Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Dave]

Time for my yearly bitching about the mis-management of steelhead on the Chilliwack-Vedder River.   I won’t get into the fact that the most heavily fished steelhead river in BC, which brings hundreds of thousands of $$ to the local economy of the Chilliwack area has no adult and very limited juvenile stock assessments; that’s a different topic for another post.  This rant is about the hatchery program. Last year I posted this on FWR and to say the least the response was underwhelming:

Recently the Chilliwack River Hatchery released its annual batch of steelhead juveniles. And for the second straight year these juveniles were undersized – indeed I’m told these are the smallest juveniles ever released from this facility.  As a general rule, smaller juveniles  means poorer survival and increased residualization.  As I understand the issue, DFO is mandated by the Province to produce 80g juveniles in one year.  This is doable if warmer well water is used to augment the cooler river water and if the fish are fed appropriately.
DFO is under major budget constraints and the steelhead program is suffering for it as again this year, to save money the fish were kept on mainly river water and fed 60% of there optimum ration.
For those that like this steelhead hatchery program, you should be upset that many of these undersized juveniles will become merganser and heron food.  Future hatchery returns will be considerably smaller.
For those that are against this hatchery program, you should be seriously questioning the rationale of removing up to 80 wild fish from this system every year, when populations are unknown.

Well, this season is no different and in fact the juveniles now rearing at the hatchery are smaller than at this time last year.  There is no timeline to put these fish on warmer well water, if at all, so again undersized parr will be released this spring.
 As I see it these are our options:
-embarrass the Province, who contribute squat or DFO, who fund it all, through a media/email blitz to fund the feeding and electrical costs to pump well water. This is app.100k  annually.
-cut back broodstock capture by about ½ so the fry from 40 wild adults (as opposed to the present 70-80 adults captured) can be reared under better conditions to achieve better growth.  This of course means fewer returning hatchery adults, but 40 more wild fish spawn
-stop broodstock capture completely, leaving the river for wild fish only (my personal favourite)
-use hatchery fish for broodstock, using limited well water (my least favourite option)

The few of us who live and breathe C-V steelhead would like to hear your comments.

[alwaysfishn]

Maybe we could get Morton involved....     She seems to be quite able to stir a few pots.

[troutbreath]

Maybe we could get Morton involved....     She seems to be quite able to stir a few pots.

I'm guessing that's not the comments he's looking for.

[silver ghost]

As much as I would like to see it become a wild-only river, I think we all have to look beyond that at this point. The river takes such a hard beating, if they stop hatchery production (as much as I dislike it) I think it will just bring back fewer fish to the system. If there was more money to say, dedicate a fishery officer to police the river daily, then hell yeah do it. But I think we need to just get more money to fund the hatchery. The warmer water/more food for half the wild broodstock collection might be the best bet. Sure we cant predict ocean survival for the steelhead, but at least the hatcheries give the juveniles a 'hit the ground running' start if they are nice and plump and healthy

[troutbreath]

http://www.leg.bc.ca/mla/39thParl/thomsons.htm


This here guy is the Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations. Which I believe covers provincial end of financing hatcheries?

If so I'm sending him an e-mail.

[silver ghost]

if that is the guy I too will send him an email. What are you going to say in yours troutbreath?

[silver ghost]

Time for my yearly bitching about the mis-management of steelhead on the Chilliwack-Vedder River.   I won’t get into the fact that the most heavily fished steelhead river in BC, which brings hundreds of thousands of $$ to the local economy of the Chilliwack area has no adult and very limited juvenile stock assessments; that’s a different topic for another post.  This rant is about the hatchery program. Last year I posted this on FWR and to say the least the response was underwhelming:

Recently the Chilliwack River Hatchery released its annual batch of steelhead juveniles. And for the second straight year these juveniles were undersized – indeed I’m told these are the smallest juveniles ever released from this facility.  As a general rule, smaller juveniles  means poorer survival and increased residualization.  As I understand the issue, DFO is mandated by the Province to produce 80g juveniles in one year.  This is doable if warmer well water is used to augment the cooler river water and if the fish are fed appropriately.
DFO is under major budget constraints and the steelhead program is suffering for it as again this year, to save money the fish were kept on mainly river water and fed 60% of there optimum ration.
For those that like this steelhead hatchery program, you should be upset that many of these undersized juveniles will become merganser and heron food.  Future hatchery returns will be considerably smaller.
For those that are against this hatchery program, you should be seriously questioning the rationale of removing up to 80 wild fish from this system every year, when populations are unknown.

