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[Morty]

Great letter sent to the Federal Minister requesting Marked Selective Fishery.

http://www.mortgagementor.com/downloads/Letter%20from%20BC%20MPs%20to%20Min%20Jordan%20re%202021%20MSF.pdf

I see signatures from lots of Conservative MPs as well as NDP and Green Party but significantly lacking BC Liberals.
Worth remembering.

[RalphH]

best I know the current iteration of the Pacific salmon (2019 to 2028) treaty calls for establishment of mass marking for all chinook salmon released from hatcheries though I am not aware what plans DFO has for this to be  in place other than they reported "the equipment has been ordered".

[Morty]

Thanks to the Avid Anglers program and their participation in collecting data over the past few years there is documented evidence that local areas, outside of the waters that Fraser Chinook normally use, that there are already sufficient numbers of marked Chinook for a recreational fishery. 

[RalphH]

but they are fish from Washington and perhaps areas south. Canada doesn't mass mark chinook. There's also no indication DFO will open areas currently closed on the basis of that information either.

[CohoJake]

but they are fish from Washington and perhaps areas south. Canada doesn't mass mark chinook. There's also no indication DFO will open areas currently closed on the basis of that information either.

In addition, there are several endangered runs of chinook in Washington where for whatever reason the hatchery programs to rebuild those stocks are choosing to fin clip the chinook produced, even though they are trying to manage those stocks to a very low exploitation rate (I'm thinking specifically of the Stillaguamish river, but there are others).  This has caused a lot of tension with sport fishers as it has indirectly led to the almost complete closure of winter chinook fishing in Puget Sound for fear of impacting these endangered fish. Sport anglers argue that these fish shouldn't be clipped so as to reduce the exploitation rate, but the tribal managers of the hatchery program want to keep marking to clearly distinguish these from the few remaining wild-spawned fish.

[Morty]

The main reasons for clipping all the hatchery fish are:
* the hatchery programs prefer to not use hatchery fish again for brood stock so if they receive clipped fish back at the hatchery channel they can easily avoid using them again for brood.
* those fish are intended to be caught: to take Rec. harvest pressure off the wild fish, and so that they don't spawn 'naturally' with wild  fish

By increasing the total number of Chinook there's a greater chance that wild fish will escape predation and harvest by fishers.
I believe that the Washington Chinook closures are intended to take as much pressure as possible off the few wild fish passing at critical times.

[Dave]

I believe that the Washington Chinook closures are intended to take as much pressure as possible off the few wild fish passing at critical times.

Exactly.  And this is what DFO wants to, know it needs to do, but is being media slammed by people who really don't care about wild chinook as long as there are hatchery fish to kill.

[Morty]

Just came out of a 90 minute meeting with: DFO, Guides association members, and some key Avid Anglers.  DFO does have data to support an MSF for some areas where catch records show April to August MSF Chinook fishing will have minimal impact of Chinook stocks of concern.  The data is showing that the 4-2 and 5-2 Fraser stocks are rarely in waters as far south as Georgia Strait before August.  Until then they're either further north, or off WCVI.

[RalphH]

Exactly.  And this is what DFO wants to, know it needs to do, but is being media slammed by people who really don't care about wild chinook as long as there are hatchery fish to kill.

exactly who are these people Dave?

[CohoJake]

FYI, this statement is from Fish Northwest, which is a sportfishing/charter lobbying organization in Washington that is suing over access to salmon (specifically driven by the shutdown of winter chinook fisheries in the San Juan Islands). Please note that I don't completely agree with there reasoning on this, but it does explain some of the tension down here in WA about clipping chinook.

