Numbers of coho salmon have declined in recent years, leading to concern about the fish's extinction. The Wilderness Committee and The Fish for Life Foundation propose drastic measures to increase numbers of salmon returning to spawn and to decrease commercial fishing.

Everyone's help needed to save Wild Coho Salmon Miracle

Wilderness Committee Educational Report Vol.17 - No.04 Spring/Summer 1998

Here are the key points of our proposed save-the-coho plan:

Chinook

Chinook - Oncorhynchus tschawytscha

The largest of the salmon, chinooks, or springs as they are commonly called, average between 14 and 18 kg in weight. But there are record chinooks weighing as much as 56 kg. Chinooks are the longest living salmon and have the most varied life history. They reach maturity sometime between three and seven years. Most are four to five years old when they return to spawn. Although most make their spawning migration in the spring or fall, they can be found heading for their upstream spawning grounds almost any month of the year. Preferring major rivers for spawning, some migrate more than 1600 km. Most young chinook fry go to sea soon after hatching, but some remain one or two years in lake or rivers before swimming downstream to salt water.

Chum salmon

Chum salmon - Oncorhynchus keta

The last of the Pacific salmon to enter fresh water each year, chum (sometimes called dog salmon) arrive in coastal streams in the late fall although there are some runs in northern BC as early as July. Chum do not usually travel far inland to spawn, the exception being the Yukon River chum, which travel 3000 km upstream to spawn. Like pink salmon fry, chum start for the sea almost as soon as they emerge from the gravel. The chum reaches maturity in three or four years, weighing 3.5 to 4.5 kg.

Steelhead trout

Steelhead trout - Salmo gairneri

More closely related to the Atlantic salmon than to the five Pacific species, the steelhead, like their Atlantic relatives, do not always die immediately after spawning: some survive to return to the sea. Some steelhead individuals have been known to spawn three times. The fry live in the spawning stream for one or two years before migrating to the ocean. They return to spawn in their third, fourth or fifth year of life. The largest steelhead weigh as much as 17 kg.

Coho

Coho - Oncorhynchus kisutch

The most popular "game fish" salmon, coho are fast, strong jumpers and magnificent fighters when caught on a hook. Like the pink and chum, coho rarely travel far inland to spawn, preferring coastal creeks close to the ocean. Among the exceptions are those that spawn in the Skeena and Thompson headwaters. Next to the pink, the coho probably has the simplest life history: one year in the nursery stream, two years in salt water. A few coho spend three years in the ocean, but these are the exceptions. By the time they return to spawn, they weight 4.5 to 6.5 kg.

Pink

Pink - Oncorhynchus gorbuscha

The smallest of the Pacific salmon, the pink lives only two years. They have the simplest and least varied life cycle. Pink salmon always spawn as two- year-olds in the fall. They utilize both large and small river systems. When the young hatch and emerge from the gravel the following spring, they immediately proceed downstream to the sea. Their growth is rapid during their year-and-a-half in the ocean. Mature pink average 2 kg.

Sockeye

Sockeye - Oncorhynchus nerka

Historically sockeye is the most valued salmon because of its dark red, oil- rich flesh and its retention of good colour and flavour under most storage conditions. Sockeye spawn in streams with lakes in their watersheds. The young fry spend from one to three years in a lake before migrating to sea. In their third year at sea sockeye begin to sexually mature and between this year and three years later, they return to their birth stream to spawn. Four-year-old sockeye average 3 kg. Older ones often reach 5.5 kg.

SPORTS FISHERY

  • We totally back federal Fisheries Minister Anderson's announced "no directed sports fishery for coho". But the catch-and-release fishery now being practised will still lead to coho mortalities. Observers are needed immediately in the sport fishery to save the coho. There is no scientific data to show that coho released repeatedly from sports tackle can be successful spawners. In fact many scientific studies show that the DFO estimates of the survival rate of fish "caught and released" are far too optimistic.
  • All sport fishers should be made aware of the crime they are committing if they secretly catch-and-release coho in 1998. True sport fishermen in the Roderick Haig-Brown conservation tradition are not going fishing anywhere where there is any chance of by-catching coho in 1998.
  • At a minimum, we need a scientifically defensible observer program for at least 25 per cent of charter boat vessels over 20 feet long in every major fishing area plus extensive dockside surveys in all major sportfishing regions, including rivers.
  • Accurate creel (catch) surveys must be expanded to all parts of the coast, especially to the unsurveyed west coast of Vancouver Island.
  • Juan de Fuca and Skeena approaches should be closed during 1998 to protect areas of relative coho abundance.
  • We support full sportfishing access to healthy runs of sockeye, pink and chum salmon in areas and at times when there's the least likelihood of incidentally catching coho.

COMMERCIAL FISHERIES

We recommend:

  • Closure of Juan de Fuca and Skeena approaches to all fishing during coho in-migration times, and a total closure of all fishing for Skeena-bound salmon in 1998--including in Alaska.
  • A new fish boat buy-back program exclusively directed at eliminating all seine boats over 45 feet in length.
  • The maximum allowable seine net size and gillnet net length be cut in half to make selection catch and release survival higher.
  • Establish an observer program for all troll, gillnet and seine operations, with daily delivery and overnight turnaround analysis of data on coho bycatch so closures can be made rapidly.
  • Development of "catch insurance" schemes funded by a percentage hold-back of the catch dollar value to pay fishermen not to fish when conservation demands it.
  • All seine-caught fish brailled (lifted by dip nets into the boat to reduce the mortality of bycatch released fish).
  • Research programs to determine coho mortality following repeated catch and releases from seine, gillnet and troll fisheries.
  • No night fishing.
  • All commercially caught salmon sold must be labelled as "Wild Salmon" to encourage higher prices for the fish.

NATIVE FISHERY

  • Closure of all in-river gillnetting once the coho in-migration has begun.
  • Encouragement of traditional fishing methods, such as partial weirs and dip nets.
  • More research into and development of selective fisheries using beach seines and fish wheels.
  • Allow the existing small fishers and First Nations (not corporate processing companies) first option on terminal selective fisheries licences and jobs that will be replacing existing non-selective fishing efforts.

CANADA/UNITED STATES TREATY ISSUES

  • End the abrasive, nationalistic debate over allocations of industrial catches and focus international negotiations instead on developing a biodiversity treaty and joint efforts to rebuild coho stocks.
  • Be a "conscientious objector" to the salmon war. Each country catching the other's endangered salmon as a negotiating pressure tactic will wipe out wild salmon.
  • Increase community level meetings and co-operation, especially between sport, commercial and native fishers from Canada and the U.S.
  • Vigorous enforcement of the Fisheries Act by the Canadian government to show the U.S. that we are seriously committed to protecting salmon habitat.

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