In Just 50 Years, Abundance Of Wild Pacific Salmon In British Columbia Has Fallen 85%
Catches of wild pacific salmon on the Fraser, Skeena and Nass Rivers are only a sixth of what they were half a century ago, according to a new study from UBC. The lead author of the study Angela Reid, an assistant professor with the Institute for the Ocean and Fisheries, interviewed 48 Indigenous knowledge keepers in 18 First Nations communities along the rivers to get a sense of what salmon catches were like in past decades.
“It was really devasting and beautiful at the same time,” Reid said. “I was spending much of that time moving between different communities. There were moments between interviews because all the sudden it hits you where it’s the fourth or fifth time where you’re hearing something that’s hard to stomach. It was an incredible learning experience and privilege to get to speak with these people, but also really heavy given what has happened with salmon over the last five to seven decades.”
Reid had spent past seasons chasing salmon through those rivers with radio telemetry technology to determine where the fish were heading and how many there were. Through that work, she developed relationships with local fisheries managers and communities that enabled her latest research.
Elders identified the top five threats to salmon include aquaculture, climate change, contaminants, industrial development and infectious diseases. For Nations along these rivers, salmon are not merely a food source. For example to the Nisga’a, salmon form the basis ayuukhl (code of law) and adaawak (oral histories), they figure centrally in yukw (feasts, known externally as “potlatches”), and they are a focal point of the Nisga’a Treaty that defines Nisga’a rights tied specifically to salmon.
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https://www.surreynowleader.com/news/b-c-salmon-abundance-a-sixth-of-what-it-was-half-a-century-ago-study/
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