B.C. marine biologists The alarm is being raised by marine biologists in B.C. about the declining stocks of salmon and shellfish due to rising temperatures, worsening heatwaves, and increasing sea levels. Experts warn that many species of local birds, including salmon, will soon disappear from B.C. takes pride in — namely salmon, mussels, and clams — may soon disappear from seafood menus across the province as human-caused climate change forces cold-water species to move north.
In their stead, marine life that prefer warmer water may replace them — like the Humboldt squid, whose native habitat stretches from Tierra del Fuego in South America up to California.
B.C. Restaurants now proudly claim to serve salmon caught locally. Fans of the fish may have to travel to Alaska to enjoy it — and sooner rather than later.
William Cheung is a UBC marine biologist and Canada Chair in Ocean Sustainability and Global Change. He said that salmon, a coldwater species, will be in crisis within the next 10 year. Price hikes will soon follow as the supply of an in demand product decreases.
“If sockeye salmon from B.C. waters continue to decline as we projected from our previous modelling work, what it means is that the price for locally caught salmon will increase,” Cheung told Global News.
“I think then, locally caught sockeye salmon will become a kind of luxury seafood product,” Cheung said.
“If we continue on our current path, I see that this is going to (happen) very soon. I think it may even be in this decade.”
Vancity’s 2015 report found that the price of sockeye salmon could rise by more than 70% per pound by 2050.
And it’s not just prices that people need to worry about if salmon stocks continue to decline.
“When something becomes expensive, it becomes desirable and people are more likely to overfish it,” said Chris Harley, a professor of zoology at UBC.
“There are all sorts of strange consequences of climate change that involve the way people behave, that we really don’t have a good handle on. So I think a lot of the surprises that we will face will be economic ones, or social ones, and not just ecological ones.”
The social effects of declining salmon stocks will be felt most strongly by the Indigenous nations.
Indigenous knowledge holders in B.C. who have been monitoring salmon returns for decades are “unequivocal” in their concern for the species, according to Andrea Reid, principal investigator for UBC’s Centre for Indigenous Fisheries.
Many Indigenous nations have relied on salmon for centuries to sustain their cultural and economic vitality. Salmon are more than a food source. The species is also important in language systems, rituals and trade. In fact, the Nisga’a Nation, which Reid is a citizen of, considers itself “Salmon People,” as do many other Indigenous nations in the Pacific Northwest.
Reid conducted a study that found that salmon stocks have dropped by 83% in Indigenous elders who have been raising salmon for 50 to 70 year. This is in contrast to their historical abundance. This trend was also observed in government monitoring.
According to the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission data, over 15 million salmon were landed by commercial and recreational fishermen in B.C. This number dropped to 1.14 million salmon by 2021 according to data from the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission.
The danger of salmon populations collapsing is so great that some Indigenous nations have foregone their constitutionally guaranteed fishing rights in order to preserve the species’ numbers.
In the summer of 2020, the Tsilhqot’in Nation closed all of its chinook and sockeye salmon fisheries, citing “a catastrophic situation” and “extreme conservation concern,” after the nation saw its lowest salmon return ever recorded.
“We know the incredible hardship this means for our families and communities — not only the loss of food for our freezers this winter but also foregoing our rights to practise our culture and teach our young ones what it means to be Tsilhqot’in — the River People,” leaders wrote in a statement.
“We believe that our responsibilities to the salmon and to our future generations leave us no choice,” the Tsilhqot’in National Government added. “If one person or group thinks they deserve more than the other then we are destined to lose everything.”
How rising temperatures are affecting restaurant menus
Last year’s heat dome in Western Canada proved deadly after temperatures soared over 40 degrees Celsius for several days in a row. Over 600 people in B.C. died as a result of the scorching heat dome. The scorching heat caused the deaths of over 600 people in B.C. As well, about one billion sea animals died as a result.
After the heat dome left Harley wondering how sea life was doing, Harley helped to estimate that number. All were warned to stay indoors. He made his way to California and knew that something was up before he arrived.
“Be grateful that I can’t actually share the smell,” Harley said.
“It smelled more like what would happen if you left raw fish in a dumpster for a few hot days. It was just terrible.”
Many of the sea creatures that died during the heatwave were intertidal oysters that were exposed during low tide to the beating sun. Mussels and clams, which are popular choices on local seafood menus were among the most affected. Oysters, which are more resilient species and better adapted in warmer climates, also suffered.
Troy Hutchings, a farmer of Pacific oysters in Okeover Inlet told The Tyee that 80 percent of his oysters died under the 2021 heat dome.
“It will take at least three to four years to get my business back to where it was before,” Hutchings said. “The oysters that are still alive are not a good fit for sale either.”
And Harley says it’s only a matter of time before another mass die-off event happens.
