Thank you, Chair and committee members for the opportunity to provide information regarding the state of the salmon.
My name is Carol Schmitt, and last fall marked 40 consecutive years that I've raised chinook salmon. I'm a graduate of the BCIT fish wildlife program, having an employment history with provincial fisheries, federal fisheries, Union Carbide fish farms, as a Sea-1 aquafarms hatchery manager and through a Pacific biological station chinook incubation contract. In 1987 we built our privately run Omega Pacific Hatchery, and I raised thousands of adult chinooks and millions of S1 smolts for aquaculture, which included 25 years of growing large chinook in ocean.
In 2009, we raised 600,000 chinook S1 smolts for 13 releases for enhancement projects. Data shows that all S1 releases continue to have higher marine survivals and adult returns than S0 smolts. I've written a paper on freshwater hatchery management practices that could be incorporated to rebuild wild stock of chinook. It was presented at the Aquaculture Canada conference as well as at the Northwest Fish Culture Conference in 2019 among other natural freshwater rearing programs to increase chinook survival.
My address to the committee is regarding the chinook salmon decline. Stocks of chinook salmon continue to decline, with many reduced to fewer than 100 fish. Rebuilding efforts have not increased the stocks because DFO's enhancement smolts released as S0s have low marine survivals and too few adult returns. We've demonstrated a solution to rebuild the chinook numbers. Omega Pacific Hatchery S1 chinook smolts have increased marine survivals, with more adults returning to spawn, and have been shown to effectively rebuild the stock.
Our one example, Phillips River, last fall had 3,500 adults return and is now listed in the 2021 hatchery production plans as “enhancement target met in monitoring phase”. This was largely due to Omega's four release groups of 45,000 S1s, whereas in the previous 25 years of releasing many groups of 100,000 S0s, the adult returns to the river had remained at 200 to 500 fish, which is similar to most streams in DFO's enhancement program, despite 40 years of enhancement releases totalling millions of S0 smolts.
A 50,000-smolt release by Omega Pacific as S1s had 500 to 1,350 adult spawning returns, compared to the S0s for the west coast, which numbered 65 to 100, and for the Salish Sea, where between 200 and 600 adults returned.
My presentation summarizes the results for our smolts compared to S0s. However, because of the short time frame, I will first give you my closing recommendations.
My recommendation is that we establish a chinook special project committee with five to seven members, with myself being one who would help organize, with the authority to implement a plan that prioritizes chinook stocks to be raised as S1s this fall.
Use our hatchery's available space and assess capabilities at other hatcheries to raise S1s using Omega's procedures. Put together a budget and deliverables for five-year and 10-year periods to rebuild chinook stocks, including the Fraser River, Clayoquot Sound, the Nahmint River, Henderson Lake, the Chemainus River and others.
The rationale for this action is that DFO's enhancement program is in its 44th year and continues to release mostly fry or S0s. DFO has our S1 results ongoing for seven years, and over 40 letters from first nations and organizations such as the B.C. Wildlife Federation have been sent to DFO. In the October 2018 House of Commons standing committee, M-154 and recommendation number 16 both request that DFO incorporate the use of S1 and the Omega hatchery to increase chinook populations. Despite this, DFO continues with their S0 program, and Omega's proposed projects have been taken to DFO's facilities to raise fry or S0, leaving Omega in its third year without any enhancement projects. A team of experts is required to ensure that the best actions are taken to rebuild the chinook stocks.
In summary, chinook's future existence is a serious issue. The majority of chinook returns to rivers are too few in number to naturally rebuild. This will not be resolved through mass marking, fishing closures, parental tagging, more studies or continuing to release S0s.
Hatchery intervention and releasing S1 smolt is the most effective tool to increase numbers, so I would recommend a Chinook special projects committee independent of SEP to put in place a plan starting immediately that prioritizes the stocks to effectively increase the numbers, and commencing this fall. I did have a number of slides to show you with some of our results, so I'll just keep on talking until I run out of time.
Have I run out of time?