VANCOUVER, B.C. — April 3, 2014 — The following was released by the SkeenaWild Conservation Trust:
First Nations, recreational fishermen, and conservation groups from the Skeena River watershed are calling on Fisheries Minister Gail Shea to abandon a reckless fishing plan being proposed by the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). The new plan would significantly increase harvest rates on sockeye salmon, resulting in the overfishing of endangered sockeye populations, and serious impacts to other salmon species caught as "by-catch."
The changes would nullify the recent (2009 to 2013) commercial harvest plan for Skeena River sockeye salmon, introduced following the 2008 Independent Science Review Panel. The Panel found that harvest rates were too high for many sockeye populations and needed to be reduced. A 2013 scientific analysis released by Pacific Salmon Foundation confirmed this, reporting that several Skeena sockeye populations were in the "Red Zone"-the area of greatest conservation concern-under DFO's Wild Salmon Policy.
The overfishing would affect the Gitanyow, Lake Babine, and Wet'suwet'en Nations, who all host sockeye populations that lie in the "Red Zone."
"We have harvested Kitwanga River salmon as food for thousands of years. They feed our elders, our culture, and who we are as a people," states Chief Glen Williams of the Gitanyow Nation. "We thought we had turned a corner on a century of overfishing in 2008, but now DFO intends to return to the era of much higher commercial harvest rates."
Read the full press release at Market Wired