Who Are You Going to Call?
Events of the past couple of weeks with respect to Skeena steelhead prompt this question. A bit of a pictorial essay might help describe circumstances that evidence the complete absence of any connection, much less co-ordination, between the various interests affecting Skeena salmon and steelhead. I’ll focus on the latter for the simple reason I think I understand that species better than, for example, chinook and sockeye, although much of what I have to say pertains to those species as well.
A good starting point is the declaration from two high ranking First Nations spokespersons. This was the third iteration of the same declaration over a two-month period. The first two were widely disseminated by the same Gitxsan Huwilp Government but did not include names such as appeared on the third iteration below.
As far as I can determine there has never been a response to this message. The reference to this being the fifth year of such a ban is instructive.
The closest thing to any ban on recreational fishing was the water temperature related closure of the Kispiox River for two weeks this past August. That was the ultimate in playing the science card when it made no sense to do so. River discharge, not water temperature, would have been the dominant influence on steelhead behavior at the time. The Kispiox was so low (5 cubic meters per second) its fish would remain in the Skeena until the Kispiox water level increased significantly. That was hardly a secret for anyone familiar with the area and the fishery or those in a decision-making capacity who could easily have done a bit of homework. So, the fish supposedly saved by the angling closure would continue to be vulnerable in waters immediately adjacent to and downstream from the Kispiox confluence. Those would be the waters members of the organizations responsible for the above letter that collect daily fees from anglers willing to pay to fish. Ultimately, then, it’s quite alright to play with the Gitxsan food as long as you pay them to do so. It’s also quite alright for Gitxsan members who live in the immediate vicinity to use indiscriminate gill nets to harvest unlimited numbers of whatever species they desire (how many undesired pink salmon are discarded in the process?) but anglers and their single barbless hooks and artificial lures fishing on a strictly catch and release basis are a greater threat to conservation and food security.
Next, consider the formal notice issued by DFO on August 13. Look it up on the DFO Fisheries Notices web site. FN0809-ABORIGINAL – Salmon: Economic Opportunities – Sockeye – Region 6 – Opening August 13, 2024. Here’s the essential ingredient.
“Commercial Salmon Allocation Framework (CSAF) Demonstration Fishery opportunity for Gitksan Watershed Authorities of the Gitksan First Nation. Opening August 13, 2024 from 00:00 hours and closing August 19, 2024 at 23:59 hours in the Skeena River. The target species in this fishery is Sockeye Salmon.
This fishery is being conducted using selective gear methods only. All non-target species must be released immediately. A designation is required to participate in demonstration fisheries. Designations are provided by the licence holder/Nation noted above. See the issued licence for further details regarding allowable locations, gear, and allocation.”
A further notice (FN0835) was issued on August 19 extending that in-river fishery until August 26. How is anyone outside the Gitxsan Watershed Authority supposed to know those further details regarding allowable locations, gear and allocations? Who is responsible for keeping track of what is caught? When and where will that information be available? Remember, the Gitxsan territory includes the Skeena from Legate Creek, about 40 km east of Terrace, to its headwaters. However, I think it’s a safe assumption the area that might be subject to these economic opportunity fisheries is downstream from the Skeena/Bulkley confluence.
But, what about all the other First Nations fishing activity that doesn’t come under whatever rules might be associated with the economic opportunity option? Here’s some recent illustrations in that respect.
These pictures were taken on September 5 at the boat launch adjacent to the Kitwanga River confluence. The photographer, a veteran steelhead angler intimately familiar with the area, reported he counted 42 steelhead heads that day. Another observer present over the same time period, also a veteran angler with long experience fishing the Skeena in the Kitwanga area provided similar pictures and observations. Both anglers reported there were more heads similarly discarded on other days, although those involved figured out they shouldn’t discard them where they were quite so obvious. The primary offending boat and vehicle is shown below.
Daily fishing excursions by this vessel and its operators are anything but insignificant. Those totes speak volumes.
This isn’t the only drift netting operation in the same vicinity. Here’s a September 5 illustration of another frequent flier.
The Kitwanga/Skeena confluence area has always been a hot spot for drift net fishing. I witnessed that personally on numerous occasions in the late 1980s and 1990s. The difference today is the aggressiveness and hostility of the fishers when anyone dares engage them in any conversation touching on numbers of fish they are catching or what they do with them? The occasional recreational fisher who shows up and launches a boat right there below the highway bridge crossing is forced to park at the gas station parking lot on the opposite side of the river lest his rig be vandalized.
Earlier this year the First Nations lobbied the provincial government to close the recreational fishery on the Skeena in the Kitwanga vicinity. That was billed as a conservation measure to protect threatened Kitwanga sockeye in particular but also chinook. Chinook angling opportunity was forbidden by DFO years ago. Sockeye fishing has only occurred in years of high abundance of the aggregate Skeena sockeye stock, dominated by Babine spawning channel production. The number of sockeye accounted for by anglers in the waters of concern wouldn’t amount to the harvest by a single day of drift netting by the first vessel depicted above, even if those anglers targeted sockeye. Can it possibly be the real reason for the push to close the entire area to recreational fishing is to eliminate the prospects for more observations and photographs by watchful eyes?
