UFAWU finds common ground with stakeholders on Skeena fishery

The largest fishing industry union in the province has come down in favour of many of the recommendations from the recent Skeena Independent Science Review Panel, finding that many of their concerns match up with what the union has been suggesting for many years now.

Those shared beliefs make for a good base for both to carry on with their concerns to the Federal Government and seek changes to the way that all stakeholders are involved in the industry.

Commercial fishermen back Skeena suggestions
BY KRIS SCHUMACHER ,
The Daily News
Published: Monday, June 16, 2008
Pages three and five

Despite some initial concerns about having a group of scientists make recommendations that could impact the future the of the Skeena River fisheries, many local commercial fishermen have shown support for nearly all 23 recommendations made by the Skeena Independent Science Review Panel.

United Fishermen and Allied Worker's Union (UFAWU-CAW) northern representative Joy Thorkelson said at one point during the recent full-day public meeting among Skeena fishery stakeholders in Terrace, she was "absolutely amazed" to hear that the panel's findings supported some of the same recommendations the union has made for the Skeena.

"It was a response to some of the sports interests who talked about a steelhead crisis," she said. "Their response was that there was no steelhead crisis on the Skeena River, and that there is no data to show any impact by the commercial fleet on steelhead since the 1970s, and that certain up-river interests have been using a false conservation cry in order to reallocate fish up-river."

The union also agreed with the first recommendation of the panel, the need to confront “major tradeoffs decisions” with “explicit public decisions about the loss of biodiversity,” as well as better communication between government levels and stakeholder groups, furthering the Tyee test fishery, avoiding late-season openings to protect severely depressed stocks such as chum salmon, and the creation of a Skeena Science Committee to analyze and review to provide information related to assessment and management of Skeena fish stocks.

However, the union does share the perception of many stakeholders that there was almost a complete absence of sport sector information in the panel’s report. One of the things Thorkelson told the panel was that if a science student was to look back at the report in 15 years, they might be led to think that anglers didn’t exist on the Skeena in 2008 or that if they did, they had not impact on the watershed, when in fact they are the largest users of salmon. She also said commercial fishermen had a problem with the manner in which their sector came under specific scrutiny in the past for catch-and-release survivability, in light of there being very little monitoring or data collection in the marine and freshwater recreation fishing.

“If you’re going to be concerned about the commercial catch-and-release, when we’ve had study, after study, when we’ve held fish for 72 hours and we know the survivability of our fish, why the discrimination in the report? Thorkelson asked the panel.

With those and only two other disagreements, the UFAWU-CAW agreed with the majority of the recommendations made in the new report, and it’s members are hopeful that the work of the panel will be taken into consideration for future planning of fisheries in the Skeena, including a new governance model for decision-making and management of Skeena across all sectors.

“Although nobody knows what this new watershed governance model is going to look like, it’s going to be the people who live on the watershed who have to make those goals and make the trade-offs,” said Thorkelson.

“That’s the importance of that process, is that there’s going to have to be trade-offs made on the watershed, and that there’s going to be a new system to do that.
Nobody wants any stocks to fail from overfishing, but there’s no data from the sports community on what they’re taking. So it’s very difficult to say, if the stocks are low, who is responsible for it,” said Thorkelson.

Because of the opposition to certain elements of the panel’s report and recommendations, the Addendum to the Skeena independent Science Panel Report was released on Friday that seeks to clarify several points of contention.

At the public meeting, many stakeholders took exception the use of the term “overfishing,” which the panel reiterated was used in the report to describe depressed stocks where spawner abundance is below, what’s required to produce the maximum sustainable catch, and does not imply imminent extinction.

The panel also reiterated that the limited data available on steelhead does not support reports of low steelhead numbers by anglers, and that better quantitative data is “sorely” needed to determine steelhead status in the Skeena River.

Perhaps most importantly, the panel amended the previous recommendation to implement widespread use of ‘tangle-tooth’ nets into the commercial fishery. Both Fisheries and Oceans Canada and commercial harvesters expressed great concern about that recommendation, particularly the fact that the panel had based the opinion on only anecdotal information.

The new amended recommendation calls for the staging of a careful, large-scale experimental test of tangle nets and other selective fishing options, with careful experimental design and monitoring of specific concerns.

The panel also stood behind its claim that there was a ‘pitifully low’ amount of data for most of the marine and freshwater recreational fisheries in recent years, and that reliable catch monitoring procedures be implemented for all recreational fisheries that catch salmon and steelhead.

