Chum salmon are something that I feel very passionately about as well. There was a collapse in 2020 from one year to the next, where approximately 13% of the run returned of the 10-year average. That was a very serious and catastrophic collapse that happened essentially within a one-year cycle. That continues. The chum have not recovered in any way, to my understanding. I think that 19% was the highest of the returns that came across the border.
Chum are often overlooked because they're not traditionally as important a food source. They were harvested a lot for dog teams in the past. I did a lot of work in early 2010 to bring it back as a table food within our community as a local wild protein source.
They're also very, very important, as you mentioned, MP Hanley, to the environment. The thing that often gets overlooked that Chief Pitka brought up, which I really appreciated, is that the entire ecosystem depends upon these salmon coming back—chinook, chum and coho—for their health and well-being. This is a watershed that is estimated to be 25% larger than the province of Alberta or the state of Alaska. It's a massive ecosystem that has depended upon the salmon for its health and well-being forever. Having these species go extinct in such short order will, I'm sure, have devastating knock-on effects for the environment. That's something that causes me great concern for future generations.