Low salmon returns cause grizzly tragedy

In 2004 the B.C. government estimated that there were 186 grizzlies in the Knight-Bute Inlet region.

Grizzly bears in the Broughton Archipelago are starving  due to collapsing pink salmon runs in the Glendale River. Tourism operators report that the bears are turning over rocks looking for snails and tiny eels to eat at a time when they need to be gorging on spawning salmon in order to survive the long winter.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) is estimating that only 10,000-12,000 pink salmon will return to spawn in the Glendale this year, a drastic drop from the last even-year cycle of an estimated 182,000. The runs have peaked so although more salmon could appear this fall, there will not be a great number of them.

As a result the local grizzly populations  of the Broughton Archipelago may plummet. The lack of salmon for the bears is catastrophic at this time of year when they should be filling up on the high protein fish in order to put on enough fat before hibernation. Undernourished cubs may not survive the winter. Pregnant females will not be able to sustain their unborn cubs throughout hibernation and will likely miscarry; starving adult males have been known to eat grizzly cubs.

	Sea lice from open net cage salmon farms are killing B.C.’s out migrating juvenile salmon causing the coastal ecosystem to unravel. Write B.C. Finance Minister Colin Hansen and urge the government to: enact emergency interim measures to save wild salmon invest immediately in the development of closed containment technology devise a transition plan to move salmon farms off the wild salmon migration routes and into closed tanks

Although there are many reasons that salmon returns are down, much of the problem in the Broughton is due to the sea lice that proliferate on the region’s many salmon farms. A high concentration of B.C.'s 100 active salmon farms are clustered in the archipelago’s sheltered inlets fed by wild salmon rivers. Juvenile salmon migrating out to the ocean from their birth streams are obliged to run a gauntlet through the sea lice, disease outbreaks and contaminants that accumulate in and around the open net cage farms.

Reports in peer reviewed scientific journals have found that as many as 97 percent of the juvenile wild salmon that pass through the Broughton die as a direct result of the farms’ parasites. As night follows day, the number of returning salmon to the Broughton has plummeted. A study published in the esteemed journal Science estimates pink salmon in the Broughton may be extinct within four years if nothing is done to address the impacts of the industrial fish farms.

Returns the lowest in 25 years

Craig Murray, owner of Nimmo Bay Resort, has fished and flown over the rivers of the Broughton for the past 25 years and said this is the poorest year he has ever seen for salmon returns.

”In B.C. both levels of government refuse to accept that salmon farms, as they currently operate, are causing irreparable damage to our wild salmon stocks,” Murray said. “Effectively fallowing farms and closed containment of the Atlantic salmon are solutions that should be in place now.”

Tour operators take their customers to the Glendale River where they are assured of seeing grizzlies. Over the past several years grizzly bears have learned to gather at the Glendale because of the high number of salmon returning to the river’s artificial spawning channel.

Open larger image of map.

DFO’s method of counting returning salmon in a few ‘indicator rivers’ like the Glendale helps the department mask the abysmal returns to dozens of smaller salmon bearing streams in the Broughton Archipelago.

As the Broughton’s wild salmon runs collapse, DFO has “managed” the numbers to provide false assurances to concerned British Columbians that all is well and sea lice are not having a devastating impact. DFO counts the salmon returning to five “indicator” streams in the Broughton (Glendale, Wakeman, Kakweikan, Kingcome and Ahnuhati) and uses the numbers to indicate the overall health of salmon populations in the area. Up to 85 percent of the total returns are generally from one river – the Glendale. This practice of using cumulative data from indicator rivers for the area as a whole has helped the federal department to mask the decline of Broughton stocks in other unaltered streams near salmon farms that have already lost most of their wild salmon. Now even their ‘indicator’ stocks are crashing.

Closed containment can save more than wild salmon

If salmon farms were mandated to  switch from open net-cages to closed containment systems the whole ecosystem would benefit.

Salmon feed more than grizzly bears; they are the life blood of the entire rainforest. Eagles, coastal wolves and myriad insects depend on the wild salmon for survival. Even the ancient cedar and spruce depend on salmon. Dr. Tom Reimchen, a biologist at the University of Victoria, has found that spawning salmon pulled from the rivers and streams by bears and other predators feed the forest. The bears drag their high protein prey into the woods to dine. There, uneaten salmon carcases decompose, fertilizing the trees and fuelling the circle of life. But this year the circle is running out of fuel.

Dean Wyatt, owner of Knight Inlet Lodge located in Glendale Cove, is concerned that whole coastal valleys are losing wildlife due to the lack of salmon. “If the wildlife go, then so does the $1.4 billion nature based tourism industry,” said Wyatt.