Well, this season is no different and in fact the juveniles now rearing at the hatchery are smaller than at this time last year.  There is no timeline to put these fish on warmer well water, if at all, so again undersized parr will be released this spring.
 As I see it these are our options:
-embarrass the Province, who contribute squat or DFO, who fund it all, through a media/email blitz to fund the feeding and electrical costs to pump well water. This is app.100k  annually.
-cut back broodstock capture by about ½ so the fry from 40 wild adults (as opposed to the present 70-80 adults captured) can be reared under better conditions to achieve better growth.  This of course means fewer returning hatchery adults, but 40 more wild fish spawn
-stop broodstock capture completely, leaving the river for wild fish only (my personal favourite)
-use hatchery fish for broodstock, using limited well water (my least favourite option)

The few of us who live and breathe C-V steelhead would like to hear your comments.

where did you get this information from dave?

[Dave]

Without naming names, lets just say it's common knowledge (and entirely defensible) among local ex and current DFO people.

[mykisscrazy]

It's too bad the $$ that is collected from the Steelhead tag on one's licence does not go toward Steelhead Management, as that would be the logical place to start.

Another way would be having a river tag on your licence. Money collected from that would go to the Hatchery. So almost treat rivers with Large Hatcheries like a classified water.
City of Chilliwack should also assume some responsibility. I'm sure the Chilliwack River Sportsfishery contributes a fair bit to the local economy.

[BwiBwi]

Currently we have fishing licence, steelhead conservation stamp.  How about make it people with general steelhead conservation stamp can fish (use Vedder as example) for steelhead from July 1st to Nov 30th.  An additional river specific steelhead stamp (all $$$ that's collected under this stamp goes to that specific river) can fish the prime steelhead season from Dec 1st to May.

[Dave]

It's too bad the $$ that is collected from the Steelhead tag on one's licence does not go toward Steelhead Management, as that would be the logical place to start.

Another way would be having a river tag on your licence. Money collected from that would go to the Hatchery. So almost treat rivers with Large Hatcheries like a classified water.
City of Chilliwack should also assume some responsibility. I'm sure the Chilliwack River Sportsfishery contributes a fair bit to the local economy.

I like your thinking Mykisscrazy regarding a user pay system and think it will eventually be adapted for the long term; pretty much has to IMO.   But now, this year and the next few, will need an influx of cash and DFO/Provincial decision makers who will buy into a different form of revenue.
Was thinking a few companies/business's that do rather well in Chilliwack when steelhead are present in fishable numbers, might like to form a partnership with local Associations, Federations and Societies (who always want to help financially but are generally spurned by government), to supply a portion of the necessary $ to keep this hatchery program viable, if that is what people want.
I believe such a group could use social media to it's advantage to force one of the two governments involved to either do it right or stop sacrificing wild steelhead for a poorly managed program.

[troutbreath]

I think the fact that we pay for steelhead tags to help the fishery is a good place to start too. No doubt they will say that the money is used for enforcement. But it's getting them to use some of that for hatcheries. A general fishing licence monies should be good enough for other costs.

What Dave say's about Corperate sponseship is very viable as well. Where I work they have a Coast Capital library. Other government facilities do the same thing. These guy's looking after the funding of hatcheries etc. are just not being creative. It's like that guy looking after BC Rails 5 km of track and getting paid over $500,000. They hire the brightest and the best but it's really not true in a lot of government places. I like to remind them of that if you don't get a reasonable responce.

[paul1971]

Incredible to me that a resource like steelhead can continually be mismanaged. Sickening for those of us who live for that fishery.

[Jack Straw]

Dave, any good management plan begins with a legitimate stock assessment. The numbers of wild fish returning to the C-V is unknown & probably at critical levels. The hatchery experiment has failed & continues to put wild populations at risk. The sooner the steelhead hatchery program on the C-V is eliminated, the better. The removal of 80 mature adults from the C-V to produce hatchery clones when we have NO IDEA of how many  wild fish are returning is irresponsible management at best.

[silver ghost]

Dave, any good management plan begins with a legitimate stock assessment. The numbers of wild fish returning to the C-V is unknown & probably at critical levels. The hatchery experiment has failed & continues to put wild populations at risk. The sooner the steelhead hatchery program on the C-V is eliminated, the better. The removal of 80 mature adults from the C-V to produce hatchery clones when we have NO IDEA of how many  wild fish are returning is irresponsible management at best.

I agree with you man, but I don't see them axeing the program anytime soon. I would be in favour of a stock assessment though, and would even volunteer to go out there and count [somehow] myself.

actually...come to think of it how could you do a steelhead stock assessment, given that the fish don't die after spawning  hmmm....anyone know?