“We strongly encourage people in the Skeena region to move ahead with their recent initiatives to develop open and collaborative relationships among all parties, and to implement our recommendations to help inform a shared decision-making process,” wrote the panel in their report addendum.

“We also urge you to see beyond any misunderstandings created by terminology or limitations in data available for analysis, and any controversial statements that were brought up at the public meeting in Terrace on June 10. What should endure over the long term is the willingness of all parties to improve the salmon and steelhead situation in the region.

An ages old industry that may need a new management plan

A panel created by the Pacific Salmon Foundation has finally released their review of the Skeen Salmon fishery and with it comes a number of recommendations that they feel will make the fishery more sustainable.

Included in some of their thoughts were a desire to see the interception of Skeena bound salmon by Alaska reduced, reduce harvest rates on the Skeena to protect weak stocks and implement changes to gear at the mouth of the Skeena.

The panel was given their task six months ago in the wake of controversy over a late season opening in 2006 which left many wondering if the current management structure was enough to preserve and protect the Skeena stocks.

The Skeena Wild Conservation trust posted a complete copy of the reports findings, which you can access from this link.

Opinion 250 offered up a synopsis of the report on their website while the Daily News featured the story as the front page article in Thursday’s paper.

SALMON REPORT LIKELY TO MAKE WAVES IN INDUSTRY
Pacific Salmon Foundation panel offers suggestions for improvement
By Kris Schumacher
The Daily News
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Pages one and three

An independent review of the Skeena Salmon fisheries management has made a number of recommendations for the region, including a clear warning against proposed oil, gas and coal-bed methane developments in the watershed.

More than two months after the Pacific Salmon Foundation created the independent science review panel to review salmon management on the Skeena River, the four independent scientists have delivered their report.

They were tasked with recommending ways to improve future salmon management in a critical watershed for wild stocks.

The report begins with an executive summary that cites three specific reasons for the highly critical 2006 salmon fisheries, and explains that the current DFO management system has “achieved about 95 per cent of the maximum yield of sockeye salmon since 1982.”

The report also explains that the practice of making weekly adjustments in run size and escapement estimates, combined with large a run size, led to late season openings of the sockeye fishery as happened in 2006. That incident caused a controversy that deemed such a report necessary.

The summary findings of Dr. John Reynolds, Dr. Randall Peterman, Dr. Carl Walters and fisheries consultant Jim Lichatowich also state that the method of collecting data used to generate computer spreadsheet models estimating steelhead exploitation rates is insufficient. The panel reports “the model can give some ‘worst case’ guidance about possible steelhead exploitation rates, but this is as far as it should have been taken,” and that they have “no idea how reliable DFO’s estimates of steelhead recovery rates are.”

The scientists conclude that unless total exploitation rates in both the Canadian and Alaskan fisheries reduce by 30 to 40 per cent, non-Babine sockeye stocks will remain at severely depressed levels, half of what they’ve been in Canada in the last 20 years. They predict “that it is not possible to achieve high proportions of the maximum average yield in mixed stock fisheries without overfishing at least 10 to 20 per cent of the coho and Chinook stocks and at least 30 to 50 per cent of the sockeye and pink stocks.

The panel felt that decades of fighting among stakeholders about allocation has distracted people from threats to the watershed such as those from road, mine, and fuel development.

The report outlines the authors’ concern about a lack of input from biologists and planners in the decision–making process for such projects, and says that neither DFO nor MOE have the staff or resources needed to monitor or protect habitat. It goes on to make recommendations to move to a new three-part governance structure that would give the public easy access to information and officials.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Ministry of Environment, along with the rest of the fishing community will be reviewing the report for the next three weeks and delivering their responses to members of the ISRP at a full day meeting in Terrace on June 10, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m at the Best Western Hotel.

“We do expect comment from the public at the meeting as well, and it will have a tight agenda, but that’s the purpose of it,” said Chad Brealey, communications director of the Pacific Salmon Foundation.

“And because this is an independent thing, the governments certainly aren’t required to take the recommendations on by any stretch of the imagination.

“But they’ve been very cooperative to this point in providing information and the panel has been very clear on that as well. There hasn’t been a single roadblock in getting information from anybody.”

The review was funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and, although it was sanctioned by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the B. C. Ministry of Environment, the foul panel members “carried out it’s assignment with complete independence from both those institutions.

"Caved under pressure"

That's the charge of environmentalists, who suggest that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, chose to maintain a commercial gillnet fishery on the Skeena River late last summer despite warnings that the stocks were too weak to survive a concentrated fishing program.

Using documents acquired under the federal Access to Information Act, the Watershed Watch and North Coast Steelhead Alliance groups both expressed concerns over political pressure playing too large a role in stock management on the Skeena River.

