Skeena Wild Conservation Trust – Greg Knox – Disappearing Videos

Skeena Fisheries Management of the Future?

Here’s the events that prompted what follows. At mid-day on Friday, September 20 a friend alerted me to a social media post featuring the Executive Director of Skeena Wild Conservation Trust. I called up the post and quickly realized it resulted from a post I had made on a different site several days earlier. The material offered by the ED was replete with errors and half-truths. I prepared a response and attempted to post it on the same site the ED had used. It was screened out somehow and never appeared.

Later the same day a YouTube edition of the same video clip appeared. I prepared a personal response and emailed it to the ED, copied to several of his colleagues who are very familiar with all the issues raised in the video. Every one of those copied has received numerous personal messages from me on these same issues over the past couple of years. The standard response has been consistent – silence. My personal message to all of them on September 20 has been treated similarly.

Shortly before I was poised to publish the message below I called up the offending YouTube piece one more time to ensure I had addressed all the points I intended to in the material that follows. Lo and behold the offending piece had been removed. Try it for yourself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k15sHGXZ3ao Regardless of the film gone, here’s a bit of a fact checking on comments made by the ED originally.

Comment: “Recently there’s been a lot of criticism flying around from people in the sport fishing community about First Nations fisheries, First Nations selective fisheries.”

That statement is obviously in response to material referenced above that I put forward earlier this month. I remind the ED I was not speaking as an angler. I challenge him to offer evidence to the contrary. My focus has been consistent through eight years of blogging, authorship, public speaking engagements, and countless other communications. I am a wild steelhead conservation and wise use advocate. No employer, no sponsors, no requests for donations, no organization and membership to front for me or hide behind, just one little voice consistently ignored and avoided by the ED.

Comment: “And so what we need in all fisheries is better monitoring enforcement, the need to be more selective and reduce impacts on weaker salmon and steelhead populations, and the need for better information about the impacts from different fisheries.”

There has never been anything approaching a level playing field with respect to enforcement of the various fisheries sectors. Show us any evidence of a First Nations fisher being charged and convicted of a fishery related offence. Show us any evidence of commercial fishers in the Skeena approaches being charged for non-compliance with conditions of license that specify such practices as short sets with short nets, operational recovery boxes, steelhead catch reporting and even mandatory release of non-target species. There is infinitely more enforcement of everything to do with recreational fishers because that’s easy. We need better information? On what? There is an overwhelming abundance of scientific literature supporting the efficacy of single barbless hook, artificial lure only, catch and release regulations applied to recreational fisheries. Where is there anything comparable for those other two sectors? Other than outright closure or a limited entry system, what is it you suggest should be imposed on the recreational fishery that would be more selective and protective of weaker salmon and steelhead populations than the regulations already in place? I find it curious that I have sent the ED and his NGO colleagues numerous personal messages over the past couple of years. Those were recommending he/they needed to broaden their focus to issues beyond “Alaska’s dirty secret” and recognize the growing impact of First Nations fisheries and the ever more efficient recreational fishery. Not one of those messages received a reply. But now we have the primary recipient of those messages claiming those fisheries need better information about their impacts!

Comment: “So over the past several years, we’ve seen real leadership from First Nations in expanding selective fisheries in both the Skeena and Nass watersheds and other places on the BC coast. And this is really benefiting their communities. It’s helping feed their communities, and it’s minimizing impacts on weaker salmon and steelhead populations. Some examples in the Skeena are the Lax Kw’alaams fish trap at the mouth of the Skeena, the Kitsumkalum fish wheel in hells Canyon near Terrace, the Kitselas fish wheel in Kitselas Canyon, the Gtixan beach seining fishery in the mid-Skeena, the Wet’suwet’en dip net fishery in Witset Canyon, and the beach Seine and Seine boat fishery by Lake Babine Nation in Babine Lake in the Nass Watershed. The Nisga’a have several fish wheels in the lower Nass, the Gitanyow have a fish wheel in the mid Nass, the Gitanyow have a dip net fishery in the Meziadin river and the Gitanyow have a seine fishery in Meziadin Lake.”

