Fraser River the most critically endangered river in B.C: Outdoor council – Vancouver Sun

The combined impacts of habitat destruction, fisheries management and climate change on the Fraser River are at their most damaging point since the Outdoor Recreation Council began compiling data 40 years ago.

Steelhead runs in the largest tributaries of the Fraser are on the brink of extinction. The spawning population in the Thompson watershed is estimated to be 86 fish, according to a recent update from the ministry of forests, lands and natural resources. The Chilcotin watershed has only 39 steelhead likely to spawn.

Non-selective net fishing for salmon is undercutting conservation and habitat restoration efforts intended to save the Fraser River steelhead from blinking out of existence, said Mark Angelo, chairman of the 100,000-member ORC.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) has employed rolling closures of commercial and First Nations salmon fisheries that suspend fishing in areas where most of the steelhead pass as they leave the Pacific Ocean and enter the Fraser River.

The model they used to rationalize opening the pink and chum fisheries this year was the same model that was found to be scientifically unsound during the Species at Risk Act peer review process,said Jesse Zeman, spokesman for the B.C. Wildlife Federation.

The federal government has resisted listing the steelhead under the Species at Risk Act for years, he said. A listing would likely curtail some commercial salmon fishing.

B.C.s environment ministry has been jousting with DFO for a year over changes made to a scientific assessment that could have led to stronger protections for steelhead.

How it happened remains a mystery.

When the BCWF filed a Freedom of Information request to learn how the scientific assessment was altered and by whom, the federal government said it would take 822 years to retrieve the documents. A second, less ambitious request was submitted, which the government now says will take 510 days beyond the statutory limit of 30 days typically allowed for processing such a request.

Land-clearing is leading to habitat destruction in the heart of the lower Fraser River for about 30 other species of fish, Angelo noted in the councils year-end statement.

Clear-cutting for agriculture and development are damaging rearing areas for chinook and other species between Mission and Hope and on mid-river lands such as Herrling, Carey and Strawberry islands.

The council is pushing to have the islands declared an Ecologically Significant Area under a new feature of the federal Fisheries Act.

Seven southern B.C. chinook stocks are considered endangered, four threatened, one is of special concern and one is not at risk, according to the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.

The Big Bar landslide dramatically curtailed access to the upper reaches of the Fraser watershed for struggling runs of chinook and sockeye salmon this year.

The slide created a five-metre waterfall that forced DFO to trap and transport potential spawners below the debris and release them into the river above the slide.

There was a valiant and heroic effort move fish past the slide, said Angelo. The unfortunate reality is that most fish didnt make it through and those that did were already exhausted.

There is a window of about three months before spring freshet during which water levels will be low enough to re-establish a passable corridor for next years spawners, he said.

Rock removal work at the slide site is ongoing, while DFO consults with experts on heavy construction, explosives and the Department of National Defence on ways to remove the remaining rock debris.

These things taken together make the Fraser a critically endangered river, the most critically endangered in B.C. and probably all of Canada, Angelo said.

Mark Angelo, chairman of the Outdoor Recreation Council, looks out over the Fraser River from near the foot of Kerr Street in Vancouver on Monday.Arlen Redekop / PNG

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Fraser River the most critically endangered river in B.C: Outdoor council - Vancouver Sun