Salmon and anadromous trout species and populations in the Fraser River and Gulf of Georgia have now undergone catastrophic collapses the likes that have not been seen elsewhere in British Columbia or around the world in modern history. However, these collapses are not universal across western North America, including British Columbia, as other populations and areas continue to do well or even increase in Oregon, Washington, BC and Alaska.  Many or most of the almost-extirpated stocks of salmonids in this Fraser/Gulf of Georgia geographic area migrate, as juveniles, past the rapidly expanded fish farms that now populate much of the upper Gulf of Georgia and many of the west-coast Vancouver Island sounds and inlets.

In this presentation, Dr. Marvin Rosenau makes multiple comparisons of stock assessment data for populations from a variety of areas looking at juvenile salmon and steelhead that pass through areas containing fish farms versus others that don’t: often the latter seem to have done relatively well over the same time frame compared to the former which have collapsed. He also uses the underwater acoustic telemetry  studies conducted by Nanaimo-based Kintama Research to show where the radio-tagged fish go and differences in stock numbers (ie:declines) for those that do, versus those that don’t pass through areas of fish culture. The news is grim: the juvenile fish ‘fall off the map’ as they swim northward up the coast into the area where most of BC’s fish farms are located. This and other perils faced by BC’s salmon will be described.

Dr. Rosenau is a fisheries biologist and scientist with BCIT’s Fish, Wildlife and Recreation program. He has won a number of awards for his work, including the prestigious Murray A. Newman Award for Significant Achievement in Aquatic Conservation.