“I think we’re going to look back on the 2021 heat dome and say, ‘Oh yeah, remember when that was unusual? Remember Lytton, when it reached 49 degrees?’”
“I think those records are going to be broken again and again,” Harley added.
The result of these heat domes and rising temperatures is that species that can withstand such upheaval are often not the native ones. They’re coming from down south.
“If you love salmon, that’s not great news, because salmon is a cold-water fish. If you love squid, well then you’re in luck because we’re seeing more squid and more tuna off the coast of British Columbia,” Harley said. “And so we’re going to start seeing those types of species in our restaurants and on our tables more often.”
Cheung found that this trend was not new. Cheung found that the average temperature of seafood served in local restaurants has been increasing steadily for over 100 years. The 1980s saw a significant increase.
Cheung studied hundreds of menus from seafood restaurants in B.C. from the modern era to the start of the 20th century and discovered that local menus were changing as a result of rising ocean temperatures.
Cheung used his knowledge of the preferred temperature of certain sea creatures to calculate the average temperature of each seafood meal.
“When we compare that over time, we find there is an increase in temperature of the species that are being served,” Cheung said.
He explained that this means that warmer water species are being used today than they were in the past few years. “That change is also related to changes in the ocean temperature.”
This study shows that climate changes are affecting what and how we eat. Cheung noted that this study also demonstrates how adaptable local food systems are to changing ecology.
While humans may be able to keep up with these upheavals to the ecosystem, animals that have adapted to a specific ecology won’t be as lucky.
Harley predicts that B.C.’s shoreline will soon change from a “black velvety carpet of mussels to a jagged carpet of oysters,” since they spawn in warmer waters.
“They’re both filter feeders, but they form habitats in different ways. And all the animals that have been in British Columbia for untold millennia have evolved with mussels,” Harley said. ”
“Will they be able to make the shift to oysters? A lot of that is unknown.”
Exploring Indigenous solutions
Many marine biologists call for greater Indigenous governance in conservation. They also want to shift away from profit-driven fishing and embrace practices that respect the relational nature ecosystems.
“There’s surging interest in Indigenous knowledge systems at this time of ecological crisis, because these are ways of knowing that deal with unpredictability and with uncertainty and variability very well, because they’re really responsive,” Reid told Global News.
For shellfish, there are solutions in Indigenous clam garden, an ancient management method that dates back at most 3,500 years. Clam gardens promote species growth and are one type of sea garden. Other types of sea gardens include stone fish traps, intertidal oyster houses, and intertidal rock octopus homes. These are widely used in Haida Gwaii.
Harvesters build a rock-walled terrace to create a flat area for clam gardening. The soil is then tilled, and pebbles or clam shells are added.
Anne Salomon from Simon Fraser University is a marine ecologist who studied the impacts of clam farms on beach biodiversity. She found that they doubled the production and quadrupled the productions of butter clams. This was the first study to demonstrate empirical evidence that this long-standing technique boosts clam populations.
In keeping with the ideas of Indigenous relational knowledge, the research also found that clam gardens attracted seaweed, crabs, sea cucumbers and other marine species — making the ecosystem as a whole healthier.
Global News was told by Salomon that clam gardens regulate temperature. They make them more comfortable in the summer and cooler in winter. She’s currently working on an experiment that simulates heat-dome-like conditions to see if clam gardens can help the shellfish withstand extreme temperatures.
Reid cites a number Indigenous fishing technologies that preserve healthy salmon populations while also supporting communities. While large-scale industrial fisheries catch migrating salmon out to sea, Indigenous nations tend to raise salmon upstream. This allows salmon to be separated from their specific spawning areas.
This allows Indigenous fishers the ability to identify which salmon stocks are stronger and weaker.
“Certain stocks we’re going to leave alone and other ones we can target because they have enough abundance to sustain it,” Reid said. “And it also allows us to decide in real time as we harvest those fish if we’re going to release all the females and harvest just the males to reduce impacts on the population.”
Although it helps Indigenous communities make informed decisions about harvesting, farming upstream also means they are often able to encounter salmon populations after commercial fishers have had their chance. The migratory path of salmon begins in the oceans, where large-scale fishing outfits typically operate, and then they travel upstream to spawn — leading to even lower salmon yields for Indigenous communities.
This disparity in access is reflective of a colonized country, Reid said, noting how frustrating it is for Indigenous nations to see their salmon stocks depleted by fisheries that don’t honour the species the way they do.
“Salmon were stolen, salmon fishing methodologies were taken,” Reid said. “Not everyone’s relationship to salmon is the same, and given the very sincere cultural centrality of salmon — that we identify as Salmon People — the loss of salmon is just so profound. It’s one that’s incredibly hard to replace.”
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