The Issue

Fisheries Management

Authority and responsibility within the DFO is highly regionalized, with significant authority delegated from the Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans Canada to the Pacific Region Regional Directory General and the North Coast Area Director and Area Chief. While the Minister is required to approve all Integrated Fisheries Management Plans (IFMP) for salmon, responsibility for developing the IFMP rests largely with the regional and area officials.

The IFMP and in-season management decisions include management targets for steelhead. These targets are made based upon an exploitation-based formula, or what percentage of steelhead is it permissible for the commercial industry to catch or kill as a by-product of its commercial salmon fishery. This methodology and formula was negotiated in the early 1990s between the federal and provincial governments and key commercial, sport fishing and First Nations stakeholders. Since that time, with the exception of increasing the aggregate percentage of steelhead that can be killed in a given year, this methodology and formula have not been revisited.

In 2002, steelhead were declared to be a prohibited species by the DFO. In theory, this requires commercial fishers to release unharmed any steelhead caught as incidental by-catch. This new status was not accompanied by any change to the exploitation-based model. This means, despite a requirement to release all steelhead, commercial fishers are permitted to kill up to a pre-determined percentage of steelhead incidental to their commercial fishing operations.

The NCSA believes that the existing management model is drastcally underestimating steelhead mortality rates by the commercial fleet. While the DFO has consistently met the management targets under the existing model, they are using unrealistically high compliance rates for “selective” fishing methods. Furthermore, their associated mortality rates are nearly half of what has been documented by scientific studies and technical reports. We need an independant science review of the model.

The current management model permits commerical salmon fishers to catch a pre-determined percentage of steelhead as incidental by-catch to the commercial salmon fishery, regardless of the health of the run or specific stocks with the run in a given year. Continued use of this out-dated model does not properly address the present and future realities of the Skeena mixed-stock fisheries.