For Friends of the Skeena

[JayB]

AFAIK this is a year of mostly good news - at least in terms of numbers - when it comes to steelhead, so it brings me no joy to pass along less-than-happy news on the conservation front when it comes to the Skeena River. Having said that, I don't think anyone is in a better position to comment on the state-of-play on the Skeena than Bob Hooton, so I thought there might be a few folks interested in his latest observations:

Who Are You Going to Call? by Bob Hooton – West Coast Outpost

wcoutpost.ca

 

[Paige]

There have been some great theads on SpeyPages over the last month on whats been going on up there.
Sad to say it but, their just as fucked as WA is with Steelhead!

 

[downriver79]

Interesting read. Same thing happens here in N. California. Why spend 2 decades working so hard to undam the Klamath and never address the 44 river miles of gill nets starting from the mouth up to the Trinity Confluence? Doesn't make any sense.

 

[JayB]

Generally feels like "Conservation projects are to tribal harvests as haycheries are to dams "

On positive note - the fish-wheel demos on the Columbia and the Skeena have been successful - or at least that's the impression I get. Very small scale, but a step in the right direction for selective harvest, even if it's only ceremonial at this point.

The use of the fish wheels made me wonder if anyone has ever proposed just letting the tribes use hoop nets to take their quotas at the fish ladders built into the dams? Way closer to traditional practices than gillnetting for at least some tribes but would come with a great deal of annoying scrutiny from those outside the tribe and eliminate the modern harvest traditions.