Save Miramichi Salmon Inc. Threatens DFO With Litigation

Fishing Friends –

This posting to my blog is one that I must tell you I have no great joy in making, but to those of us who love the Miramichi and its Atlantic salmon, the message is critical.  A group of 6 private citizens: Alex Mills, John Bagnall, Karl Wilson, Rip Cunningham, Joe Walsh and myself have founded a not-for-profit Canadian corporation called Save Miramichi Salmon Inc.  “SMS.”  Our plan is to positively affect the Department of Fisheries and Oceans “DFO’s” management of Atlantic salmon in the Miramichi River.  Organizations like the Miramichi Salmon Association, New Brunswick Salmon Council and Atlantic Salmon Federation are continually trying to work through the standard channels to achieve the same goal that we are, and at this point we are all trying to save the Miramichi River salmon from extinction.  DFO’s gross mismanagement of salmon and striped bass has caused SMS, though, to take a different route.  We are going through the Canadian federal court system. What exactly does that mean, and why are we choosing this path?

First, the why.  In the simplest terms, DFO has managed Miramichi striped bass to the detriment of many other fish in the ecosystem.  Not just salmon, but sea run brookies, smelt and even gaspereau have suffered.  Salmon have probably suffered the worst, because there is a point at which the spawning striped bass, beginning near the head of tide, intercept the height of the smolt run on its way to the ocean.  Tagging has shown that over 70% of SW Miramichi smolts are eaten by the bass before they can get to sea, and more than 90% perish on their way out of the NW Miramichi.  Just a few years ago about 65 to 75% of the Miramichi smolts made it out to sea, slightly less than rivers like the Restigouche and the Cascapedia, but sufficient to insure that the Miramichi salmon population was sustainable.  This new reality of much lower smolt survival has nearly destroyed the salmon runs in what was just 15 years ago the most prolific Atlantic salmon river in North America.   In just a few more years the run will be extinct.  Yes, it is that bad!

I can tell you, because I was there, that Mark Hambrook and the MSA tried as hard as possible to convince DFO that the striped bass were wiping out the salmon.  For whatever reason they just wouldn’t listen, or at least some that were in control at DFO wouldn’t listen or didn’t want to hear it.  Now, it is completely indisputable, but DFO is still not showing the sense of urgency that is necessary to turn this situation around in the time that is available before the salmon are gone.

SMS did some research and hired a lawyer named Ian Knapp from the firm MacKenzie Fujisawa LLP.  This firm is from Vancouver, and has considerable experience litigating against DFO on fisheries issues on the West Coast.  The firm has represented First Nations entities as well as many other fisheries interests.

We are not jumping into a lawsuit.  We would certainly like to avoid that if possible.  What Knapp’s firm has done is to send a document to the Minister of DFO called a Demand Letter.  I have posted a PDF of our entire filing that contains this letter at this link on the Brad Burns Fly Fishing website.  The Demand Letter says that the Minister – you always address the Minister in legal proceedings even though it may be the local office that is at fault – has not followed her duties to protect the Atlantic salmon of the Miramichi, and has allowed striped bass to be managed in such a way that they have done serious harm to the salmon.  There are formal DFO policies that are supposed to stop this from happening, but they have not been applied.

SMS has built a team of several of the most knowledgeable fishery scientists in the Province.  They have written a scientific paper that shows in great detail exactly what DFO has done and is continuing to do that is wrong and in violation of DFO policy.  That paper begins on page 13 of the action at the link above. 

We are demanding that DFO bring the striped bass population back to less than 100,000 adult spawners within 4 years.  This is the number that our scientists calculate is the maximum number of striped bass that can coexist in the Miramichi with a healthy population of Atlantic salmon.  It is approximately where the two stocks were in the 2010/2011 time frame.  At that point there was excellent fishing in the Miramichi for both species.  That is our goal, not to wipe out striped bass, but to manage them at a level where both species can reasonably co-exist, as per DFO policy. 

Secondly, we are demanding that DFO allow a major salmon stocking program from the MSA hatchery in South Esk, and that DFO fund that stocking program.  DFO, and DFO alone is responsible for the decline of the Miramichi salmon population, and it is only fair that they should pay for its restoration.  Would the population bounce back without stocking?  That is addressed in the scientific paper, but the answer is that if it would, it would be very tenuous, and that without stocking the rebuilding would take a very long time.  The Miramichi system had been stocked for about 140 years before DFO pulled the plug on meaningful stocking.  DFO’s refusal to allow the CAST program dealt the salmon a double whammy of striper predation and no mitigating salmon stock supplementation.  Now less than 10 years later, here we are.

DFO has been given 30 days to respond to our demand letter and enter into earnest negotiations towards achieving the necessary conservation measures.  If DFO does respond positively we will involve representatives from the local conservation organizations in those deliberations, and work together to design a salmon rebuilding program that we feel will work within a reasonable time frame.

If DFO does not enter into earnest negotiations we are going to proceed with litigation where the facts of our case will be argued, and if we are successful, we will be granted relief by the court.

There are lots of potential twists and turns along this path.  If you want to be kept abreast of developments and be given the opportunity to add your voice to the deliberations as we go along, please send me an e-mail at bigbass@maine.rr.com.  We are going to try and set up a separate website for SMS with a data base for interested parties.  Right now, we will just keep that database manually on an excel spread sheet.  Let me assure you that names on that database will not be used for any purpose other than to provide information to you about the status of this action as discussed in this paragraph.

Thanks for reading.  Brad Burns for Save Miramichi Salmon