Aboriginal fishery easy scapegoat for missing fish

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One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish. If only it was so easy to keep an accurate count of British Columbia's salmon stocks. But counting salmon along the Fraser River is more than child's play. An entire industry, one worth $250 million, relies on systems and technologies employed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to calculate the year's catch and escapement. When these technologies fail, the entire resource is put at risk.

And fail they did, it seems, when more than one million of the valuable fish disappeared off the surface of the earth this year, leaving without a trace and without a clue as to their whereabouts. So when Ernie Crey, a spokesman from the Sto:lo Fisheries Authority is quoted as saying "This is not much shy of an environmental catastrophe," he ain't kidding. This could be the worst news for Pacific salmon to float to the surface in a good long while.

What happened to the fish is still a mystery, but speculation by the DFO is that either the fish died because of high water temperatures, or the salmon they thought they were counting have turned out to be a mere spectres.

Not much the DFO can do about Mother Nature's hot flashes over the spring and summer months, but if the problem lay with the DFO's counting mechanism, Canada had better get off the stick and move quickly to rectifying the situation.

A sonar device, called an echo sounder, is said to be the culprit. The device is attached to the bottom of an aluminum boat and crisscrosses the river at a spot near Mission, B.. It is supposed to count the fish that are making their way to spawning grounds and is a first check along the complex water system to ensure the numbers are sufficient to replenish the stock. Further upstream lies another counter, installed as a safety check in 1993. This too failed, reported the DFC.

If the numbers are wrong, as evidenced in the few fish that actually made it up river to spawn, it could mean the allotment of salmon to the U.S. and Canadian commercial fishermen is also wrong. As Canadian commercial fishermen fight to protect their share of the catch, they've become adept at singling out Aboriginal Fisheries as the cause for every hiccup of fish management gone awry over the past three years. The B.C. Fisheries Survival Coalition has been blatant in their condemnation of the Aboriginal Fishing Strategy and claims in no uncertain terms that it is the cause of this year's salmon disaster.

"The primary factor responsible for this disaster is the Native-only commercial fishery and unregulated Native food fishing by certain Native groups in the Lower Fraser River," reads a Sept. 15 press release from the Coalition.

The coalition believes that Native groups, operating outside the limitations set out in the Aboriginal Fishing Strategy and the regulations of the DFO, have poached the fish. How Native fishermen managed to illegally take 1.3 million fish out of the Fraser River without raising the suspicion of authorities is left to the public's imagination.

An internal investigation into the fish mystery has been ordered by the DFO and answers should become available by January. But this limited probe is not enough. A broad-based analysis of the management of the Fraser should be called for. The Aboriginal Fishing Strategy has become an easy target. An investigation would put to rest the ugly accusations of the coalition, and perhaps ensure the harvest of salmon stocks for years to come.