Politics over Conservation, again

On June 23, 2021, Private Member’s Bill C-269 (Andrew Scheer) came up for second reading in the House of Commons.

Bill 269 would have prohibited the deposit of raw sewage into waterways inhabited by fish. The federal government can currently grant exceptions to entities (such as cities, municipalities, towns, ocean going vessels, industries) dumping raw sewage into our waterways.

The federal Liberal Party defeated this bill. With a very political “not invented here” spin, their vote was whipped to follow party instructions: vote no. Makes a joke out of the words they’ve written to announce the new Canada Water Agency. And those healthy oceans will just have to wait for the right political party to have a good idea.

Public Fishery Alliance Video

The Public Fishery Alliance (PFA) has produced a video that tells about a five-year self funded program – the Sooke Chinook Enhancement Initiative – to put more Chinook into Juan de Fuca Strait to increase the food supply for southern resident killer whales in the summer. Some of those fish will benefit anglers and provide the opportunity for First Nations terminal fishing, plus commercial fisheries, and feed other pods of whales and marine mammals.

We all benefit by moving from Chinook shortages to Chinook abundances. If only our federal government thought this way, too.

Feds Provide Guiding Principles for PSSI

News release here has our federal government stating they have established guiding principles for the Pacific Salmon Strategy Initiative (PSSI) announced in their 2021 budget.

The PSSI is a comprehensive initiative that will build on and support the years of work and wisdom that grassroots organizations, Indigenous communities, scientists and others have already put into efforts to protect and recover Pacific salmon. In the coming months, DFO will invite key partners to the table to identify and prioritize actions to support healthy salmon – a necessary, holistic approach that has not been undertaken before.
The plan will guide investments and action in four key areas: conservation and stewardship, enhanced hatchery production, harvest transformation, and integrated management and collaboration.
news release 2020 06 08

Many words about how they plan to save the salmon. Now to reconcile this with the prior post regarding steelhead conservation. The poor steeelhead today finds itself labelled a trout, but has flip flopped between the trout and salmon families over the years. Perhaps if it joined the salmon species again, it’d get more consideration.

DFO: Politics first, fish second

Justine Hunter, writing for the Globe & Mail, provides insight into the machinations at DFO when environment meets politics head on.

In January, 2018, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), an independent advisory panel of scientists, put out a rare emergency bulletin declaring the southern interior steelhead trout was at imminent risk of extinction. The population had been reduced by 80 per cent over the previous 15 years, and was at its lowest point in 40 years.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-how-ottawa-thwarted-efforts-to-help-an-endangered-species/

The federal minister of environment was asked to protect this species under Canada’s Species at Risk Act (SARA). Commercial, recreational and Indigenous fisheries should have been seriously impacted. The minister rejected the request in 2019.

The BC Wildlife Federation, under an Access to Information request, received documents that reveal management at DFO rewrote the findings of the scientific panel. DFO themselves understood they were undermining the integrity of the process – as in, what’s the point of an independent scientific panel? – and published the report after substantially altering recommedations to suit federal government political goals. The BC government’s director of fish and aquatics complained, asking the published report be removed from circulation; that was ignored.

You are urged to read about this one well-documented example of how our federal government hits all the right notes on the journey to a decision – scientists listened to, every group possible consulted – and then fashions what they’ve heard into what they need to support the political outcome they wanted from, “Go.”

2021 Sooke Chinook Enhancement Initiative

The SVIAC has reported that the Sooke Chinook Enhancement Initiative sea pen project is now active for 2021.

The pens were moved back into place at the Sooke Harbour Resort and Marina, with help from the people at Jenkins Marine
Glen Varney and a crew of volunteers are getting the system set up and ready to receive the first batch of 325,000 Chinook smolts that are approximately 3.5 grams each.

At the Nitinat Hatchery, for this first batch of fish

they all have been given their compulsory Vibrio Virus treatment.
thousands have been adipose fin-clipped and fitted with a coded wire tag.

This year, 2021, marks the fifth anniversary of SVIAC putting the first batch of fish in the water (2017: 210,000). After the second batch of healthy Chinook smolts are released this year, there will have been 2,525,000 juvenile salmon processed.

All of this has been done with NO GOVERNMENT MONEY! To date, over $300,000 has been raised to make the Sooke Chinook Enhancement Initiative a reality.

HOW TO SUPPORT SOUTH VANCOUVER ISLAND ANGLERS COALITION
Membership fees are $40 dollars annually and can be purchased online at https://www.anglerscoalition.com or by phone at (778) 426-4141 or in person at SVIAC, Unit 3-774 Bay Street, Victoria V8T 5E4 or by postal mail to the same address – cash, debit and credit cards accepted.
Donations can be made in the same manner as above.

