Fraser River sockeye numbers up slightly, but still low overall

The latest estimate of spawning sockeye salmon heading up the Fraser River has been bumped up to 293,000 but there’s no hope for a significant increase now that the season is nearly finished.

That leaves Fraser River sockeye returns at a historic low, as expected.

The new number is up slightly from an earlier estimate this summer of 283,000. Estimates are formed by the Fraser River panel, part of the Canada-U.S. Pacific Salmon Commission.

Don’t expect a rebound next year.

Catherine Michielsens, the commission’s chief of fisheries management science, said that 2021 is not anticipated to be a strong year. Numbers have not yet been developed.

However, 2022 is projected to be a stronger year, she said.

Some years are deemed weaker or stronger brood years.

This season’s Fraser River sockeye run is mainly wrapping up this week.

The panel will have its post-season meeting on Sept. 23 when final numbers are expected, Michielsens said. “I wouldn’t expect it to change very much from that number [the latest estimate].”

Heavy industrial work through the winter to improve conditions at the Big Bar landslide site on the Fraser River improved migrating conditions, she said.

Work to create a fishway allowing salmon to get through the area in a natural way was successful. A salmon cannon was installed as well to move fish from one side of the slide to the other upstream.

High runoff levels worked against the fish earlier in the season but once they abated it was easier for the salmon to continue their journey.

Fraser River sockeye historically played a major role in First Nations, commercial and sport fisheries.

Returns averaged 9.6 million annually between 1980 and 2014, said a Fisheries and Oceans scientific paper.

As numbers crashed in recent years, a range of factors are being considered as playing a role, including ocean conditions, with the warm blob in the Pacific, and availability of food. Opponents to fish farms on B.C.’s coast point the finger at parasitic sea lice, which they believe thrive in the farms and latch onto young salmon just as they enter marine waters, weakening them and reducing survival rates.

cjwilson@timescolonist.com