Spawning season is underway on the B.C. coast.
Throughout November, chum and coho salmon are spawning, and according to the Pacific Salmon Foundation’s State of the Salmon report, both species are making a comeback.
“It’s just a really cool opportunity to see these species come back and spawn in your backyard,” said Eric Hertz, foundation analyst. “After these fish have left their natal streams and headed out into the ocean for between two and five years they return to the same areas to spawn and they bring back all of those nutrients that they pick up in the open ocean and return it to local streams.
“It’s a really important marine subsidy for local streams and enhances everything from growth of invertebrates in the stream to even the trees around the stream benefit from the salmon coming back.”
The State of the Salmon report, released in September, gives data on the population of the various species of salmon in different regions of the province.
For east Vancouver Island, covering the north end of the Island to Victoria as well as in the mainland inlets, chinook, chum, coho and pink salmon are making a comeback.
“I think there are some bright spots, especially chinook and coho populations in recent years are doing quite well,” Hertz said. “It points to conditions being quite good for those species in the Salish Sea and Strait of Georgia.”
Chinook have been experiencing a high upward trend in the short term and stability long-term in the region, and while chum experienced a short-term drop, they show a positive long-term trend.
“For chinook specifically, the east coast of the Island is a really good news story. A lot of the fall runs are doing quite well.
The summer populations are still below average though and they require rebuilding. The recovery is not happening across all streams at the moment.”
The same positive trend can’t be said for steelhead and sockeye, which are both showing a long-term decrease.
“It really is a B.C.-wide trend in steelhead showing declines in population sizes, nearly everywhere we look…” he said. “It seems like they may be more sensitive to freshwater impacts than other species and ocean conditions also seem to be important for steelhead.
“The ocean is not particularly favourable for steelhead survival at the moment. Between the freshwater impacts and lower marine survival, populations seem to be doing very poorly through B.C.”
Hertz added there are only a limited number of large sockeye populations in the region, with the largest in Nimpkish in north Island and Sakinaw on the Sunshine Coast, both of which are at risk.
“[Nimpkish] used to have a sizable run in excess of a million fish, but the watershed has been very degraded from years of logging and other impacts so the population is not nearly at that size anymore.”
While overall the region showed a comeback for many species, across the province, two-thirds of species remain below their long-term average, presenting a concerning outlook. The report states that most salmon species appear to be struggling in northern and central regions, but data gaps make it difficult for researchers to know how serious or widespread the issue is.
This includes regions such as the Central Coast, Haida Gwaii and Northern Transboundary. Still, the foundation stated that available data suggests conservation concerns and an “urgent need” to protect the fish.
A recent research article co-written by Hertz shows that monitoring of salmon spawners is in decline across the province. Published in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, the researchers found that almost two-thirds of historically monitored salmon populations have no reported estimates in 2014-2023, creating what the report calls “the worst decade for data since broadscale surveys began in the 1950s.”
Hertz told Black Press Media that this coincided with coast-wide changes to fisheries management to reduce exploitation rates on coho.
“It means we don’t know how populations are doing, it means we don’t know if our recovery efforts are being successful and it means that we are potentially missing opportunities to open fisheries because we’re not even out there seeing if there are populations that are healthy that could sustain a sustainable fishery,” he said.
He said for the situation to change, there needs to be a reallocation of effort within Fisheries and Oceans Canada to prioritize monitoring.
“There has been a lot of money put into Pacific salmon recently but we haven’t seen those dollars flow down to boots on the ground – people in streams monitoring.”
The full State of the Salmon report can be accessed online at http://stateofsalmon.psf.ca/region/East-Vancouver-Island-&-Mainland-Inlets.