No.
Evidence of meeting #4 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was work.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #4 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was work.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:25 a.m.
Regional Director, Fisheries Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
No.
10:25 a.m.
Regional Director, Fisheries Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
No, we provide opportunities for wild and marked fish in various fishing locations throughout British Columbia, depending on the abundance of the fish returning.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
10:25 a.m.
Regional Director, Fisheries Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
In the Fraser we put in place last year very restrictive fishing access because of returning stocks' being low, and also, of course, because of the impact of the Big Bar landslide, where we sought to have only catch-release fisheries at the mouth of the Fraser throughout the course of the year.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
10:25 a.m.
Regional Director, Fisheries Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
It was for all fish, actually.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Okay.
The recreational or sports fishers obviously would love to see mass marking of hatchery fish.
10:25 a.m.
Regional Director General, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Actually, I don't believe that's the case.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
I met with them yesterday. That is the case. They were with me in my office.
10:25 a.m.
Regional Director General, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
More selective fishing is what they have told us they want. They're not proposing mass marking. There is a difference between those.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
I understand the difference, but they want to see more opportunities to catch fish. It's a significant industry on the west coast. Maybe they're telling me something quite different from what they're telling you, but they would love to see much greater marking of fish. I did notice a reluctance on your part earlier to go down that path. I'd like to know why.
10:25 a.m.
Regional Director General, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I was trying to explain in just a few short words some of the technical considerations around mark-selective fishing, and particularly mass making. We're going to need to adapt our systems and processes in order to ensure we have the scientific information we need and that we can protect wild salmon.
There are ways to do it and we are looking at those. We're working with the sports industry on that.
My point was simply that we need to be thoughtful and careful about how we proceed down that path.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
10:25 a.m.
Regional Director General, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Their situation is very different down there. They have a higher reliance on hatchery fish. Here we have the wild salmon policy, which prescribes our approach to protect wild salmon. In that way we need to be careful about how many hatchery fish we put into the system, because they do have an impact on those wild returns.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
In Washington state they obviously have as much concern for protecting the wild salmon, yet they have much broader marking of fish than we do on the west coast of B.C. I just don't see why we wouldn't be exploring the experience of Washington state to try to enhance the opportunities for the sports fishers in British Columbia.
10:25 a.m.
Regional Director, Fisheries Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
We do have a pilot program this year at Conuma hatchery on the northwest coast of Vancouver Island, where we'll be having a pilot marking and mark-selective fishery.
10:25 a.m.
Regional Director, Fisheries Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Yes.
March 10th, 2020 / 10:25 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Okay. I'm glad to hear you're open to that.
By the way, let me say you have a really tough job. You have challenges all over the map right now with respect to the west coast fishery, the salmon fishery. I don't envy you your job. If we're asking you tough questions, it's because we care as much as you do about this and we want to make sure we get to the bottom of it.
In getting back to the 60,000 and 80,000 fish, you mentioned there were 140,000 that got past the slide one way or another. You said it might be higher, and you're going to get back to us with those numbers. Do we know how many of them survived?
10:30 a.m.
Regional Director, Fisheries Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
It depends on the stock. I have some numbers in terms of our escapement estimates. For the spring 42s—these are the different chinook stocks we count—about 6,000 was the escapement estimate. For spring 52s, it was 3,500. For summer 52s it was 5,000.
10:30 a.m.
Regional Director, Fisheries Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
These are escapement to the spawning grounds, fish that actually made it to the spawning grounds.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Great.
That doesn't mean they're healthy enough to spawn. Is that right?
10:30 a.m.
Regional Director, Fisheries Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Certainly we don't have a measure of exactly how healthy they are until we see the outmigration.