Harvesters, business associations, scientists and conservation groups unite to defend the backbone of our fisheries management system

This week, a coalition of 26 organizations released an open letter to the federal Minister of Fisheries calling for urgent action to restore and maintain essential monitoring efforts for wild Pacific salmon streams across B.C. 

Monitoring our salmon runs is the foundation of our fisheries management system. Watershed Watch helped organize this effort and we will not let up as long as these essential services remain under threat. 

This summer, we sounded the alarm when essential salmon monitoring ground to a halt across the province, at the height of the spawning season, right when it was most needed. DFO had failed to renew contracts for the charter patrol guardians who go out on our streams and rivers to count fish, monitor habitat conditions and keep an eye out for poachers and polluters. Thankfully, our efforts paid off and DFO got these essential frontline folks back on the water. But the situation is still precarious.

Creekwalker Stan Hutchings. Credit Roland Gockel

Like most federal departments, DFO has been ordered to make massive budget cuts over the next two years. But a recent study showed that our wild salmon monitoring programs have already been cut to the bone. The growing gap in spawner-return monitoring is undermining our ability to assess population health, guide sustainable fisheries, support Indigenous food security, and keep our ecosystems healthy. At the same time, our government is fast-tracking mines and other industrial projects that will put more salmon runs at risk. We need these monitoring programs more than ever.

Read the letter below, share it with your friends, and let your Member of Parliament know that salmon monitoring can’t be cut any further. 

CC:
The Right Honourable Mark Carney, PC, OC, MP, Prime Minister of Canada
Annette Gibbons, Deputy Minister of Fisheries
Patrick Weiler, MP, FOPO Chair
Clifford Small, MP, Conservative Shadow Minister of Fisheries
Mel Arnold, MP, Conservative Associate Shadow Minister of Fisheries, FOPO Vice-Chair
Alexis Deschênes, MP, Bloc Québécois Fisheries and Oceans Critic, FOPO Vice-Chair
Gord Johns, MP, NDP Fisheries and Oceans Critic
Elizabeth May, OC, MP
The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, PC, MP
The Honourable Randene Neill, MLA, BC Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship
Lori Halls, Deputy Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship
James Mack, Assistant Deputy Minister, WLRS
Charles Short, Executive Director, Coastal Marine Stewardship, WLRS
David Travia, Executive Director, Fisheries, Aquaculture and Wild Salmon Branch, WLRS
Anna Classen, Regional Director General, Pacific Region
David Didluck, Associate Regional Director General, Pacific Region
Steve Gotch, Senior Director, Operations, Pacific Region
Neil Davis, Regional Director, Fisheries Management, Pacific Region
Andrew Thomson, Regional Director, Science, Pacific Region
Jon Chamberlain, Acting Regional Director, Science, Pacific Region

2 December 2025

Dear Minister Thompson,

We, the undersigned, urge you to revitalize wild Pacific salmon escapement monitoring. This is a critical matter for the health of wild salmon populations and the prosperity of the fisheries and communities that depend on them.

Counting spawning salmon as they return to their natal watersheds is the foundation of effective management, yet this foundation has collapsed. A recent study¹ found the last decade to be the worst on record for Pacific salmon escapement monitoring, with annual monitoring falling by half since the 1980s. Since 2010, over 40% of Conservation Units have lacked annual abundance estimates, severely undermining the department’s ability to manage and assess populations. This year, your department failed to secure stable escapement monitoring contracts across the Pacific Region, leaving information gaps critical to tracking wild salmon health. Impending operational budget cuts threaten further erosion of population monitoring without your intervention.

The consequences of declines in population monitoring impact everyone connected to wild salmon. Without quality-controlled, publicly accessible escapement data, salmon stewards and researchers, including those within your department, cannot track population status, assess environmental stressors, evaluate recovery efforts, or inform fisheries management. Inadequate escapement monitoring severely undermines First Nations’ fisheries management, cultural practices, and food security objectives. Commercial fishermen already suffer economic impacts, forced to preemptively withdraw from Marine Stewardship Council certification in 2022, primarily due to the department’s inability to meet minimum stock assessment requirements. As a direct result, commercial fishermen struggle to find buyers or command fair prices for their catch, leading to millions of dollars in losses. Recreational fisheries are directly affected, as lack of escapement monitoring has negatively influenced the timing and extent of multiple recreational closures in recent years. Critical to all groups, inadequate monitoring will undermine Canada’s ability to secure improved terms in the upcoming renegotiation of the Pacific Salmon Treaty with the United States.

Rebuilding escapement monitoring capacity would not only fulfill the department’s core functions and conservation obligations under the Wild Salmon Policy, but it would also support coastal communities that depend on salmon. This is a uniquely unifying issue, with broad support from First Nations, commercial and recreational fishers, environmental non-profits, academics, and citizens across the political spectrum.

In light of this, we call on your office to:

1. Provide stable funding and personnel for escapement monitoring and data management amid impending budget cuts.
2. Revitalize investment in NuSEDs as a public, central database of local-scale spawner abundance data.
3. Issue a clear mandate to your department to prioritize escapement monitoring, emphasizing both on-the-ground work and database management.
4. Immediately engage with rightsholders and stakeholders to develop a comprehensive, forward thinking stock assessment framework for the entire Pacific Region that will guide future expansions in escapement monitoring.

Salmon are central to our cultures, economies, and ecosystems. Restoring escapement monitoring is essential to give them a fighting chance. We look forward to your response and the opportunity to collaborate on solutions.

Sincerely,

References

¹ Atkinson, E. M., Carturan, B. S., Atkinson, C. P., Bateman, A. W., Connors, K., Hertz, E., & Peacock, S. J. (2025). Monitoring for fisheries or for fish? Declines in monitoring of salmon spawners continue despite a conservation crisis. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 82, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfas-2024-0387