For the past three weeks, researchers from Canada and other countries have been test-fishing the North Pacific to find out what’s happening to B.C. salmon out there.
The reports coming back are interesting. Four orcas cruised past the Russian research ship that the expedition is using a few days ago, along with two fin whales. A large chest freezer floated by, as well. Researchers are collecting samples of microplastic and setting nets 50 times during the trip to count and assess fish.
But there’s another level of fascination. It’s revealing that the trip is considered news. Canadian scientists checking what happens to B.C. salmon in Gulf of Alaska is legitimately newsworthy.
The problem is — it shouldn’t be. In 2019, you’d think we’d at least sporadically, if not routinely, be out there getting a grasp of what’s happening to our salmon.
But remarkably, the expedition is unique. This is apparently the first time there’s been a concerted initiative to look, despite decades of mounting concern about the health of salmon.
Almost everyone on the coast knows the familiar riffs about the importance of salmon. It’s the “keystone species,” the iconic symbol of the coast, the beating heart of Indigenous culture.
People have been reciting those lines for ages. Governments have poured large sums into salmon enhancement over the decades, as well. And there has been lots of research and a succession of urgent reports on the state of salmon while they are in B.C. rivers and coastal waters.
But all that work and study and all those poetic reflections about the salmon’s core importance to B.C. hasn’t mitigated the species’ decline.
The existing body of knowledge points some people to the conclusion that the problem is out in the open ocean. Where nobody knows what’s going on.
The organizer of the expedition is the first to admit how big the knowledge gap is.
Dick Beamish is one of the ranking salmon experts in B.C., awarded the Order of Canada for his lifetime of work in the field.
“I like to say to people that after 100 years of research, we know a lot about salmon, but what we need to know most, we mostly don’t know,” he told the Times Colonist at the outset of the trip.
The research will produce specific counts of each different salmon stock for the first time, he said.
It’s telling that Beamish organized the trip himself. Governments pitched in, but he had to scrape up private funding, as well, and rented the Russian ship.
It might be slightly easier to follow up on this kind of work, following the federal-provincial announcement Friday.
Standing dockside at Fisherman’s Wharf, Premier John Horgan and federal Fisheries Minister Jonathan Wilkinson committed $143 million over five years to restore salmon and boost the seafood sector.
Details about the B.C. Salmon Innovation and Restoration Fund are still sketchy. The outline suggests the money will be available to nearly anyone who has any ideas about how to protect the fish.
The wide-open nature of the initial terms of reference for spending all that money hints at how desperate officials are about finding effective ways to save the salmon.
If they knew what they were doing, the money would be much more targeted.
But it’s a substantial sum that will produce at least some benefits. And Ottawa’s $100-million share developed out of relationships Horgan and some cabinet ministers have with Wilkinson, a North Vancouver MP.
Horgan said: “It wasn’t until a West Coaster took over responsibility that salmon got a higher priority in Ottawa.”
Wilkinson has a solid personal relationship with Horgan and some of his cabinet, built on the agreement that salmon need help.
He said: “We need a better understanding of why some returns from open oceans have been so poor in recent years. Something is happening in the North Pacific we need to understand.”
There’s also a huge need for salmon enhancement back in B.C.
It’s a measure of how urgent the situation is that the profound differences on pipelines between the two governments didn’t get in the way of the agreement.
A provincial advisory report last week urged immediate action. The tone was: “Do something. Anything. But do it now.”
It looks as if it’s starting to happen.
