What Happens When There is No Wild Salmon?

October 14, 2018

What Happens When There is No Wild Salmon?

Wild salmon have been central to First Nations culture, economy and history for thousands of years. The Namgis (Kwakwaka’wakw) origin story has people being turned into a river: “There you will be a river for as long as the days dawn in the world, and you will be full of salmon so that your descendants may never starve.” For many years this was the reality. When salmon was plentiful, for example, Alert Bay on Cormorant Island was a vibrant fishing center with close to 1,000 fishing boats registered (before the 1970s). No more, as our visit to Alert Bay made clear. It’s a very sleepy town with a mostly dead-looking main street along the bay.

Salmon depletion is a huge problem, and the main causes seem to be overfishing, climate change and offshore fish farming of atlantic salmon which Norwegian companies are doing to a great extent off the BC coast. The Namgis are angry and organizing, incensed not only because they believe that parasites and pathogens, such as piscine reovirus, can be spread from farmed fish to wild ones, but because some of the fish farms are situated in their historic offshore territory. And they have mobilized to make it happen, including launching occupations of the fish farms, bringing legal claims and lobbying the BC government along with other First Nations. One occupation lasted 100 days. Wei Wa Kum First Nation, whose territory we visited at Campbell River, has identified sea lice, a parasite spread from fish farming to wild salmon, as another serious problem.

Responding to these and other concerns, the BC government is insisting that the farms must show that their operations have no adverse effects on wild salmon, or they will lose their farming licenses. The state of Washington has already legislated the phasing out of Atlantic salmon marine farming by 2022.

At Campbell River, we learned of another hopeful government response to these problems. Our visit coincided with the spawning season for chinook and coho salmon. Staying right by the Quinsam River we were lucky enough to see plenty of the large salmon swimming upstream to the spawning grounds, from which they were born 4 or more years ago, each to deposit thousands of eggs for another generation. We also toured the Quinsam River Hatchery. Its mission is to try to reverse the decline in salmon populations, and it has played an important role in restoring the salmonid population.

Increasing chinook and other wild salmon populations is not only important for First Nations but also important to the endangered orca whales off the coast of Vancouver Island in the Salish Sea. With the orcas' long-term viability seriously threatened by the decline of chinook salmon stocks, their main source of food, conservationists have added a powerful voice to those of First Nations' peoples.