Concerns are mounting for the fate of wild salmon on the Chilcotin River in the B.C., Cariboo region, in the wake of a landslide that blocked the waterway near Williams Lake for days.
Chilko Lake sockeye are expected to be the biggest run of fish on the Fraser River this summer, and their spawning grounds are above the landslide area.
Downstream at the confluence with the Fraser, the typically clear Chilcotin has been discharging enough muddy debris to darken the province’s biggest river.
The province says the landslide cleared under the best-case scenario, with progressive erosion rather than a catastrophic burst.
However, concerns remain for river communities downstream.
Bonnie Adolph is the chief of the Cayoose Creek First Nation. While they dodged a bullet with flooding, the question now is: what will happen to the salmon her nation has fished for thousands of years?
The government estimates about 170,000 Chilko sockeye will try to get through the slide in the next several weeks. And given how quickly the rivercourse is changing, it may not be apparent until the fish reach the slide site in big numbers later this month.
A big landslide that happened nearby in the summer of 1964 did not block the fish from spawning, but even so, Adolph has good reason to worry they may not be able to fish at all this summer.
“As far as British Columbia goes it’s a tourism mecca with the salmon, but when you talk about the Aboriginal people of British Columbia that’s our main staple,” she said.
On Tuesday, several B.C. First Nations said they were initiating an emergency salmon task force to investigate the impact of the landslide on sockeye.
Tŝilhqot’in National Government is also calling on all levels of government, downstream First Nations, the Pacific Salmon Commission, and other nations and states, especially Alaskan fisheries, to take all precautionary measures possible to conserve Tŝilhqot’in territory-bound salmon and to immediately cease from fisheries that may impact these stocks, until the impacts from the landslide and breach are fully understood.