Lots more in the papers today on what the Globe calls “the near total collapse of the Fraser River sockeye run.”
Quick background for non-British Columbians: We BCers, though no longer hewers of wood and wrestlers of bears, still love the outdoors for the most part, and the noble salmon—especially the delicious sockeye—are a keystone in the natural archway of our wilderness. (We have salmon art, for God’s sake. Do you have fish art where you live? Probably not.) There used to be countless millions of salmon swimming up the Fraser River alone in spawning season. It’s a big river, and you could practically walk across their backs to the other shore there were so many. The bigness of the river also means that the tributaries of the Fraser extend deep into the hinterland, formerly providing plenty of fishy food not only to wildlife on the coast, but in the interior as well. It was an almost Edenic food supply: free, abundant, fairly easy to collect, and self-renewing. Salmon, or “river chicken,” as it is sometimes lovingly called by local yokels, isn’t just something we toss on the barbecue; it’s part of our culture and heritage.
So now, after decades of declining numbers, comes the news that this government-managed fishery has catastrophically collapsed. 1.7 million sockeye will return this year instead of the predicted 10.6 to 13 million. And no one knows why. There are theories, but, you know, it’s a big ocean. It isn’t easy to count and follow fish.
Environmentalists, government bureaucrats, and various interested groups such as salmon farmers and fishermen, have been squabbling over conservation/exploitation issues for years. The usual response given by opponents of the environmentalists has been that their concerns are “alarmist.” It’s a familiar, paternalistic refrain: serious people, they seem to be saving, who have to deal with serious, practical issues, needn’t take these environmentalists seriously.
Well, now the alarm bells are ringing about as loudly as they possibly could be. It’s a regular Seussian band of bells, clangers, clappers and cymbals—enough to wake the dead, or the merely bureaucratic. The question is, what will change, if anything, now that opponents of a truly conservative conservation strategy no longer have the “alarmist” card to play?
