With Fraser River Sockeye Run Commercially Closed For 3rd Year, Projections Still Down 95% For 2009

[hatrack]

It was expected to be a banner year for sockeye salmon, with more than 10 million fish predicted to make their way up the Fraser River. All that changed last Friday, Aug. 14, when the Pacific Salmon Commission revised estimates to about 1.7 million. More importantly, the cause of the sharp decline in sockeye is unknown.

Finger pointers have their choice of potential factors to explain the sharp decline in sockeye salmon stocks, including overfishing and open-cage salmon farms and a variety of climate change related issues such as higher water temperatures, impacts to plankton communities and an increase in new predators.

Overfishing was quickly eliminated by Stan Proboszcz, fish biologist with the Watershed Watch Salmon Society. “This is the third year sockeye have not been fished commercially,” he said. Open-cage salmon farms, according to Proboszcz do pose a serious risk. “We can’t ignore there are about 30 large fish farms in the Georgia Strait,” he said. “Science has shown that sea lice originating from fish farms have a significant impact on the survival of juvenile salmon migrating past the pens in Georgia Strait.” In fact a study by Martin Krkosek and colleagues at the University of Alberta found that louse-induced mortality in pink salmon often exceeded 80 per cent.

However, officials with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans are not impressed with the science. In a letter published in the Globe and Mail, August 15, Pacific Region director general for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Paul Sprout said sea lice were not responsible for the collapse of this year’s sockeye run. In the same issue, executive director of the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance, Ruth Salmon also said fish farms were not responsible for the decline in salmon stocks. Neither Sprout nor Salmon, however, cited scientific evidence to support their claims.

EDIT

http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/53616242.html

[DrDan]

1. you would never know it for the sockeye prices here in Florida - very reasonable

[Davis_X_Machina]

2. Fish populations that collapse...

...don't always come back.

The cod fisheries in Atlantic Canada -- Newfoundland, the southern Great Banks, St. Laurence/Northumberland Strait -- have been closed in some places for 20 years, with no real recovery. Genetic changes, changes in the population of food fish, and some things we just don't understand are to blame.

[pscot]

3. Who could have imagined

That we'd actually kill off all the salmon? We have a real genius for this sort of thing.