Miramichi Atlantic Salmon – A Time for Action

Fishing Friends:

During the last 10 months two different DFO Ministers have bypassed the local DFO Gulf office in Moncton and directly ordered some measures to control striped bass.  There is a recognition in the Minister’s office in Ottawa that does not currently appear to exist in Moncton, that the out of balance population levels between striped bass and everything else in the Miramichi have created big problems for Atlantic salmon, Rainbow Smelts and anadromous Brook Trout.  In 2019 the House Standing Committee FOPO on fisheries and oceans instructed DFO Moncton to correct this problem.  That instruction has largely been ignored.  There are as many or more striped bass now than ever, and salmon numbers have deteriorated to crisis levels.

The Minister’s actions – upping the First Nations commercial quota to 175,000 bass and now allowing the gasperau netters to keep the first 500 bass found in their nets every day – appear to have been initiated as responses to commercial fishing industry complaints about too many striped bass.  We feel strongly that the letter writing campaigns, lawsuit by Save Miramichi Salmon and direct lobbying by salmon organizations like the Miramichi Salmon Association and the Atlantic Salmon Federation have also been very motivating to the Ministers.  But a lot more needs to be done right now to turn around the salmon crisis in the Miramichi!

Canada has a new Prime Minister, and with him a new DFO Minister and new chair of House Standing Committee FOPO that oversees DFO.  Let’s let them all know just how important the Miramichi salmon fishery is to us.  We’ve made it very easy for you to take part in this initiative.  Here is all you have to do:

Copy and paste the letter below into a new e-mail.  (Please go right ahead and modify/personalize the letter in any way that suits you.)  Be sure to personalize it with your own name and address.

1. Copy and paste the e-mail address column B in the linked spreadsheet “contacts” into the address bar of your e-mail.  A link to e-mail addresses is in blue below.
2. Click Send!
3. If you want to send this e-mail to other political figures just go right ahead and do that too.  It can’t hurt.  That’s the kind of extra effort that can really help move things along.  One highly motivated politician can do wonders if they want to make an issue out of something.

Here is a link to excel list of contacts.

The following is the letter for you to copy and paste into your e-mail program:

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Dear Minister Thompson:

I’m writing to you and the House of Commons Fisheries Committee (FOPO) to bring you up to date on the ecological and socio-economic disaster unfolding on the Miramichi River in New Brunswick.  The Miramichi River in New Brunswick was until quite recently home to approximately 40% of all the Atlantic salmon in the Southern Gulf of Saint Lawrence.  The returning adult salmon populated both main stems and more than a dozen tributary rivers.  Good salmon fishing was found throughout the watershed.  The abundance of salmon and fishing access to both public and private salmon pools created a substantial guiding and outfitting business and supported hundreds of private camps that employed guides and imported tourist anglers from all over the world.  The industry still exists but has declined, and its future is threatened because there are so few salmon returning to the river.

Particularly frustrating is that DFO, especially individuals within the DFO Gulf Region’s Moncton office, have not only done nothing to try and stop this decline, but they have also mismanaged the river’s fisheries such that the only fish species in the entire system that is doing well is the predatory striped bass.  Bass spawners now number in the multiple 100’s of thousands annually.  These fish consume almost all the salmon smolts as they travel to the ocean.  Notable among other bass prey species are rainbow smelt, which have historically provided a substantial commercial and personal use fishery that has now completely collapsed.  Additionally, gaspereau fishermen now find their nets clogged with striped bass to the point of making the fishery untenable.  Sea run brook trout populations are also a shadow of what they were before the bass explosion, and lobster fishermen say that bass follow their boats eating the small lobsters being returned to the ocean.

In 2019 the FOPO committee under then chairman Ken McDonald held hearings and quite strongly advised DFO Gulf to balance the populations of striped bass with other species that live in the river system.  DFO Gulf has ignored that advice.  The salmon population is now much smaller than it was in 2019, and the striped bass population is at least as large. Before 2010 approximately 65% of Miramichi salmon smolts made it to the ocean to begin their migration to Greenland.  Scientific tagging studies prove that today the percentage of smolts surviving to reach the ocean is less than 10%!  The tagging studies also prove that striped bass are the predatory species.  DFO did open a small First Nations only fishery for bass, but restrictions on the fishery in terms of allowed netting locations made certain that they would not be able to catch their modest quota.  A larger FN quota has been issued for 2025, but it is still less than the likely stock recruitment and therefore will not be successful in reducing the striped bass spawning stock population.  Furthermore, restrictive rules on netting locations, the inexperience of first-time First Nations participants, and the exclusion of other commercial participants from the fishery makes it very unlikely that even the inadequate quota will be caught.  It seems apparent that DFO Gulf has no intention of allowing the striped bass population to decrease to a level compatible with the survival of other fish populations in the Miramichi River.

