Salmon crisis once again hit the coast from California all the way up to Vancouver and beyond which poses great threat to the ecology and culture of the area. It is found that the fish simply aren’t swimming back in the hoped-for numbers and the shortages are historic. For the first time in 150 years California and Oregon shut down the $300-million chinook salmon fishery.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has told 94 native bands that they will have to ration their catch of Fraser River sockeye this year for the first time. Even there will be no commercial sockeye fishery happen this year on the Fraser. Alex Rose, a local writer who once worked in DFO as a communications strategist, told that after two years of researching, talking to the world’s fisheries experts, the Pacific salmon fishery may very well go the way of the Grand Banks cod.
But it is hard to believe that shrinking salmon fishery has some link with the East Coast cod collapse. It is said that salmon is an indicator species because of their unique life cycle and unique geographic reach: they are born in rivers, go to the ocean for years and return to the same riverbed where they were hatched to spawn, and die. It is also observed that the West Coast salmon crisis is a combination of habitat destruction and climate change, now believed by many scientists to be affecting ocean and river temperatures, are devastating the species.
