Pacific Fisheries Council strongly advises Fisheries Department to save Strait of Georgia salmon using ecosystem approach

(June 21, 2007) The Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council (www.fish.bc.ca) today issued an advisory to the federal department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) strongly urging them to adpot an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries conservation, and to start with the Strait of Georgia

"DFO has signaled some intention to adopting an ecosystem management approach to conservation, but the time has come to put that idea into practice," says Paul LeBlond, chair of the Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council (PFRCC). "The traditional approach to fisheries conservation, considering each species alone in an unchanging sea, needs to give way to an ecosystem-based approach that takes into account the role of environmental conditions and interactions with other species in determining fishing plans and conservation strategies."

PFRCC is strongly suggesting that DFO begin this approach with the Strait of Georgia, because of the availability of data and background information on aquatic life and environmental conditions, and because the Strait of Georgia is highly visible and significant to British Columbians. Local chinook and coho salmon populations continue to be severelly depleted, in spite of strict fishing restrictions and hatchery production. Reasons suggested for the depletion include warmer waters, an abundance of salmon eating seal, competition with other species - all examples of physical or biological impacts of the ecosystem on salmon stocks.

Today's advisory, entitled "An Ecosystem-Based Approach to Managing Salmon in the Strait of Georgia" follows on a technical workshop held by the PFRCC in Vancouver on March 15, 2007. Further details are available on the Council's website at www.fish.bc.ca.

"The inability to reverse these persistent low abundances raises the question of what is wrong with traditional fisheries management regime that is strict but seemingly ineffetive in many instances," added LeBlond.

The Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council was created in 1998 to serve as a source of information to the public and advvice to governments on wild Pacific salmon and steelhead and their ocean and freshwater habitats.

Contact:

Carla Shore

C-Shore Communications Inc.

P: 604-731-0975

carla@shore.ca

Download a copy of the advisory below.