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A mid-August decision to limit pink salmon fishing to catch-and-release only on the Squamish River should have happened much earlier, say local environmentalists.
"We're watching the extinction of Pacific salmon, but our regulating bodies aren't doing the assessments or collecting the data needed to prove it," said Francesca Knight, president of the Squamish River Watershed Society.
"Our pink fisheries have been struggling since 2015, and as predicted, this year's run has been a disaster." |
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Knight, along with other Squamish-based conservationists, biologists, and fishermen, say officials from Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) are making "risky" fish management decisions without assessing local salmon populations. And local businesses and ecosystems are paying the price.
'We can't be there to assess every stream in the province'
Under DFO's current system, management decisions in the Squamish River and its tributaries are influenced by "limited" spawning counts, and input from the Squamish-Lillooet Sport Fish Advisory Board, said Brian Allan, a resource management coordinator at DFO.
"You need a lot of information to measure a fish stock, and we don't have the resources necessary. We do our best to work with people on the ground and listen to their recommendations, but we can't be there to assess every stream in the province," he added. |
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