Category: News Spotlight
Farewell, Christine and Welcome Marie, Alice, and Kait!
We bid a fond farewell to our cherished team member, Christine Slanz, and warmly welcome our new colleagues, Marie, Alice, and Kait, who are joining our team to help carryout the critical work SkeenaWild does.
Skeena Steelhead and the Impact of Southeast Alaskan Fisheries in 2023
A few weeks ago, we spotlighted the aggressive harvest occurring in Southeast Alaskan commercial mixed-stock salmon fisheries this season and its impacts on Skeena salmon and steelhead.
Now it’s mid-September, commercial fisheries are closed or winding down, and most of this year’s salmon have entered the Skeena, past the Tyee, and are settling into their home rivers. So, how did the numbers add up?
Meanwhile… Alaska is still “steeling” our salmon
While Canadian marine commercial fisheries at the mouth of the Skeena ended on August 3rd in response to a declining in-season return estimate of Skeena sockeye, Southeast Alaskan fishers are in the peak of an aggressive year of harvest – intercepting and killing millions of salmon bound for BC waters.
Thanks to the abundance of pink salmon across the north coast this year, Southeast Alaskan seine fisheries alone have already harvested nearly 14 million salmon – more than double the rate of harvest from this time last year – and the season is not over yet. But it’s not just Alaskan salmon they are harvesting… over 2 million Canadian salmon have likely been intercepted as they try to make their way back home.
Local Forester Fred Philpot Awarded SkeenaWild’s Inaugural Conservation Award
We are excited to announce Fred Philpot RPF ret. 481 as the inaugural recipient of the SkeenaWild Conservation Award, given in recognition of outstanding community contributions to natural resource conservation and stewardship.
Province Cancels 1.35 Million Acres of Conservation Lands in Northwest B.C. Without Consultation
Between 2019 to 2020, the provincial government cancelled over 1.3 million acres (nearly double the size of Metro Vancouver) of land designated under the Provincial Land Act for conservation and recreational use in northwest B.C. that residents hold dear. These cancellations put valued habitats at risk of being removed from public lands, logged or impacted by industrial development, including popular recreational areas such as Klinger Lake, Tyee Mountain, Atlin, and the Stewart estuaries. Learn more and take action!
Support Ecstall River Monitoring Program
Your donation to SkeenaWild will go directly to the new Ecstall River Monitoring Program, an initiative developed following the massive landslide in the Ecstall River.
North Coast Salmon Update – September 6th 2022
Decisions on fisheries identified for longer-term closures
or additional mitigation requirements are provided in Appendix 10 of the IFMP.
Alaskan Fishing Fleet Catching Huge Proportion Of B.C. Salmon: New Report
The report, which includes a detailed analysis on each B.C. salmon species caught in Southeast Alaskan interception fisheries, was commissioned by Watershed Watch Salmon Society and SkeenaWild Conservation Trust and comes as Canada and the United States begin their annual review of bilateral management under the Pacific Salmon Treaty.