Verifiable monitoring and assessment of BC’s south coast Recreational Chinook Fisheries
On February 17, the MCC Salmon Sub-Committee of the Marine Conservation Caucus sent a letter to the Honourable Joyce Murray, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coastguard, regarding concerns around expansion of marine recreational fishing in southern BC.
Importantly, the Salmon Sub-Committee of the Marine Conservation Caucus believes that there should be no expansion of marine recreational chinook fisheries on the south coast until a monitoring and assessment framework, supported by First Nations, is in place that provides verifiable, accurate estimates of retained catch, legal releases, sub-legal releases, stock composition of all encounters, compliance, and Fishery Related Incidental Mortality (FRIM).
Following guidance from both CSAS reviews and other jurisdictions, we believe the framework must have the following critical fishery dependent and fishery independent
components: dockside sampling, volunteer angling reports, effort surveys, and test fishing.