Here is a brief list of concerns and observations regarding DFO Gulf’s mismanagement of striped bass:

1. DFO insists on maintaining a Limit Reference Point (LRP) of 330,000 adult spawning striped bass below which it alleges the population would be in potential danger of serious harm.  The need to maintain this large number is refuted by every expert scientist in New Brunswick including several individuals who had previously held senior positions at DFO.  In fact, in 2006 a value of 21,600 spawners was proposed by DFO Gulf as the recovery limit for southern Gulf striped bass and 31,200 spawners as the recovery target, the latter being the value for managing any directed fisheries. Using DFO’s own figures, it can be demonstrated that 100K adult spawning striped bass is the absolute maximum that will allow striped bass and Atlantic salmon to sustainably coexist in the Miramichi.  A bass population of 100,000 adult spawners will provide an ongoing commercial bass harvest and a robust recreational fishery.  Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence striped bass population records are admittedly incomplete, but judging by what are available, 100,000 spawners would be very high level by historical standards.
2. DFO policy calls for no predator to be managed so that it does serious harm to the populations of prey species.  Atlantic salmon smolts, sea run brook trout and rainbow smelts are prey species for Miramichi striped bass.  DFO Gulf has simply ignored this policy.
3. In Canada’s Wild Atlantic Salmon Conservation Policy DFO set as one of its goals for Atlantic salmon management: “To maintain and restore healthy and diverse salmon populations and their habitat, for the benefit and enjoyment of the people of Canada in perpetuity.” There is no evidence at all that DFO Gulf embraces this goal even though the Miramichi is easily the most important Atlantic salmon river in Canada.
4. Groups like the Miramichi Salmon Association now manage a hatchery that had been used by DFO to stock salmon in the Miramichi for over 150 years.  A panel of distinguished industry experts has recently tried to instate a meaningful hatchery supplementation program to partially mitigate the decline in the salmon population.  DFO Gulf declined to issue the necessary permits needed to run these programs.  No reason has been given.
5. DFO has a national policy of transparency and working together with the community to manage fisheries. DFO Gulf is not at all transparent or forthcoming in discussing their reasons for anything that they have done or not done.  They maintain an aloof and uncooperative attitude.  It is impossible to sit down with them and work on solutions.  Members of the Miramichi community are frustrated beyond words with the attitude of DFO Gulf.

I cannot stress enough that we are in the gravest danger of losing the world famous Miramichi Atlantic salmon population.  Here is a recent statement by one of New Brunswick’s most prominent salmon scientists: “It still doesn’t seem possible we have lost our Miramichi salmon to a man-made ecological disaster and that it is spreading through New Brunswick and now Gaspe’ river estuaries like a bad cancer. Every salmon angler and conservationist should be mad as HELL that DFO is providing total blockage dams to migrating salmon smolts (using Striped bass not wood or steel) on Miramichi, Restigouche estuarial tide heads and now building more dams to spread the bass cancer to Gaspe’ rivers.”

Another noted salmon biologist says that it is highly likely that Gulf fisheries managers are using as support an easily debunked Research Document that questions whether striped bass are really having a population-level effect on Miramichi salmon.  To anyone who has experience on the river the conclusions of this paper appear to be gaslighting.  Scientists that my colleagues have talked with say that the publication was not adequately peer reviewed and contained serious errors in methodology.  Yet it seems to be the basis for the continued denial by DFO Gulf managers of the need to decrease the bass population levels that will allow salmon sustainability.

I’m asking you to use the power of your office to intervene in the mismanagement of striped bass by DFO Gulf.  Your decision to allow a 500 per day harvest by the gaspereau netters is a solid step in the right direction, but that season is over for this year, and further measures must be taken to reduce the striped bass population quickly back to under the 100,000-spawner level.  This is not something that can be studied or phased in over a period of years.  Decisive action must begin right away, or we will lose the Miramichi River population of the iconic Atlantic salmon!

Sincerely;

Your name and address

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Please don’t hesitate.  If you do it right now, it will only take you one minute.  Pass this on to your fishing buddies too, actually anyone who cares at all about the ecology of the Miramichi River.  The more people the Minister hears from the better.

Thank you for helping to save Miramichi salmon.  If you have any problem with any aspect of this process don’t hesitate to send me an e-mail at bigbass@maine.rr.com for help.

Brad Burns

PS  There is so much at stake, more in fact than meets the eye.  Fresh water mussels, another part of the whole chain of life in the Miramichi River require Atlantic salmon as part of their spawning process.  The larval mussels are hosted for a while in the gills of the salmon and transported around the river system.  Salmon are an iconic species in the Miramichi, and a historic and important part of the whole river eco system.  DFO Gulf’s lackadaisical attitude towards their future can’t be tolerated.