Canada has failed to monitor and gather data on 50 per cent of all managed salmon populations on B.C.’s north and central coasts, according to a study released Monday in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences.
Researchers from Simon Fraser University found the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) is monitoring fewer streams now than before the introduction of a wild salmon policy in 2005 that was designed to assess the health of wild salmon populations and aid those deemed at risk.
“Our knowledge of salmon populations in B.C. is eroding,” study co-author and (Read more…) Fraser University researcher Michael Price told DeSmog Canada. “And it’s really frustrating.”
A number of salmon fisheries, including the Fraser and Skeena River sockeye fisheries, closed due to low salmon runs this summer.
Price and co-researcher John Reynolds found that since the 1980s, annual counts of spawning streams have declined by 70 per cent.