Wild pacific salmon have returned each year to rivers and streams across B.C. for millennia. However, since colonization, and accelerating in recent decades, salmon populations have steeply declined. Factors in this decline include overfishing, salmon farms, pollution, habitat loss, and the over use of hatcheries. But the greatest game-changer of all time is climate change.
B.C. is already experiencing longer and more intense droughts and in some rivers and streams, summer flows are so low salmon are dying before they make it home to spawn. For this episode, guest host Anna Kemp spoke with Vancouver Island biologists Tim Kulchyski, Tom Rutherford and Tanis Gower about the impacts of low flows on salmon and how we can manage our watersheds to give wild salmon the best chance at survival in a changing climate.
Listen to “Wild salmon in a changing climate” on Spreaker.
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Read more about Tanis Gower’s Tapped Out report, mentioned in this episode.
The Freshwater Stream is a podcast about B.C.’s watersheds and the people who care about them. See the episode transcript and find more episodes at CodeBlueBC.ca. And please, if you like it, rate and subscribe on your favourite podcast playing app!
The Freshwater Stream is a collaboration between Watershed Watch Salmon Society and the former Canadian Freshwater Alliance.
The Department of Fisheries does not get enough funding to support initiatives that help our watershed development. That is a problem that needs to be addressed.
Well done. Guests covered lots of key points and were complimentary to each other’s perspective.
why no mention of the harm that clearcutting does in salmon creek watersheds?
So: Stop clearcutting and we ameliorate climate change and help salmon creek swatersheds