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Sockeye Salmon - British Columbia Record Run
Sockeye Salmon - British Columbia's Record Run
As fishermen haul in massive loads of sockeye salmon, the official estimate of
this summer’s near-record bounty has been upped to 30 million, the second
increase in four days, deepening one of Canada’s great scientific mysteries. It
is the most sockeye that have returned to British Columbia’s Fraser River in
almost a century, and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans responded
to the new number Friday afternoon by increasing the total allowable catch for
commercial fishermen by more than 60 per cent to 10.2 million sockeye, from 6.2
million on Tuesday.
The bounty is a radical reversal
of a two-decade decline and comes after three years of no commercial fishing at
all of Fraser River sockeye. Last summer was the most fearsome plunge, when only
1.5 million sockeye came back to the Fraser, a fraction of what was expected.
With the spectre of the cod fishery collapse on the East Coast in the early
1990s, B.C.’s disappearing salmon sparked a federal judicial inquiry last fall.
There are many suspects in that disappearance. Warmer ocean water is believed to
have reduced the amount of food for sockeye, and colder water recently might
have helped this year’s massive run. The proliferation of fish farms on B.C.’s
coast has been blamed for spreading sea lice, and other diseases that prey on
young sockeye. Other predators, such as sea lions and seals, have been cited.
This summer’s surprise abundance of sockeye, a rich red salmon, does not herald
a fishery saved. The mystery hasn’t been solved, it’s deepened. The massive
schools of sparkling silver sockeye, bounding through the Georgia Strait and up
the Fraser River, indicates how little Canada really understands about the fish,
part of B.C.’s economy and wilderness heritage.
The judicial inquiry, led by Mr. Justice Bruce Cohen of the B.C. Supreme Court,
will take direct aim at the mystery of the long sockeye decline – including why
scientific predictions have ended up so far off the mark. Evidentiary hearings
start within weeks, with results due next May.
Whatever conclusion the Cohen commission eventually reaches, B.C.’s sockeye
fishermen already have their own: They’re just happy to be on the water.
Sockeye Salmon
Sockeye salmon, also called red salmon or blueback salmon, is an anadromous
species of salmon found in the Northern Pacific Ocean and rivers discharging
into it. There are also completely landlocked populations of the same species,
which are known as the kokanee. Sockeye salmon is the third most common Pacific
salmon species, after pink and chum salmon. The name "sockeye" is believed to be
a folk adaptation of the anglicization of sθə́qəy̓, its name in Halkomelem, the
language of the indigenous people along the lower reaches of the Fraser River.
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