To Canadian Policy Makers
Subject: 2028 will be too late: The unsustainable Southeast Alaskan Fishery needs to be pushed back NOW to save BC’s steelhead and salmon
Message: Dear Honourable Ministers,
Wild Salmon and Steelhead are important to me. We had a deal with Alaska — The Canada-US Pacific Salmon Treaty was supposed to prevent overfishing on BC’s northern coast. Instead, Alaskan boats are intercepting thousands upon thousands of Canadian steelhead and salmon as bycatch — and throwing them back dead.
We made sacrifices — we closed fisheries and factory fish farms to conserve BC salmon, and used tax dollars to make historic investments in wild steelhead and salmon restoration. We closed catch and release steelhead fishing on the Skeena in 2021 even though we knew our local tourist economy would suffer. But in 2021, Alaskan fishermen caught or killed an estimated 2.1 million endangered wild fish including 1 in 3 of all Skeena-bound steelhead. 2023 could be much worse …
In 2021 alone, 160,000 Chinook were intercepted before they could return to southern waters — 160,000 fish that are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. It’s time to act on Magistrate Peterson’s recommendation to shut down the Southeast Alaskan fishery. The Alaskan fishery is starving the Southern Resident killer whale population and destroying future generations of Chinook in BC, Washington and Oregon rivers.
All the while, Alaskan fish is marketed as ‘certified sustainable wild caught Alaskan Chinook’. It’s not remotely sustainable. And most of it isn’t even Alaskan— it’s BC, Washington and Oregon fish.
What are we going to do about this existential threat? Here are just four action items I’d like you to look at:
Push the District 104 net fishery back to where only Alaska-origin stocks are targeted.
Reduce the catch in other Southeast Alaska salmon fisheries to levels that do not contribute to overfishing of Canadian-origin steelhead and salmon.
Insist on catch reporting for all species, with independent verification — the same as Canada.
Require fishers to release bycatch species back to the water immediately, with the “least potential harm,” and implement sorting practices that enable live release, consistent with BC fisheries.
It’s shocking to me that Alaskan fishers are throwing tens of thousands of dead BC fish overboard every year. Because they don’t keep a tally of BC-origin steelhead, or pink, coho and chum salmon, the numbers could be in the millions — we just don’t know. Doesn’t that worry you?
We’ve come so far as a province to protect wild steelhead and salmon. And now it’s going to waste. First Nations are running low on their essential food. Endangered Southern Resident killer whales, bears and other wildlife depend on wild fish to survive.
Now is the time for The Government of Canada to insist that Alaska renegotiate the Pacific Salmon Treaty. Please don’t wait until 2028 to take action — I’m afraid that it will be too late and we may see the destruction of the wild fish ecosystem in BC in our generation.
Sincerely,
[your name will go here]