Decimation of the Stuart Sockeye Run Preventable but Predicted

By Ben Meisner

At one time the Sockeye run that used the Stuart River and other tributaries, was so valuable that the Americans poured millions of dollars into a program to ensure that the fishery remained for ever.

The combined efforts of the International Salmon Commission had some very lasting effects. The salmon population rose significantly over the immediate years to a point where, in a few years it was almost open season in an effort to curb the huge migration.

Several things are to blame for the destruction of that fishery which was worth between $170 Million and $500 million in an average year.

The fishery was allowed to be over harvested by the commercial fleet of both the USA and Canada.

A native fishery that in some years (2004 a case in point) saw over 500 nets strung across the Fraser river preventing the fish from making it by the initial point in their upstream journey.

Quite apart from that, an illegal fishery (by both natives and non native alike) continued to take fish along their migration of the Fraser River even before they had turned into the Nechako River.

The Early Stuart Sockeye was dubbed the "Fraser River Turkey".

Ah but there is more. When the fish turn into the Nechako, they are greeted by warm water temperatures and so, in spite of enduring all of the aforementioned problems, they are faced with death from being cooked in the Nechako River.

Who is at fault here? Well back in 1987 the then Conservative government of Brain Mulroney inked a deal whereby Alcan Aluminum was able to extract more water from the Nechako River and divert that water into the Pacific at Kemano. Temperatures rose sharply, but the company had a deal whereby it was only responsible for the temperature of the water to Finmore, fully 15 Kilometers upstream from where the fish turn into the Stuart River.

The water may have been unbearable for the fish below the confluence of the Stuart and the Nechako, but Alcan was not responsible. Their diverting of the river allowed them to sell more power into the US markets with an annual sale value of about $100 million dollars. 

Everyone involved had jerked the chain of the Sockeye fishery and it was about to show. 
In 1989, 384,000 sockeye made their trip back to the Stuart 
Iin 1993, 688,000 
in 1997, 266,000 
in 2001, 170,000. 
In 2004, of the 187,000 who left the ocean only 9,244 fish returned to the beds.  
It is estimated that less than 100,000 fish are getting set to make the death defying run to try and reach their birth place this year.

Using last years figures, that would equate to another disaster in the making. Now this year, the fishery is supposedly closed, and a poor summer could result in more fish making it to the beds, but in order for that to happen, a lot of ducks need to be lined up in order.

If less than 10,000 fish arrive at the spawning beds you can, effectively, write off the Stuart River salmon fishery and the $170 to $500 million dollars that it brings with it. Money that comes without so much as lifting a hand other than to give the fish a chance.

Everyone who has had a part in the destruction of this once unbelievable act of nature, will be able to hang their heads in collective shame, but will that be enough? 

That, is one man's opinion.

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