In particular, they highlighted the efforts of Prince Rupert Mayor Herb Pond last year as evidence of overt political pressure on the federal fisheries department.

In a press release the two groups claimed that "They had management tools to protect endangered salmon and steelhead populations and they chose not to use them."

They are charges that were denied by local DFO officials who claimed, "that decisions in 2006 were made based on stock availability not political pressure."

The resulting media attention from today's press conference should make for a long summer of 2007 for DFO, who will now be aware that there are many eyes on their work, all seemingly pulling in different directions.

The two environmental groups are calling for an independent investigation into last years fishery, to make sure that the same thing doesn't occur again this year.

The Vancouver Sun had a full report on the story on its website on Monday.

DFO didn't protect fish stock, groups claim (12:02 pm)
By Scott Simpson and Larry Pynn
Vancouver Sun
Monday, June 25, 2007

Fisheries and Oceans Canada "caved under pressure" in 2006 to maintain a commercial gillnet fishery on the Skeena River despite warnings that many of the fish caught in the nets were from populations too weak to withstand a major fishing effort, environmental groups said at a press conference this morning.

Documents obtained by the groups under the federal Access to Information Act, and circulated to the media, suggest that fisheries department biologists on the North Coast had significant concerns about their government's decision to keep a commercial sockeye fishery open in summer 2006.

Before the season began, DFO and other groups including the B.C. Ministry of Environment, agreed that the commercial fishing season for Babine River sockeye would end in early August in order to avoid interception of coho, steelhead and other non-target species.

However, the environmental groups groups say the department buckled under to intense political lobbying to keep the fishery open, rather than hold its ground and protect weaker, non-targeted species.

According to the groups, Watershed Watch and North Coast Steelhead Alliance, DFO more than doubled the number of openings last year compared to the 10-year season average.

The gillnets, if strung end to end, would form an unbroken line from Hope to Vancouver, North Coast Steelhead Alliance spokesman Greg Knox said at a press conference.

"This resulted in excessive by-catch of steelhead and weak salmon stocks and contributed to dangerously low returns to many Skeena tributaries," the groups said in a prepared statement.
One e-mail obtained under the Access to Information Act, written by North Coast biologist Steve Cox-Rogers, attributes the protracted opening to successful lobbying by Prince Rupert Mayor Herb Pond.

"Our mayor flew to Vancouver to get DFO to provide more fishing time and so we ended up fishing a few more days," Cox-Rogers wrote to colleague Dana Atagi on October 11, 2006.
In another, Cox-Rogers says he does not believe the department can muster any technical information to demonstrate that it met its commitments to protect steelhead, which are the basis for a multimillion dollar sports fishery encompassing several tributary rivers to the Skeena.

"The real issue for me is that we said we would fish selectively to minimize harvest impacts on non-target species and we caved under pressure," Cox-Rogers wrote to Atagi.

The documents also reveal that gillnet fishermen chose to ignore DFO's recommendations that they gently handle, revive and release the steelhead, coho and other non-targeted species they intercepted during the sockeye fishery.

Instead, Cox-Rogers reported, none of the boats were using the "revival boxes" where non-target fish are kept in order to resuscitate them before release.

"In fact, all of the fishermen I spoke to expressed little desire to participate in reviving steelhead or coho and were just throwing them back dead or alive as they hit the boat."
He also noted that compliance with a recommendation that the gillnetters use weed lines, which keep the nets at depths where steelhead usually do not swim during migration, was "very low to non-existent."

"We think these documents show DFO mangers put politics ahead of science in making critical management decisions," Watershed Watch executive director Craig Orr said in a press release."They had management tools to protect endangered salmon and steelhead populations and they chose not to use them."David Einarson, area chief of resource management for federal fisheries, denied conservation groups' accusations, arguing from Prince Rupert that decisions in 2006 were made based on stock availability not political pressure.

The commercial gillnet fleet received more fishing time because the summer sockeye run, 90 per cent of which is headed to Babine Lake, had increased to three million from an anticipated 1.7 million and because the fish were proportionately younger than expected and boats were having more trouble catching them.

He said the commercial catch reached its target of 32 per cent of the sockeye run, as it did for the steelhead catch at 24 per cent -- a figure set by user groups years ago.

The fleet would have caught more of the weaker stocks in 2006, he said, but the catch did not pose a conservation concern. Steve Cox-Rogers, a stock assessment biologist, suggested in an e-mail obtained under FOI legislation that DFO "caved under pressure" -- which Einarson described as a personal opinion not based on fact.