The investment in measures to accommodate management of Kitwanga fish resources, primarily sockeye, has been enormous over the past two decades and more. A full impression of those measures is readily available on the web site of the Gitanyow Fisheries Authority http://www.gitanyowfisheries.com/images/uploads/docs/KSEF_Update_7_September_3_2024.pdf That’s not all. How about the recent announcement of a $10M investment in a hatchery to save the threatened Kitwanga sockeye. https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/08/23/news/Gitanyow-First-Nation-Kitwanga-sockeye-fishery Who decided that taxpayers should finance a sockeye conservation hatchery operated by one group of the Gitanyow First Nation while members of that same First Nation fish with indiscriminate gill nets right on top of the waters those promised enhanced sockeye frequent? (Note that sockeye in hatcheries is not a success story. That was the reason for choosing spawning channels decades ago.) Why would the Gitanyow Fisheries Authority itself choose to turn a blind eye to continuous drift netting in waters where the species and stocks it claims to be dedicated to conserving are certain to be present?
One additional observation re Kitwanga stocks and the drift net fishery. In the first link in the preceding paragraph comes the reporting of the staggering number of pink salmon counted through the fence operation as of September 2 (224,119). That means there would have been very large numbers of pinks encountered by the drift netters almost within sight of the counting fence. Yet, there is no indication of a single pink salmon showing up in any landings. What happened to those fish?
Fishing for sustenance purposes is readily acknowledged and accepted by all. But, where are the boundaries between “food, social and ceremonial fishing”, economic opportunity fisheries and easily detectable “other” fisheries. For example, how is it that First Nations people can openly advertise on social media the opportunity for all comers to buy “Skeena salmon” at a gas stop right beside the major east/west highway across central British Columbia? (Slenyah Store LP is 10 Km west of Fraser Lake.) We’re not talking small amounts of fish and it wasn’t just sockeye offered for sale. I make it three beautiful steelhead right there on top of the pile in one of the pics and others in the second cooler. That second cooler is full of fish that haven’t even been dressed. Is the situation so out of control that sale of First Nations caught fish by openly advertising on social media doesn’t even raise an eyebrow? What do the First Nations authorities themselves have to say? Never mind the boardroom talk and all the outward appearances there is such a thing as catch reporting. Put some credible action behind all that endless window dressing.
Ten days ago we had the social media posting of the Kitselas Canyon fish wheel operation justifiably embraced by all those who have been working quietly with the Kitselas First Nation on selective fishing initiatives for quite some time. That operation showed great promise in terms of its efficacy, in 2024 at least. There couldn’t have been a better year than this to be operating that wheel. Skeena flows were remarkably consistent at low levels, there were no freshet periods of significance and therefore no debris to deal with. Optimism reigns that similar circumstances will be the norm in years to come. The outstanding question, though, is how many gill nets has the wheel replaced? The ultimate goal is (should be?) to eliminate them, right? Based on a report that arrived on September 8, we’re not there yet. The report states “There is an unattended gillnet in kitsilas for 3 days full of fish.” That was followed by December 9 report of a gill net deployed under the old bridge crossing of the Skeena at Terrace. As per the Kitwanga situation, this begs the question of why one element of a First Nation would be fully engaged in selective fishing while others in the same First Nation continue to operate in isolation?
Where does all of this leave Skeena steelhead? All anyone wants to pay attention to is the DFO test fishery results that have eliminated any conservation concern. How many of the test fishery estimated number of steelhead are eliminated by the various upstream fisheries? Is this just a year when the test fishery number has anaesthetized everyone concerned about steelhead or is this the new normal? What does it take to connect the dots within and between the First Nation communities? Where are the non-indigenous government representatives we pay to manage the fish that are not the exclusive property of whatever First Nation claims we don’t belong?
Fisheries management is supposed to revolve around some understanding of the abundance of a given stock or group of stocks. The Skeena test fishery does that, whether its critics like it or not. Beyond that it is equally important to understand how many of those fish contribute to the spawning population in each of the major Skeena tributaries. Knowledge of the distribution of those fish, their sex ratio, their average fecundity (size dependent) are also important basics to establish if conservation objectives are worth the paper they’re written on. The randomness and unquantified influence of the sorts of forces described above and their collective negative influence on spawning populations is the antithesis of credible management. We may have dodged a bullet in 2024 courtesy an ocean environment that somehow favored Skeena steelhead more than anticipated, but not as a result of any management action. Are we going to roll the dice and bet on Mother Nature again or is it time for all the key players and organizations to abandon the boardroom cheap talk, recognize the reality they all contribute to and do something about it?
A final point. The airwaves have been overworked with the story of Alaska’s dirty secret; the non-reporting of steelhead caught by the Southeast Alaska commercial fishing fleets. That campaign is intended to build support for measures to reduce Skeena steelhead interception in those fisheries. The steelhead interception rates thrown about by the architects of the campaign have never been the subject of any peer reviewed scientific report. There has never been the slightest acknowledgement fish not caught by Alaskans are not necessarily contributors to Skeena spawner populations. Commercial fishers in the adjacent Canadian waters will be only too happy to catch every fish Alaska doesn’t. I’m still waiting for recognition by the anti-Alaska campaigners that we have our own dirty secret, namely the well-known and wholly deliberate underreporting and non-reporting of steelhead catches DFO has turned a blind eye to since the issue of commercial fishery influence on Skeena steelhead first hit the spotlight 30 years ago. And that’s just the commercial fishery. The First Nations fisheries, even those legally sanctioned, are equally bad in that respect. Worse still are those aforementioned in-river fisheries prosecuted by First Nations operating in splendid isolation of any oversight by their own or the fisheries management agencies. How do Canadians pass the red face test when confronting Alaska about steelhead non-reporting when similar and perhaps even worse problems are so abundantly obvious in our own back yard?
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