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Where have Broughton Pink salmon gone??

Alexandra Morton responds to fish farmers’ ad in PRDN

Fish Farms and Wild Salmon

Recently the Fish Farmers association ran a large ad in PR Daily News which blamed “activists” for misleading the public and implied falsified the science

I asked Alexandra Morton who lives in the Broughton area to respond

Rather than send her the ad I used Hagen’s speech which wonders of wonders was = to ad almost verbatim

Local Knowledge and Minister Hagen

Hagen argues on right – his graphs ‘show’ 2002 collapse was “natural” – (similar to ad’s graph below) most Pinks salmon runs on Morton’s graph are lumped together by fish farmers and Hagen

Here is similar argument as in the PR Daily News ad – provided by Hagen in recent open cabinet meeting

Last year, as you can see by the graph, (not shown here) there was a dramatic drop in pink salmon returns in the Broughton, but in 2000 there was a record return - four times the long-term average.

If you look at the slide and look at the years '54 to '60, up until '70 there were very low returns in those years because of overfishing. Because of conservation practices brought in, you could see the runs starting to build up. These are done every two years, because it's a two-year cycle. Where the colour changes from orange to green is where fish farms were introduced into the Broughton, and you can see that even after fish farms were introduced, the salmon runs increased. I believe the year 2000 was a bit of an anomaly, and I believe 2002 was a bit of an anomaly.

I just want to give you a few other facts here. I talked about the steady rise. There are five years in that period of time that had lower returns than the year in question, which is 2002, and those years are 1953, 1960, 1969, 1987 and 1991. For four of those years, there were no salmon farms in the area. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has put $700,000 into an aggressive monitoring program in the Broughton. Our provincial biologists are working with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans on their boat as they monitor the smolts coming down the river to the sea.

Whistle Blower-- Alexandra Morton responds

(map above taken from Fish Wizard and shows Pink Salmon streams mentioned by Morton

Dear editor:

I find myself wondering why Provincial government is working so hard to downplay the Broughton Archipelago pink crash. The most senior government fishery biologists in B.C. have given us their analysis of this situation and there is no reason any should doubt their conclusions. These DFO scientists with the PFRCC, are tasked to examine every fishery decline, and they report the Broughton crash was the biggest in recorded history and was caused by something in the nearshore marine environment. They did not pull this out of hat.

First, it is simply ignorant to imply low pink salmon numbers of decades past were due to over-fishing. In fact, the reason for the dramatic increase in recent years is because the DFO built spawning channels and enhanced two rivers in the Broughton, Glendale and Kakweikan.

Second, what triggered the PFRCC review was free-fall of eight rivers (only 6 shown) and this has never happened before. Freshwater causes for this decline were ruled out for several reasons:

-no die-off was witnessed of the parent stocks by DFO patrolmen on the grounds.

-"Overspawn" (too many salmon) was ruled out because overspawn has never been know to reduce stocks by 98%

and the spawning channels were closed when an optimal number of fish were on site.

-Fry output by these rivers was excellent, as noted by DFO's herring patrolmen as they cruised the shores in spring

of 2001.

Open ocean causes, including fishing, were ruled out because so many rivers to the north and south of the Broughton had spectacular returns (see map).

If I had not done my sea lice research we would be at a loss as to what happened. As it stands we can not know for certain it was sea lice, and if this were the first time salmon farms, sea lice and collapse had converged in time and space I would be more sceptical. However, everywhere there are salmon farms and wild salmon, the wild salmon are eaten to death by sea lice. Don't believe me? Type "sea lice" on "Google" and see what comes up.

For the Province to be spinning myths designed to downplay the biggest BC collapse of a stock of fish that are both commercially and ecologically important should send up warning flags. Why are they trying to sweep this under the carpet? The Province does not profit from wild marine fisheries, but they do profit in many ways from the salmon farms. I don't think we need look any further than this.

Alexandra Morton R.P. Bio.

Created by LG Sunday, March 23, 2003