The run of pink salmon in British Columbia’s Fraser River is exceeding expectations this summer.
The Pacific Salmon Commission is increasing its projections of pink salmon returns to possibly 11.6 million, up from an estimate of between 6.1 million and 8.6 million fish.
The commission, which was formed by the governments of Canada and the United States in 1985 to implement the Pacific Salmon Treaty, says the increase is based on the “abundance” of pink salmon being caught in marine test fisheries in B.C. coastal waters.
Environmentalists and Indigenous leaders suggest the larger-than-forecast returns are linked to the closure of open-net Atlantic salmon farms off the Discovery Islands on the pink salmon migration routes.
The salmon commission says it could not comment on those suggestions and no one from Fisheries and Oceans Canada was immediately available.
Open-net fish farms off B.C.’s coast are a long-running subject of debate, with environmental groups and some Indigenous nations saying the farms are linked to the transfer of disease to wild salmon, while the industry and some local politicians say thousands of jobs are threatened if the operations are phased out.