‘The canary is singing’: Groups sound alarm about steelhead after just 1 caught at annual derby

Anglers and conservationists are sounding the alarm over the health of one of B.C’s iconic fish species.

Steelhead trout are renowned to fishers as the “fish of a thousand casts,” due to their wiles and tenacious fight.

“Royalty come here to B.C. to fish for steelhead,” David Suzuki Foundation science adviser and longtime catch-and-release fisher John Werring told Global News.

“They are one of the strongest fighting most elusive fish in the water.”

In years past, they’ve been plentiful in the tributaries to the Fraser River, and the bountiful target of a Boxing Day fishing derby run by the Chilliwack Fish and Game Club in the Chilliwack River for 75 years.

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This year, things were different.

“In the past we typically see anywhere from 10 to 15 fish weighed in on Boxing Day; this year there was only one. The numbers are telling,” said Werring.

Werring, however, isn’t the only one concerned.

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Forests Lands and Natural Resources warned of declining returns of steelhead, forecasting a record low of 134 fish could return from the ocean to spawn in the Thompson watershed, while just 62 were expected in the Chilcotin watershed.

Thompson steelhead and Chilcotin steelhead are also listed as endangered by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). The agency says the species have declined 79 per cent and 81 per cent respectively over the last three generations.

However, the fish are not listed under the federal Species at Risk Act.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans did not respond to a request for comment from Global News, but the agency lists the fish as facing multiple threats, including habitat quality in freshwater and marine environments, along with bycatch mortality from salmon fisheries.

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In October, a coalition of conservation and sport fishing groups wrote to B.C. Premier John Horgan, warning that non-selective fishing in the Fraser River chum fisheries threatened to wipe the species out.

“The DFO simply refuses to make these necessary changes and your Ministries involved in working with DFO have been entirely ineffective and dismissed by DFO,” the letter warns.

Werring believes climate change, habitat destruction, environmental effects from mining and salmon farming and overfishing are all a part of the equation, and says the federal government needs to step up to protect the species.

“It happened on the east coast with the cod stocks. They were dwindling and disappearing, alarm bells rang out and nobody noticed, and then the fish disappeared,” he said.

“I’m just saying, at this point in time, the canary is singing.”