By Carmen Chai
Fishing along the Fraser River was closed this weekend after test runs showed an unexpectedly low number of sockeye salmon are returning to the river.
The June migration of early Stuart sockeye showed that only 85,000 fish made it to the river. The Pacific Salmon Commission hoped that 164,000 fish would arrive and later projected that 107,000 fish were expected.
The early summer run has also been a disappointment. The Commission had forecast nearly 264,000 fish but it estimates that only 33,000 summer run sockeye have passed Mission as of July 23. By midnight on July 25, all commercial fisheries in the Panel area waters were closed.
Ernie Crey, Sto:lo tribe fisheries advisor, is counting on the August mid-summer run to be a success.
“If these two early runs are an indication of what’s to happen, it means a lot of people will go hungry along the Fraser River,” Crey said.
He said that 94 bands along the Fraser River compose more than half the province’s population of native people. Fisheries and Oceans Canada gave 24 bands hours on Friday and Saturday to fish in a constricted area.
“We rely on these sockeye runs for food, ceremonies in the community and social needs,” he said.
Crey wants to know why the abundance of sockeye has diminished when the Pacific Salmon Commission data showed that 10.5 million spawning sockeye were expected to return to the Fraser between now and late fall. Craig Orr, executive director of Watershed Watch Salmon Society, says rising temperatures in the Fraser River is what is killing fish.
“Sockeye salmon have been bearing the brunt of these climate-change effects over the last 10 years. It’s a disappointment,” he said.
Orr said a 1994 Fraser Panel report showed that 1.3 million sockeye went missing once they got to the Fraser River. A 2004 study also showed that 1.3 million sockeye went missing.
“There is major mortality in the river as it warms. But we’re not sure what happens in the ocean and why they come back in smaller numbers,” he explained.
He said the Fraser River temperature has increased by one degree in the last decade.
“It might seem like a small increase, but it’s the difference between death and survival.”
Fisheries and Oceans Canada says sockeye begin to show thermal stress when water temperatures reach 18 C. Fraser River water temperatures are forecast to reach almost 21 C by Aug. 1, the Pacific Salmon Commission said.
Orr said the decrease in sockeye returns is not connected to overfishing and illegal fishing.
“There’s not much we can do about ocean conditions. For now the only thing we can do is control how many fishes are killed,” he said.
