B.C. sockeye salmon bounty estimate upped to 30 million

David Ebner and Wendy Stueck
August 28, 2010
The Globe and Mail

As fishermen haul in massive loads of sockeye salmon, the official estimate of this summer’s near-record bounty has been upped to 30 million, the second increase in four days, deepening one of Canada’s great scientific mysteries.

It is the most sockeye that have returned to British Columbia’s Fraser River in almost a century, and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans responded to the new number Friday afternoon by increasing the total allowable catch for commercial fishermen by more than 60 per cent to 10.2 million sockeye, from 6.2 million on Tuesday.

The bounty is a radical reversal of a two-decade decline and comes after three years of no commercial fishing at all of Fraser River sockeye. Last summer was the most fearsome plunge, when only 1.5 million sockeye came back to the Fraser, a fraction of what was expected. With the spectre of the cod fishery collapse on the East Coast in the early 1990s, B.C.’s disappearing salmon sparked a federal judicial inquiry last fall.

There are many suspects in that disappearance. Warmer ocean water is believed to have reduced the amount of food for sockeye, and colder water recently might have helped this year’s massive run. The proliferation of fish farms on B.C.’s coast has been blamed for spreading sea lice, and other diseases that prey on young sockeye. Other predators, such as sea lions and seals, have been cited.

But most of all, what’s been exposed is a prediction model that has completely broken down after years of reliability.

This summer’s surprise abundance of sockeye, a rich red salmon, does not herald a fishery saved. The mystery hasn’t been solved, it’s deepened. The massive schools of sparkling silver sockeye, bounding through the Georgia Strait and up the Fraser River, indicates how little Canada really understands about the fish, part of B.C.’s economy and wilderness heritage.

Read the full story in The Globe and Mail 

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• AOL News; September 10, 2010; "Sockeye Surprise: Salmon Return in Massive Numbers"
• Seattle Tiimes; September 10, 2010; "Big Fraser River salmon fun a boon to Swinomish - This year's Fraser River sockeye salmon run is shaping up to be a historic one, which is big news for the Swinomish Tribal Community"
• Campbell River Mirror; September 2, 2010; "Catch of the day: Sockeye, sockeye, sockeye"
• Seattle News; September 1, 2010; "Fraser River whopper sockeye run even bigger - A forecast released Tuesday by the Pacific Salmon Commission predicts some 34 million fish will return to spawn in the Fraser River, a substantial jump from last week's estimate of 25 million" 
• Nanaimo Daily News; August 31, 2010; "Salmon for everyone: Nanaimo fishermen in n the bounty" 
• The Globe and Mail; August 29, 2010; "Bountiful sockeye mean roadside sales - Natives get licenses to sell freshly caught salmon at produce stands"
• The Vancouver Sun; August 29, 2010; "'Ultimate salmon' packs the docks and boardwalks of Steveston"
• The National Post; August 28, 2010; "Salmon's bittersweet return" 
• Coquitlam Now; August 28, 2010; "Salmon returns break records - But are this year's high Fraser River numbers an anomaly or a sigh of change?"
• Burnaby News Leader; August 27, 2010; "Fraser sockeye count climbs to 30 million" 
• Langley Advance; August 27, 2010; "Salmon bounty boosts Kwantlen economy -Langley's Kwantlen First Nation is expected to reap an economic windfall from this year's sockeye run"

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