Friday, November 05, 2004

Halifax… Following a meeting on October 29 with the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Nova Scotia Salmon Association (NSSA) is charging that DFO is not doing its job and is failing to fulfill its constitutional responsibility to protect wild Atlantic salmon populations in Nova Scotia.

“DFO has virtually abandoned all efforts to address the serious decline in Nova Scotia’s wild Atlantic salmon stocks,” said David Reid, NSSA President. “Of urgent concern,” continues Mr. Reid, “ is the lack of support for restoring wild Atlantic salmon of acid rain impacted rivers along the Atlantic coast and the inner Bay of Fundy populations that the Canadian government has listed under the Species at Risk Act”.

“The problem,” continues Mr. Reid, “appears to be at the higher levels of DFO. Locally, DFO staff must suffer the same types of frustration that organizations like ours suffer as a result of not being able to do their jobs effectively due to a lack of resources.”

Nova Scotia has lost the greatest percentage of fish habitat of any region in North America due to the effects of acid rain. Acid rain negatively affects wild salmon populations in more than 50 of the 65 rivers that drain the Southern Upland, the region of Nova Scotia along the Atlantic coast. “Through watershed liming,” said Lewis Hinks, Regional Director for the Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF) in Nova Scotia, “these salmon can be restored. Conservation groups are raising money to do this through liming projects, beginning with West River, Sheet Harbour.”

Mr. Hinks continued, ”Even though DFO proclaimed liming as one of the methods of addressing acid rain in a habitat report produced in 2000, there has been little support for this mitigation from the department. In fact, in the 1990’s, DFO closed down its acid rain research.”

In the inner Bay of Fundy, salmon numbers plummeted from approximately 45,000 in the mid eighties to fewer than 200 in 2003. Mr. Hinks says, “For these populations, gene banking must be carried out to ensure the presence of salmon with the unique genetic makeup of the inner Bay of Fundy stocks to repopulate the rivers in the years ahead.” “Yet,” continues Mr. Hinks, “the biodiversity centers, where gene banking takes place, are threatened by unstable funding. Each year money must be begged or borrowed to keep these facilities operating, and DFO has turned down nine requests for funding to research the special problems of inner Bay of Fundy salmon.”

Assessment and enforcement are other areas of concern. Of the province’s 112 salmon rivers, salmon are only being counted to assess the health of the runs in two. “As for enforcement, it is almost non-existent in this province, leaving the door wide open to poaching,” stated Mr. Reid.

NSSA members are hopeful that Minister Regan will put measures in place to refocus DFO on its obligation to protect wild Atlantic salmon. Mr. Reid added, “The excuse that DFO has no money to fulfill its mandate is a difficult one to accept in light of the hefty surpluses declared by the Liberal government in the past several years. Surely some of the surplus can be placed into programs that will allow DFO to perform its duties and to meet its obligations to maintain one of eastern Canada’s most vital resources.”

The recreational fishery is worth more than $1.3 billion annually to the Atlantic provinces and Quebec and provides thousands of jobs in many rural communities. “DFO must do everything it can to ensure the survival of the wild Atlantic salmon and the recreational fishery,” concluded Mr. Reid.

For more information, please contact:

David Reid, NSSA President 902 222-0104

Lewis Hinks, ASF Regional Director, Nova Scotia 902 275-3407 or 902 275-7494

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