432-00070 (Fisheries)

The Government of Canada is committed to protecting and conserving salmon and salmon habitat for future generations. As part of fishery management measures announced to address declines of Fraser River Chinook, the Department has been engaging with First Nations, the Province of BC, and stakeholders to address a broad range of issues that are impacting Chinook stocks. As well, further consultation is also occurring with First Nations and stakeholders through the Department’s existing advisory processes. These issues include:

•   conservation issues, including land and water use issues;

•   fish habitat issues;

•   the role of hatcheries to support rebuilding and the potential for marked fisheries; and,

•   how seals and sea lions may be affecting Chinook salmon.

The Department expects to evaluate recommendations and advice through open and transparent consideration of potential benefits/costs for a range of indicators (e.g., conservation, obligations to First Nations, feasibility/program costs, economic outcomes, etc.). The evaluation and indicators will be discussed with First Nations and stakeholders. Part of this work is expected to assess alternative fisheries management and enhancement approaches, including mark selective fisheries for conservation of Chinook.

Regarding the marking of hatchery origin Chinook and mark selective fisheries designed to target harvest on hatchery origin Chinook with adipose fin clips, there are a range of considerations to be evaluated before a decision is made to proceed with marking of all hatchery origin Chinook production.

Canada and the United States (US) have committed to maintain the integrity of the Coded-Wire Tag (CWT) indicator program for Chinook salmon to support the coast wide Chinook fishery, stock assessment, and international harvest sharing agreements. The program involves tagging juvenile salmon and sampling and recovering CWTs along the west coast of North America with data sharing among all agencies. In Canada, the adipose fin clip (i.e., marked) of Chinook salmon is reserved for hatchery fish implanted with a CWT as part of the Government of Canada’s Pacific Salmon Treaty (PST) obligations. These tagged and marked fish are considered to be representative of harvest effects on unmarked wild fish. Because of this approach, implementing mark selective fisheries and associated adipose fin clipping of all hatchery Chinook including those without a CWT (i.e., mass marking) presents analytical, management, and resource challenges to ensure that Canada continues to deliver on its commitments under the PST.

Work is currently underway to evaluate the utility of Chinook mark selective fisheries as a conservation action to enable a harvest opportunity on marked hatchery fish while minimizing fishing mortality on wild stocks and maintaining reliable stock assessment information. Though mark selective fisheries are meant to allow harvest of relatively abundance hatchery fish, all selective fisheries have an associated mortality on unmarked (wild) fish and in cases where a mark selective fishery is not properly designed, implemented and monitored, this mortality can exceed that of a non-selective fishery. The Department is also conducting a pilot project to mass mark (adipose fin clip) Conuma Hatchery Chinook in conjunction with genetic-based tagging to establish whether genetic techniques, combined with enhanced catch monitoring, will provide the assessment information currently derived from the CWT indicator stock program and determine whether this approach mitigates the impacts of mark selective fisheries.

With respect to the Department purchasing adipose fin-clipping machinery, this capacity building is underway. DFO has received delivery of an Autofish automated clipping and tagging trailer from Northwest Marine Technologies in Washington State, and a second Autofish trailer is expected to be delivered in spring 2021. This machinery will build significantly on DFO’s Salmonid Enhancement Program, partners, and contractors existing capacity to adipose fin clip hatchery produced juvenile fish. The current utilization priority of the Autofish trailers is for PST CWT purposes, but they provide additional flexibility to increase adipose fin clipping should a decision be made to expand the implementation of mark selective fisheries.

The Department continues to implement fishery management measures to provide a high degree of protection to Chinook stocks of conservation concern. While conservation is the highest priority in management of these populations, the Department is continuing to expand pilot opportunities for mark selective fishery retention in areas off major migratory corridors for at risk Chinook in 2020 to maintain fishing opportunities. Further consultation is planned as part of the post-season meetings in the fall of 2020 to support decision making on potential additional marked selective fisheries opportunities supported by additional mass marking of hatchery Chinook in the coming years.