Peaceful Information Rally Outside Downtown DFO Office on July 6th,2020

VANCOUVER, BC, July 3, 2020 /CNW/ - The Public Fishery Alliance is gravely concerned that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is not taking meaningful measures to recover early Fraser River Chinook salmon stocks.

This rally is taking place because:

• Closing the public Chinook salmon fishery is not a recovery plan.
  If the government of Canada and DFO were truly concerned about Pacific Wild Salmon, a detailed recovery plan for certain stocks of Fraser Chinook salmon would have been implemented.
  
  
• All Chinook currently raised in major hatcheries MUST be adipose fin clipped.

The current abundance of enhanced/hatchery Chinook salmon in Southern British Columbia can provide a great opportunity to sustain public fisheries and protect stocks of concern.

Key Issues:

The significant issues with early Fraser River Chinook salmon have been present for more than 15 years. DFO has made little, if any investment into their recovery, instead placing the ineffective burden on public fisheries. Restricting and closing public access to Chinook salmon is NOT a recovery plan. Minister Bernadette Jordan and the DFO need solutions with conviction. Current solutions have an optical presence to mislead Canadians that recovery will be attained. DFO needs to address threats to early Fraser River Chinook like habitat degradation, climate change, predators, pollution and illegal netting.

At this time only 10% of hatchery Chinook salmon are marked (marked means anglers can identify hatchery fish because the adipose fin has been removed prior to release from the hatchery). We are asking that all Chinook salmon currently raised in hatcheries be adipose clipped. The precedent for using adipose clipped salmon is imperative as it is part of a broad-based recovery plan that has been already been established, as the public can currently retain adipose clipped Coho salmon. This allows selective retention of hatchery Coho salmon while releasing wild fish to protect stocks of concern where necessary. This strategy should be applied to hatchery Chinook salmon as well! The Salish Sea is seeing an abundance of hatchery Chinook salmon, some of the best numbers in decades.

Adipose clipping hatchery reared Chinook salmon for retention allows significantly more wild Chinook salmon to return to their rivers to spawn because they can be released if encountered in public fisheries bringing conservation and economic benefit. This management approach can accelerate the recovery of Chinook salmon stocks of concern while sustaining important public fisheries up and down the coast of British Columbia.

This rally is to support a recovery plan for Chinooks salmon stocks of concern and the mass marking of all hatchery Chinook salmon!

Date: Monday, July 6^th
Time: 12:00pm - 1:30pm

Location: 401 Burrard Street, Vancouver, BC (on the corner of Burrard and W. Hastings)

Rally Code of Conduct and COVID-19 Protocol

For more information about Public Fishery Alliance, visit their site at https://publicfisheryalliance.ca or email [email protected].

SOURCE Public Fishery Alliance