Let’s examine these selective fisheries, beginning with the Lax Kw’alaams fish trap. That would be another of the BC Salmon Restoration and Innovation funded projects that has a foreign conservation organization (Washington State based Wild Fish Conservancy) leading a $2M+ project in partnership with the Lax Kw’alaams Business Development Corporation and a sprinkling of the Skeena Fisheries Commission for added political window dressing. It’s evolution is at least five years old and sold on the promise of a carbon copy of the WFC’s prototype pound trap on the lower Columbia River that has been in operation for 8 or 9 years. The biggest difference is the sequentially impounded Columbia that creates a lake environment relative to the free-flowing Skeena that rises and falls dramatically in response to spring and early summer snowmelt and late summer and fall freshets. Large tidal fluctuations are an added complication for a Skeena trap. I note also, the Columbia trap has yet to replace any gill nets.

What wasn’t acknowledged by Skeena Wild’s ED were the intentions of its proponents. All that was ever made public was the announcement by DFO’s minister, the Honourable Diane Lebouthillier, and the BC Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship, the Honourable Nathan Cullen on December 14, 2023. That was the attention grabber that prompted me to contact Cullen’s own Ministry officials in their Smithers office at the epicenter of the Skeena steelhead universe. Cullen can’t be oblivious to Skeena steelhead issues. He lives in lives Smithers. When I asked what level of involvement Cullen’s staff had, the response from his senior Ministry official was “thanks for the heads up”. He didn’t even know his own Minister had announced a mega-project that would see more than $2M spent in his own back yard on fish and fisheries directly related to his mandate.

I also wrote the WFC’s lead on the Skeena pound trap asking for a few details about the project. That inquiry was also sent immediately following the December 14, 2023 news conference. It never received a reply. Details of the project finally emerged in a comprehensive article published in a relatively obscure Prince Rupert newspaper (The North Coast Review) on January 2, 2024. This is the sort of detail that should have been distributed to qualified experts for comment months or even years before the outcome was carved in stone. https://northcoastreview.blogspot.com/2024/01/lax-kwalaams-outline-fish-trap-plans.html

The first thing that jumps from the description is the commitment to operate the trap for six weeks beginning September 15. In part (whole?) the intention is to compare trap catches with the DFO test fishery that operates slightly downstream. The project proponents and the Skeena Wild ED actively supporting it obviously never reviewed the test fishery operation. It terminates on or before September 25 because there is nothing left to catch. Chinook and sockeye, the two preferred species for First Nations, are long over. Chum and pink salmon returns are also long over. The only thing left is a handful of the late returning coho endemic to the lower Skeena tributaries and less than 5% of the annual steelhead return that shows up in the first few days of September in some years. How could this have escaped the advisors of the people who signed a cheque for more than $2M of Canadian taxpayer dollars, except deliberately? On September 15 I asked the WFC project lead for an update on the status of the project. Once again, he did not respond. I wonder if he and his supporters are paying any attention to the lower Skeena hydrograph that reveals the river discharge increased five-fold in the 48 hours between September 22 and 24? The site where those discharge estimates are made does not include large tributaries that enter the Skeena downstream (e.g. Zymoetz, Kitsumkalum, Lakelse), plus a half dozen other less well-known tributaries between Terrace and the pound trap site.

To be clear, what the pound trap project entails is a large commercial fishery conducted at the site. More importantly, that involves the equivalent of a state-of-the-art genetics lab to determine which of the numerous threatened stocks of wild Skeena sockeye are present and need to be extracted from the overwhelming abundance of the single enhanced stock of sockeye originating from the Babine Lake spawning channels. There is no mention of the fact those fish, if and when released in condition that does not impede their migration, will still encounter all the same upstream in-river fisheries their threatened predecessors have. Even if the trap could be installed and operated successfully beyond the wildest imaginings of its proponents, wouldn’t it have been more logical and defensible to secure iron clad agreements with all the upstream harvesters before spending more than $2M of taxpayer dollars on a poorly described experiment? Why would the acknowledged government fisheries managers not be involved? The trap may be a significant source of revenue for an American NGO as well as a vote getter for federal and provincial ministers desperate to be seen to be facilitating reconciliation with fish and fisheries management as the currency but it’s decades away from ever being an integrated fisheries management tool.

Next in line for the selective fisheries projects endorsed by Skeena Wild’s ED offered as solutions to century old fisheries management ills was the Nass fish wheels. Bad analogy. The Nass is primarily a one First Nation watershed. It is physically suited to operate multiple wheels in a downstream to upstream series that affords a unique opportunity for mark/recapture style processes that produce reliable species-specific data. The fact that the long standing and highly experienced environmental consulting firm, LGL Limited, has played a strategic role in facilitating the Nass program and training the Nisga’a people who are now responsible for escapes those who speak only to the end result of 30 or more years of that input. (Someone might want to ask what the cost has been?)

