Massive sockeye salmon run expected this year as first fish spotted entering Stuart River
By Frank Luba, The Province July 10, 2014
Fresh sockeye salmon is available — it’s just not from B.C. yet.
A massive run of the tasty fish is expected this year and fishing is currently under way in Alaska, which is the source of the fresh sockeye available locally.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada is conducting test fisheries daily and biologist Jennifer Nener, who is the area director of the Lower Fraser in DFO’s Pacific Region, said there are some fish entering the Stuart River, which is the earliest of the four different sockeye runs.
But Nener still doesn’t have a date on when the commercial fishery in B.C. will open. “Late July, early August would be earliest,” she said.
Nener said the estimates for the sockeye return in the Fraser range from 7.2 million to 72 million.
“It’s a really wide range because we’re coming off the 2010 spawners and that was a very large return,” she said of the four-year life cycle of the fish. That 2010 return was 28.2 million, of which 13.6 million fish were harvested. But it also followed a disastrous 2009 sockeye run of only about 1.5 million fish.
The exact reason for the difference, said Nener, is “one of life’s mysteries.”
“What we’re looking at is more favourable conditions in the marine environment when juveniles return to the sea — which is probably what made the difference between 2009 and 2010,” she said.
The imprecise nature of fish forecasting is why Nener and her colleagues are basing their predictions on a median of 22.8 million — which means there’s a 50-per-cent chance of more fish and an equal chance of there being less. But that’s still plenty of fish.
“It’s a lot of salmon,” said Nener. “It would make people very happy.”
But with the big run comes the concern of bycatch, such as the more-troubled coho salmon. With a maximum harvest set at 65 per cent of the run, Nener said, “some coho will get through that way.”
Coho salmon are also supposed to be released and have better chances of survival from beach seine fisheries and the commercial seine fleet.
Sockeye runs aren’t restricted to the Fraser. The fish are also returning through the Columbia River system to Osoyoos and Skaha lakes, with food, social and ceremonial fisheries by the Okanagan Nation Alliance beginning in July and continuing through to September.
Recreational and economic fisheries are expected to be held in August.
