Salmon runs, global warming as clear as mud
Fish farms can no longer be linked to sockeye’s demise
By Jon Ferry, The Province, September 8, 2010 [here]
Yesterday’s closure of the Fraser River sockeye fishery — along with accusations that it’s premature and that too many salmon have been spared — is a tad ironic, to say the least.
For years, we’ve been led to believe by wild-eyed environmentalists and their media cheerleaders that the science is clear, that wild salmon on our coast are on the verge of extinction and that sea lice and disease from fish farms are to blame.
Last November, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced an inquiry into the apparent decline in
B.C. sockeye stocks, high-profile activist Alexandra Morton was quoted as saying “our sockeye are at the moment of no return.”
The sockeye, however, have returned. In full force.
This year’s Fraser River run, numbering a projected 34 million fish, is being hailed as the largest since 1913.
Bargain-hunters have been scooping up freezers-full of fish from off the Steveston dock. And grizzled commercial fishermen have been complaining there are scads of sockeye still to be netted.
So perhaps it’s time the Harper-ordered inquiry, now being conducted by Justice Bruce Cohen, changed its mandate from one of investigating the decline in B.C. salmon stocks to probing the increase in them, instead. … [more]