While DFO cultivates the image of making science based decisions for management and protection of salmon stocks with regard to their Wild Salmon Policy, the reality is their lack of funding has eroded the knowledge base to support these decisions.

The Narwhal has published an insightful article that looks at the decline in the numbers and use of creekwalkers by the DFO.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada has been hiring creekwalkers to count salmon returning to natal streams along the Pacific coast since 1940. These creekwalkers provide essential information about populations, which is used to inform fisheries management decisions, including how many salmon can be caught for commercial or recreational purposes.

…

In 1949, there were 150 creekwalkers monitoring the north coast; by the late 1970s there were 40 and now there are just two, according to research by the organization. Pacific Wild has also found that only 215 of 2,500 spawning streams on the central and north coast are being counted. That’s about a 70 per cent decrease since the 1980s, when around 1,500 of those streams were monitored. 

excerpt from The Narwhal article

Is there a solution? Of course there is. But it would require funding – turns out even creekwalkers need to eat – and a course change to base fisheries decisions on empirical data and not political expedients.