The Hells Canyon and Kitselas fish wheels are certainly useful and welcome additions to the Skeena fisheries scenario. The important long-standing question continues to be avoided, however. Are those wheels in replacement of gill nets or in addition to them? If anyone thinks it’s the former, they might want to know that the much-publicized YouTube video featuring the Kitselas wheel and prominent supporters (the ED of Skeena Wild, the President of the Steelhead Society of BC and a Director of the BC Federation of Fly Fishers) didn’t tell the full story.

Almost immediately following the appearance of the video, the fish wheel was removed. In its place was a very long gill net that was fishing continuously until the recent high water terminated all such opportunity. The cork line of that net was reported to be almost invisible due to the weight of dead fish. The gill net presence was brought to the attention of the three YouTube appearing supporters. The only response came from the BCFFF Director who intended to consult DFO’s fisheries officers to obtain whatever report, if any, they had placed on file. Silence ever since. There is zero chance that net was catching anything but steelhead and perhaps an occasional coho.

Gitxsan beach seines in the middle Skeena? How about some reporting of what conditions were attached to that fishing? Why not satisfy the concerns that obviously exist about catch reporting by employing third party observers rather than waiting until the usual December meeting hosted by DFO in Prince Rupert to see what passes as a report? Once again, that fishing was beyond anything ever authorized previously. It was not in replacement of any gill nets. To suggest otherwise is pure deception.

Witset is another example of selective fishing offered up by Skeena Wild’s ED. How far do we want to stretch that term? Yes, there was a fishery for pink salmon there this summer. Fish that have never been of any interest as food or commercial items at that site were dip netted out of the mouth of the fishway, sent to a commercial meat processor in Smithers where they were filleted, smoked and vacuum sealed for roadside sales at Witset, and perhaps elsewhere. How about the 25-year history of all the other activity involving steelhead? Granted, the Wet’suwet’en don’t kill them, at least not deliberately or very often, but the capture and handling procedures employed in the mark/recapture population estimation process are more than a little disturbing. Even the Pacific Salmon Foundation couldn’t obtain any of the Witset steelhead data beyond 2013 when they were preparing their recently distributed report on the status of wild steelhead in British Columbia. How’s that for collaboration? If anglers handled their steelhead the same way the beach seined and dip netted steelhead are handled at Moricetown Falls, the knives would be out. The Kispiox was closed to angling in August 2024 because elevated water temperature was alleged to be bordering on lethal. Have any of the architects of the Kispiox closure ever examined the history of the Witset undertakings in warm years frequently experienced there? (2024 was cooler than several previous years.)

The Babine Lake fishery for enhanced sockeye is a highly desirable and broadly accepted example of foreword looking Skeena fisheries management. Congratulations to all those who have supported and facilitated it. The Lake Babine First Nation and its colleagues deserve much credit for harvesting surplus spawning channel origin sockeye while avoiding harvest of endangered wild sockeye stocks originating from Babine Lake tributaries sufficiently removed from the spawning channels. The sad part for the Lake Babine people is they are the sixth and furthest upstream First Nation from tidewater. I wish them every success in securing a firm, long-term arrangement with the other five FNs depleting those same endangered fish before they ever get home. Skeena Wild ED’s inclusion of the Meziadin Lake scenario as something comparable is totally inappropriate. There is a long and very well recorded history of the Gitanyow harvesting sockeye in that system using dip nets at the falls downstream from the lake, nowhere else. Now we have a full-blown commercial fishery with shiny new vessels and specifically adapted gear harvesting wild fish the Gitanyow had nothing to do with producing. And the general public is denied access to the only available boat launch in a public park, allegedly due to grizzly bear concerns, while a commercial fishery proceeds unhindered. Is that a justifiable model the voting public of British Columbia wants to support and apply elsewhere?

Where does the abandonment of what is supposed to be the responsibility of federal and provincial fisheries management agencies plus the directly connected First Nation(s) get admitted? What is next with respect to Canadian taxpayer dollars being allocated to prominent, supposedly conservation focused foreign organizations? Where is the accountability to the Canadian taxpayers who learn after the fact what their government has obligated them to finance?

R.S. Hooton

September 25, 2024

Editors Note: Just in case you missed who ED is, its Executive Director of Skeena Wild Conservation Trust