Fraser River Sockeye Salmon Fishery (BC's Most Valuable) Closed

[hatrack]

VANCOUVER -- The Fraser River's reputation as the world's greatest salmon stream is going down the drink. For the first time in history, commercial fishermen are being barred from catching Fraser-bound sockeye -- the most valuable of the five salmon species on B.C.'s coast.

Faced with dwindling stocks of endangered late-summer sockeye, the federal Fisheries Ministry made the unprecedented call Thursday. "In my experience and my knowledge, we have never ever completely closed the Fraser before," said Don Radford, regional director of fishery management for the West Coast. "In 1999, we only had very small troll and gill-net fisheries -- a few hundred thousand fish."

Radford cited record high ocean temperatures, record low snowpack in the Fraser drainage basin and a handful of other factors. "The snowpack that we've seen in the Fraser drainage district in the past few years has been virtually non-existent."

Scientists working for Fisheries and Oceans Canada say unusually warm temperatures in parts of the Pacific are the main reason their estimate of 12 million Fraser sockeye returning this summer has been scaled down to five million. Making matters worse, two endangered sockeye runs -- Cultus Lake and Sakinaw Lake -- are mingled in with the late-arriving summer sockeye, which are showing up six days later than any year in history.

EDIT

http://www.canada.com/victoria/timescolonist/news/story.html?id=a58019fd-a9c0-495c-abe0-97cc870a2660

[phantom power]

1. That policy of doing nothing...

about climate change, to keep the economy strong, just keeps on giving and giving and giving...