Tell Minister Jordan about Chinook Retention

That message from Chris Bos of the SVIAC to Minister Jordan regarding chinook retention can use reinforcement from all of us. Minister Jordan has yet to announce her decision. There two ways in which you may support this effort:

The best way is to write a short letter to Minister Jordan directly. Here are the contact details for Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan:
- By email: min@dfo-mpo.gc.ca
- By telephone: 1 (613) 992-3474
The Public Fishery Alliance has put together an excellent form letter where everything is already laid out for you. You just add your name, email address and postal code then press send and you’re done. This only takes about 30 seconds. Here is the link to the PFA form letter.

Expressing your desire to fish for chinook as proposed isn’t about harming any of the struggling Fraser River Chinook stocks. The fisheries contained in the SFAB proposal sent to DFO are designed specifically to avoid those stocks of concern.

SVIAC to Minister: Selective fisheries, please!

SVIAC President Chris Bos has sent a plea to DFO Minister Bernadette Jordan imploring her to announce selective chinook fishery opportunities for the places and times identified by the collaborative effort of DFO and the SFAB.

Please clearly understand we, as anglers, support conservation and have been seeking a meaningful recovery plan from your department regarding Fraser River Chinook stocks of concern for over fifteen years. However, the SFAB proposal on your desk has been specifically fashioned so there are absolutely minimal encounters of these challenged stocks. The objective is for anglers to harvest abundant stocks and USA origin hatchery Chinook, while stocks of concern are allowed to recover.
letter from SVIAC President Chris Bos to Minister Bernadette Jordan

DFO, SARA and Transient Killer Whales

DFO has cast its net wide to solicit feedback for the ongoing Species at Risk Act (SARA) recovery planning for the Transient Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) in Canada. Specifically, they seek new information related to two recovery documents for this population: a draft amended Recovery Strategy and a draft Action Plan.

With respect to the amended Recovery Strategy, DFO welcomes any new information with regard to Section 8.0 (Critical Habitat) of this draft document.

The good news is that the population of transient killer whales is slowly growing. The bad news is they remain threatened primarily by man-made pollutants, and their marine habitat exposes them to acoustic and phsyical disturbances from shipping and boating.

This Recovery Strategy identifies critical habitat for the Transient Killer Whale as all Canadian
Pacific marine waters bounded by a distance of three nautical miles (5.56 km) from the nearest
shore.
…
Under SARA, critical habitat must be legally protected within 180 days of being identified in a final recovery strategy or action plan and included in the Species at Risk Public Registry. For the Transient Killer Whale, it is anticipated that this will be accomplished through a SARA Critical Habitat Order made under subsections 58(4) and (5), which will invoke the prohibition in subsection 58(1) against the destruction of any part of the identified critical habitat.
amended Recovery Strategy

New prohibitions on activities within transient killer whale habitat may be appropriate. Enforcement of same by an agency that already seems overwhelmed managing our west coast fisheries may be challenging.

DFO seeks to evaluate their efforts on salmon

Although most industries try to conduct a “lessons learned” exercise at the conclusion of each project, DFO is seeking to do similar for the work they’ve done regarding salmon from 2015 to 2020. The ongoing nature of most of DFO’s programs, policies and initiatives makes a specific end point difficult to identify; thus a “point in time” evaluation.

The Evaluation Division of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) is currently conducting an evaluation aimed at exploring all aspects of DFO’s activities in support of Pacific salmon over the period from April 2015 to March 2020.
email from Evaluation Division of DFO

Their stated goal is to improve decision making, innovation and accountability within DFO, toward improving the effectiveness and efficiency of programs, policies and initiatives. The survey should take you about 30 minutes to complete, and the ACS encourages you to do so. It’s supposed to close at March 31, 2021, but appears to still be open.

https://questionnaire.simplesurvey.com/f/l/Pacificsalmonexternal

View Royal HandyDART survey

We received an update from Angela Hanes about BC Transit’s somewhat contentious plan to build a HandyDART facility – read “maintenance depot – beside Craigflower Creek.

Many of you may have received a big glossy flyer in the past week showing project updates and the call to respond to a survey. As always, you need to be heard! Here is the link to the survey;
https://engage.bctransit.com/viewroyalhandydartcentre?tool=survey_tool&tool_id=survey#tool_tab
email from Angela Hanes

This is BC Transit consulting with the community. They mention the facility will support, “…a fully-electric fleet of vehicles.” While there have been announcements about the feds helping them buy 10 electric buses for our region, they seem to only show diesel vehicles in their fleet. BC Transit says all electric by 2040. We can hope they switch the small vehicles first, but you know this will happen as existing stock reaches end of service life.