We're really touching on two issues here. One I have to point out is that the sockeye, about every two out of four years, is a recreational opportunity. When the commercial fisheries open, recreational fisheries can retain sockeye, but it's not a driving force in most years and in most areas. In terms of the recreational fishery program I don't think that the Fraser sockeye issue is paramount.
In terms of the response to the Cohen commission and sockeye salmon production, more generally, I think most people would say that there has not been a comprehensive response. I think you'll find that many of the independent groups are taking on other responsibilities and taking on some of those roles. Certainly with the Salish Sea marine survival program, our first funders that allowed us to raise $8 million, were the Pacific Salmon Commission's endowment funds. They are under the U.S.-Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty. They contributed $5 million of the $20 million required. We have dedicated some of these resources to understanding the dynamics of sockeye salmon.
As a particular group, we're definitely trying to address some of these things. One of the issues that continues to linger is the potential for interaction with salmon farming in Johnstone Strait. We're also working on that. This year we are implementing sort of a second generation of acoustic arrays, which is a specialized type of tagging program. It's an active tag that you can insert in salmon and then you use passive arrays on the bottom of the ocean. By this we can get direct measures of survival, migration rates, and migration timing around the farms and through the entire ecosystem. There's a lot of money being invested to continue the study of Fraser sockeye, but I think the common answer would be that most people on the west coast would not say there's been a comprehensive response.