First Nations Tracking Catastrophic Salmon Population Collapses In Just 10 Years In Central BC
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Reid, who is now fisheries manager for the Heiltsuk Integrated Resource Management Department, leased his own boat when he was 18-years-old and fishing brought him to the Alaska border and California. His ancestors before him had been fishermen and he believed he would earn his livelihood that way forever. “It was a lot happier time,” he said. “A healthier time.” But when salmon stocks began to crash in the late 1990s his once-self-reliant community lost jobs and traditional food sources. Things have never been the same, he said. Reid said salmon returns in Heiltsuk territory in recent years — particularly from 2019 to 2021 — have gotten to the point they’re plain “scary.”
The Húy̓at watershed on northern Hunter Island, just south of Bella Bella, once saw between 4,000 and 6,000 salmon return in its four rivers. In 2021, just 100 salmon returned across four rivers in the watershed, according to Heiltsuk monitoring. The Neekas River, north of Bella Bella, is viewed as an indicator waterway for the health of salmon, Reid said. Between 1960 and 1970, an average 47,000 salmon returned. By 2010, its ten-year average return had declined to 29,000 salmon, according to data Reid collected from Fisheries and Oceans Canada. In 2021, just 750 salmon total returned to the Neekas, Reid said.
“I didn’t ever want to be the person to count the last salmon going up the river. In 2021, we may have been those people that saw those last salmon for those specific stocks,” he said. Rivers across the central coast of British Columbia have seen significant salmon declines, but Reid said there is less public attention in his region. He fears people aren’t aware of just how much salmon are struggling on the central coast, along with other marine food sources that have been hard-hit like rockfish, seaweed, abalone and herring.
“When you come up to the central coast, you’re looking at the mountains, the scenery, it’s very beautiful,” he said. “But if you looked under the ocean, it’s not anymore.”
