The claims come in part from BC Wildlife Federation executive director Jesse Zeman, who said the federal government still won’t make public peer-reviewed scientific research that concludes the fishery needs to be limited in order to save it from extinction. disappearance of the Thompson and Chilcotin rivers. . The species, a member of the salmon family, migrates in the ocean for much of its life, but hatches and reproduces in the two rivers. Zoologists and conservation groups in B.C. have been warning of its dangerous condition for years, and one annual update on the species last month by the BC Ministry of Forestry. warned that his numbers are now at historic lows, with preliminary estimates of only 104 Thompson River steelhead and 19 Chilcotin River steelhead spawning this year. Speaking on CBC’s Daybreak Kamloops on Friday, Andrew Thomson, DFO’s Vancouver-based regional director for the Pacific, denied claims that an assessment of the species’ recovery potential has yet to be published and that a scientific advisory report was commissioned by DFO officials without the scientists’ knowledge. “Sure, the [DFO] he is very committed to sharing information as part of our scientific process,” Thomson said.
Assessment of potential recovery
Zeman argues that the main threat to steelhead comes from salmon bycatch and nets in Johnstone Strait and the Salish Sea off BC’s South Coast and in the Lower Fraser River, and therefore DFO should ban these practices by designating them as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. In January 2018, the Commission on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), an independent advisory group to the federal government, requested that the Fraser interior steelhead be listed as endangered. The conservation groups of BC say the main threat to inland Fraser steelhead comes from salmon bycatch and nets in Johnstone Strait, the Salish Sea and the Lower Fraser River. (Chris Furlong/Getty Images) This prompted the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat (CSAS) to invite scientists to conduct a peer review of the recovery potential for the species and publish scientific advisory report based on the same year’s assessment for DFO to reference in its policy making. Thomson said the assessment can be found on the DFO website. But Zeman said that document is actually the scientific advisory report and the actual assessment has never been published.
Claim DFO intervention in the report
Based on transmissions between DFO, CSAS and the BC government accessed through freedom of information requests — seen by CBC News — Zeman says the federal agency withheld the peer review from the public because it tested the scientific advisory report and made its policy recommendation very different from that of the assessment. In an email dated December 2018, DFO scientist Scott Decker said the BC government had complained about the federal agency unilaterally changing the wording of the scientific advisory report. The assessment said reducing salmon fishing frequencies is the only way to save steelhead from extinction, but the final draft of the report said “allowable harm should not be allowed to exceed current levels” — language that says Zeman could be interpreted to mean there is no urgency to list the steelhead under the Endangered Species Act. Zeman says that led to federal fisheries minister Jonathan Wilkinson decision in July 2019 to prohibit recreational fishing in the Thompson and Chilcotin rivers, but not to prohibit commercial fishing by bringing the species under the act. A thread about the all-time low #CDNpoli1/n —@JZThinAir In an email dated October 2018, CSAS President Sean MacConnachie said DFO’s office of the deputy secretary edited the language of the science advisory report multiple times without his knowledge. Two months later, in an email to DFO, BC fisheries director Jennifer Davis said the report’s conclusions were inconsistent with the consensus of scientists who conducted the assessment of potential recoveries.
“Real concern about transparency”
Zeman says that earlier this year, DFO rejected his freedom of information request to release the assessment of potential recoveries, meaning he will have to sue the federal government to get access to the document. “We know that DFO can do good science, but we also know that DFO’s science is not shown to the public,” he told CBC’s Daybreak South. “There is a real concern about transparency.” University of British Columbia (UBC) zoology professor Eric Taylor has studied steelhead populations across the province for three decades and chaired COSEWIC from 2014 to 2018. He agrees there is very little transparency in how DFO handles steel research. “Technically this is really scientific fraud,” Taylor said. “If that reporting isn’t completely clean and completely honest and above board, it undermines the credibility of the whole process.” Taylor says DFO has conflicting mandates to promote commercial fishing and conserve fish populations, and argues that the conservation mandate should be given to Environment Canada.
