This is a good reality check. I know many younger Canadians that haven’t a clue how bad the wild salmon situation is. There is a mistake in this article, where it says that “Aquaculture has replaced nearly all of that decline.” I would like to see numbers to prove that claim. There were millions of fish once coming out of the Fraser, now they are nearly gone. There is no way farmed fish have replaced them. Perhaps they mean that out of the fish that were left in 1990, that farmed fish have replaced the loss since then.
Wild B.C. salmon may be on its way to luxury item status… That’s if you can buy it at all. The wild catch of B.C. salmon has declined nearly 80 per cent since 1990, according to statistics supplied by the Ministry of Agriculture. Aquaculture has replaced nearly all of that decline, and today produces about three quarters of B.C.’s total salmon haul. The Fraser River sockeye fishery was closed altogether this year based on spawner return estimates of just 853,000 fish, numbers once reckoned in the tens of millions. It is the worst return in 120 years, according to the Pacific Salmon Commission. Randy Shore reports. (Vancouver Sun)
http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/what-is-the-future-of-bcs-iconic-fish