Central coast chum abundance declined 90 per cent since 1960, new study finds
Declining returns of sockeye, chinook and coho salmon in B.C. have been well-documented, resulting in commissions of inquiry, commercial fishing closures and more than $600 million in federal funding for a Pacific salmon recovery strategy.
“Personally, I haven’t been able to get anybody in DFO to be interested in it. So all of a sudden, out of the blue, we find this paper. I believe the data are correct.” “We’ve had a colossal collapse of the commercial salmon fishery in British Columbia without a word by anybody,” Beamish said. “It’s as serious as the cod collapse on the east coast.”
The researchers compiled a time series of chum salmon escapement data for 25 populations from Pacific Fishery Management Areas six through nine. They also looked at commercial catch data. The paper points to changing marine conditions -- likely climate change driven -- and inter-species competition as contributing factors to the decline.
The study bolsters Beamish’s suspicions that the major cause of mortality in Pacific salmon from southern ranges like B.C. is poor ocean survival, which he believes is the result of B.C. salmon not getting enough food in the first few weeks after they leave fresh water. Shorter lived pink salmon appear to be winning the climate change adaptation race, as their numbers remain generally strong even in years when other species decline.
“While hatchery production has buffered the Bella Coola summer chum population from variable freshwater conditions, several concerns remain for the long-term health of both the Bella Coola summer chum stock, specifically, and Central Coast chum more generally. “In a lot of instances, when hatcheries become the predominant source of salmon production in a watershed, you can get this run-away domestication, or artificial selection regimes, that start to alter the underlying traits that really shape survival,” Atlas told BIV News.
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