BC Sockeye Salmon Run May Be Worst In 50 Years - Water Too Warm

[hatrack]

"Some B.C. fisheries experts are warning of a major ecological disaster after initial federal fisheries counts showed only a small fraction of the predicted number of sockeye salmon reached their spawning grounds in northern B.C. this summer.

"It looks pretty grim. The returns are really, really bad," said Ken Malloway, co-chair of the B.C. Aboriginal Fisheries Commission, who met with federal Fisheries Minister Geoff Regan in Kamloops on Sunday. "It's probably the worst year I've seen. Some are saying it's the worst in 50 years. Four years from now, there could be little or no fishing going on by anybody."

One count on the Early Stuart run on the Fraser River -- one of the first runs to finish -- found fewer than 10,000 of the expected 90,000 sockeye reached spawning grounds, said Don Radford, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' regional director of fisheries management.

He said it's likely that low water levels and higher-than-normal temperatures in the Fraser River killed fish or made them lethargic and easy to catch by hand from boats. Paul MacGillivray, acting regional director for the DFO, said: "A lot of the fish that passed Mission are not arriving at the spawning ground."

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[AngryAmish]

1. Great Chinook run in Chicago

Everybody is catching but me. *&^$^@#$%@*&!!!!!!!!!