and I wasn’t paying attention.
I don’t know if commercial over harvest is an issue at least here in Washington. Is there even commercial fishing for sandlancde here any longer?
I think a bigger issue with them is the armoring of shorelines that cuts off new sand recruitment to eel grass beds.
That said, I see a lot of sandlance every year in the summer and fall while beach fishing for coho and cutts.

On a positive note, in the last five years I’ve seen more anchovies in the south sound and canal then I’ve ever seen.
Huge schools of them stretching over long sections of beach.
SF

should read :
Per the WDFW website; the PS commercial herring fishery closes by emergency reg when the catch exceeds 10% of the spawning stock that still exist.

More accurately the quote should have been "That is a pittance compared to what the other predators consume."

It has been a long time since I ran the food requirements for harbor seals in Puget Sound but even then it was around 30 million pounds annually with herring a major if not the primary component. I don't think the number of harbor seals has decreased.

That said, your question is a good one. I might expand it by asking what are the major factors in limiting overall forage fish numbers throughout their respective life cycles in WA?

I believe there is a tribal fishery on the herring too. I am wondering if that is included in the calculations or not. Two years ago I was squidding when a boat came up and dropped in a seine for herring. A WDFW officer came up to check on us who were squidding. The boat had not dropped in the net yet and I asked what they were doing. The officer claimed there was no open fishery and that he had no idea. Then walked away unconcerned while they deployed their nets. Gave me a lot of confidence in the departments awareness.

Well, the various predators have to have something to eat. Humans have alternatives. If the spawning stock is declining, then too many are being killed. After the human (it's voluntary) take hits zero, then we can work on the other consumers.

To the extent that those increased numbers of predators also significantly impact salmonids some form of pre-emptive action might be appropriate. Or do we just let those salmonids go to where there is zero available for the State before deciding to study the problem let alone take any action?

The animals have no choice. Yes, predator numbers need to be in balance with prey but I still maintain that their needs come ahead of human wants.

If humans want to insert themselves into the take then other predators must be removed to stay in balance - assuming there was balance to begin with.