From: https://fishnorthwest.org/no-2022-blackmouth-season/

"As predicted, and based on last night's NOF meeting, it appears a near certainty that the winter blackmouth fishery will again be closed for the majority of Puget Sound in 2022. What the WDFW and the Stillaguamish Tribe point to as the reason for this is a low return of both hatchery and wild fish to the Stillaguamish River. And yet, the Stillaguamish continue to refuse alterations in their hatchery practices which would alleviate massive cuts to recreational winter blackmouth seasons. One of the reasons given for not altering the hatchery practices is sampling errors induced because of the way BC samples their fishery for data. 
We believe if the operators of the Stillaguamish hatchery were truly interested in not crippling the blackmouth fishery, but still desired a hatchery fish program to supplement the wild run, the fish produced would be coded wire tagged and not marked (effectively making every fish that left the Stillaguamish River a "wild" fish). This would ensure the highest accuracy of BC sampling data and would yield the highest return of fish to the Stilly because the entire Puget Sound is a mark selective fishery. The downside is that you would not have as accurate a picture of where Stily fish are being impacted/encountered, but you would still have the ocean, BC, and SE Alaska fisheries, as not all US or Canadian fisheries are mark-selective (meaning they can retain unmarked fish, and those fish can be wanded for a coded wire tag).   
This method is actually employed by other tribes in the region, as they are tagging and not marking their hatchery-produced fish. What’s more, BC samples all hatchery and wild fish caught in their commercial fishery, which means only the recreationally caught fish are not accurately being sampled. It should be pointed out that problems with Canada’s sampling program apply to every other hatchery managed by the tribes, but is not being used by the other tribes to shut down marked selective fisheries. 
However, the Stillaguamish Tribe continues to claim that BC’s methods are undermining the accuracy of their program.  They fail to acknowledge that the percent of Stillaguamish fish caught in Canadian recreational fishing is very small compared to the commercial fishery.  In other words, the sampling errors in the recreational fishery have little impact on the data for the Stillaguamish hatchery program. It appears that the real effect of the Stillaguamish hatchery chinook program was to shut down the winter blackmouth season.
We believe this has been a calculated effort on the part of the Stillaguamish Tribe, and the WDFW is allowing it to continue by not demanding changes to the hatchery practices which would in-turn help keep the state-managed winter blackmouth seasons open. Entire fisheries are being lost over this one issue."

[Morty]

What do they believe the BC recreational fishers should be doing differently?
Has an actual request for a new BC practice been made to DFO Pacific?

There is a fair amount of DNA data being collected by BC Guides and the Avid Anglers and from that data base DFO can pretty closely determine which system or hatchery the fish are from.

[CohoJake]

What do they believe the BC recreational fishers should be doing differently?
Has an actual request for a new BC practice been made to DFO Pacific?

There is a fair amount of DNA data being collected by BC Guides and the Avid Anglers and from that data base DFO can pretty closely determine which system or hatchery the fish are from.

I don't honestly know.  I'm not sure that they are even utilizing all the data that is out there, but if BC does move to mark-selective fisheries, it makes sense for the Stillaguamish tribe to stop marking these chinook.

One thing I was thinking about is, of the hatchery programs that produce chinook in BC, do any of them release the fish as fry or parr before they are big enough to fin clip? It is obviously more expensive to raise fish to a larger size, and I know sometimes unfed fry are released at certain sites, but I'm not sure if this is done for chinook.

[bkk]

BC only releases unfed fry rarely as it is not common practice. When I worked at the hatchery on the Squamish system, we would release unfed fry from chinook that had been screened for Bacterial Kidney Disease. If they came back with a low level of detection then they were deemed suitable for a unfed fry release but not for a yearling smolt program. Only disease free fish were suitable for a smolt program. That being said, very few fish were screened positive so fry releases were quite small. BKD is endemic in the system so released fry with BKD detected was not a major concern. It is generally only an issue when fish are reared under conditions that are more crowded than what happens in the wild.

[jim]

That is quite the sideswipe Dave!
I don't agree.

[Dave]

That is quite the sideswipe Dave!
I don't agree.

Not a sideswipe at all. If you know anything about me at all it's that I advocate for fish, not fishing.
Imo there should be zero fishing or harvest on these endangered Fraser chinook stocks.