British Columbia's wild sockeye salmon industry is facing a crisis that will have a devastating effect on the province's economy, say commercial and Aboriginal fishermen.

"Things are very poor right now. I have never seen it like this," says Bill Horri, who has fished for salmon along the Fraser River for 30 years.

Government officials announced last week that there will be no non- Aboriginal commercial fishery on the river in 2005. Fisheries spokesman Don Radford said an Aboriginal fishery for food, ceremonial and societal purposes - permitted under the Constitution - has already taken place and future Aboriginal fisheries will be allowed subject to conservation concerns.

Last year's government forecasts for a wild sockeye salmon run of 11 million in 2005 are already off significantly, with revised predictions of around five million. Paul Ryall, head of the salmon team for the Department of Fisheries and Ocean (DFO) in Vancouver, told a recent press briefing that early sockeye returns were substantially lower across B.C. than expected - and warmer ocean temperatures could be partly to blame.

Bayne Stanley, Business Edge
Arnie Narcisse, chair of the B.C. Aboriginal Fisheries Commission, says he's often a lone voice on environmental issues.

The decision was made to cancel the commercial fishery because some rare sockeye species are now mixed in with the larger summer run and officials want to ensure the threatened sockeye make it to their B.C. Interior spawning grounds. Researchers say the Fraser accounts for about a third of B.C.'s total salmon production.

"There used to be 1,000 boats in this area all catching salmon and now there are a mere 300," says Horri, standing at dockside in Steveston, south of Vancouver. "It's pretty sad. All these people used to make their living from the sea and it has had a devastating impact on their lives."

Ken Malloway, an Aboriginal fisherman of the Sto:lo Nation east of Vancouver, agrees with Horri's assessment.

"Fishing is pretty bad up and down the coast for natives," he says. "The fish are coming in later and they are smaller. It's a real setback for our community."

Malloway estimates the Sto:lo have only a "faint hope" of making money on their fishery this year, which he estimates is worth between $5-$10 million over a period of four to five weeks. "People are worried. A lot of them have taken out loans. A lot of them have come to rely on it."

Lindsay Meredith, a business professor at Simon Fraser University, says both commercial and Aboriginal fisherman are caught between a rock and a hard place with the sockeye situation. "It's nasty to say the least."

If there are fewer salmon, Meredith notes, the price will go up at a time when wild salmon is in great demand and being promoted as a healthy food. "If the price goes too high, people will buy farmed salmon or switch to other foods such as meat and other fish," he predicts. "The impact on the B.C. economy will not be good."

Jack Waterfield, owner of Lions Gate Fisheries Ltd. in Ladner, says the situation is a disaster. "We have five to 10 per cent of the salmon supply that we traditionally have at this time of the year. We're way way behind," he says.

"I can't satisfy the domestic market and this is the first time I have been unable to ship any salmon to Japan. The commercial catch for the native fishery is down substantially, although I think that for their ceremonial and food supply they likely are OK."

Waterfield, who has been in business for 49 years, says no one will be laid off at his plant due to a sockeye shortage because the company has diversified into other seafood products.

One hope is that the Sto:lo Nation will get a bigger fishing allocation for catching pink salmon, which are arriving earlier this season than their usual mid-September run. "Two years we were allocated 270,000 out of a run of 30 million," says Malloway. "We hope this time around it will be bigger. " The potential to generate nearly $4 million from the pink salmon roe - which is very popular in Asian markets - is also there, "providing we get a bigger allocation," he adds.

He believes warmer coastal waters are affecting the sockeye salmon runs in B.C., in direct contrast to Alaska where the water is much colder. "They are expecting 35 million sockeye (up there) which is a good run," Malloway notes. The cool-water loving fish can also be affected by lower river flows.

Eric Kristianson, a spokesman for the Sport Fishing Institute of B.C. which represents the $600 million-plus recreational fishing industry, says recreational fishing for chinook and coho is good this year, although not as lucrative as the 2004 season, one of its best years in a decade.

But longtime commercial fisherman Terry Slack, 64, says most salmon are coming in late this year. "I am still hopeful that something will materialize and more salmon will show up," he says.

Only harvesting the fish can be controlled, he adds. "The impact of fewer fish will be huge. We've had problems with sockeye for the last decade. There is no doubt that the salmon are undergoing a massive change in their migration patterns. The warmer water is a problem."

Craig Orr, executive director of the B.C.-based Watershed Watch Salmon Society, a group that promotes wild salmon, water and habitat issues, believes the fish forecasts are not good. "We've had these major temperature changes in 1992, 1994 and 2004," he says. "I think we are seeing a pattern. The warm water is a major stress on the salmon and they develop full-blown kidney parasite infection. A lot of them die."

Arnie Narcisse, another Aboriginal fisherman and chair of the B.C. Aboriginal Fisheries Commission, agrees the state of affairs is "pretty dismal."

"First and foremost, we have to undertake an assessment of the marine environment that the salmon have to live in. Conservation is an important matter and being mere mortals we have to do the best we can," says Narcisse, a Stlatlimx-Blackfoot from Merritt.

Narcisse - who also sits as a Canadian delegate on the Pacific Salmon Commission, a joint Canada-U.S. group charged with setting long-term goals for the salmon fishery - believes he is a lone voice when it comes to environmental issues.

He also says he keeps reminding other Aboriginal fishermen "that our rights aren't worth nothing if the fish aren't there."

Ed Newman, an Aboriginal fisherman and chair of the Native Fishing Association and coastal chair of the B.C. Aboriginal Fisheries Commission, says the First Nations fishing community has already been devastated, a trend that will continue.

"The devastation of the native fishery has been going on for years. The DFO and the various governments have tried all sorts of things, from buying out the licences of commercial fishermen to fishing quotas, but nothing is helping the native fishing industry."

He says he chose to keep his licence, even though he was offered $50,000 for it, but today, "I'm struggling to stay alive and so are my sons who are fishing for a living.

"This means one thing: There will be a lot more of my people pushed out on the street," he adds. "We already have the highest suicide rate and the highest unemployment rate. That's what happens when you take economic opportunities away from people - and governments have been doing this years to the natives."

- With files from The Canadian Press

(George Froehlich can be reached at george@businessedge.ca)