Go read the Watershed Watch take on dangerously declining chinook salmon [the rest are not doing well either]. They have much to say that is useful: https://watershedwatch.ca/greg-taylor-holding-dfo-to-account-on-endangered-chinook/?mc_cid=1f4d80c698&mc_eid=5777c92bcd.
Here is my comment on their short document, as in do read what they have to say.
DFO and the SFAB set the annual rec take, It is now so low the industry is having trouble surviving. ENGOs should have a member of theirs who also fishes attend SFAB meetings and get the information that is used each year. If the rec fish were stopped that would be up to a $2.52B loss for the economy. The solution here is to immediately put out 12 ocean netpens of 2 million chinook fry each, each of which is diploided or triploided and fin clipped. The most important from immediate killer whale (SRKWs) food is the Cowichan because they circle the Strait of Georgia for a year or more before going offshore.
Netpen fish cannot spawn, do not return to rivers, but to the saltwater site of the netpen, where an Indigenous fishery could mop up the returnees, with the excess for others. This would save the SRKWs and put fish that can be distinguished by the missing adipose fin, for retention. There is no damaging of genes because they cannot spawn. But DFO needs to be pushed because they tried putting 35M Vedder chinook, that will return in four years. That means SRKWs go south for 4 years with no food. The netpen approach puts fish in the water right now. Also, along with the Robertson Creek and Cowichan stock, the Nitinat should be used too. At the terminal end the sexless returnees should be picked up in big buckets by helicopters, and, go directly to an already-identified SRKW pod (reduces the transit time from pick up to drop off) and drop them in front of them so they have food as of this September and every year hence from the netpens. If we don't do netpens, because DFO has been managing salmon into extinction for 50 years, it will just finish the job with their too little too late approach, and the SRKWs will die, too.
The BC govt needs to start a new program under the Wild Salmon Secretariat directly aimed at habitat restoration and get on with the job that DFO has failed to do. Delivered through the Pacific Salmon Foundation who leverages cash 4 to 7 times, a sizeable restoration program for in river work by those 300,000 sporties who believe in bringing salmon back, along with our ENGO allies.
Note that the $142M cash from DFO and BC pretty much is utilized for such big, expensive, longterm projects, that virtually no money is going to the endless list of small, inexpensive projects required across the province to get sporties/ENGOs in streams with their gumboots on, where the bulk of all restoration work is needed. And thus immediate rehabilitation of at peril salmon stocks.
As well, fish farms need to come out of the water. I list shows 320 on-land farms already around the world, so this is easy, not hard. And my list of global press now approaches 500, as in the enthusiasm for on-land is unmistakable.
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Now an update. The WWS's take on fall 2020 spawning is here: https://watershedwatch.ca/greg-taylor-an-overview-of-2020-salmon-returns/?mc_cid=e211356752&mc_eid=5777c92bcd.
It is not easy reading, with runs very low across the province.
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