With dwindling numbers of chinook and coho salmon swimming around the Strait of Georgia, a group of anonymous donors are starting to question why.
The Pacific Salmon Foundation has been asked by the donors to conduct a series of public meetings to gather local knowledge about salmon ecology issues.
The local knowledge will then be compiled into a research proposal for the donors to review. If all goes well, they will be willing to fund a research project and contribute some funds to community organizations to do the work.
"The intention of the program is to try to explain the decline in chinook and coho salmon production in the Strait of Georgia over the past 30 years," said project lead Brian Riddell. "If we can explain it, can we correct it? Even if we can't fully explain it, are there ways we can improve the current situation?"
Riddell held a meeting for Sunshine Coast residents at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre in Sechelt on Wednesday Sept. 9, drawing out about 25 people, some with salmon experience dating back to the '50s.
Other communities participating in the project were Duncan, Nanaimo, Campbell River, West Vancouver and Powell River. Riddell said there were a number of common themes that will likely find their way into the research proposal.
"There's lots of concern about the major [Department of Fisheries and Oceans] hatchery role and whether they are contributing to the potential problem," Riddell said. "There's no question that salmon farming in open-net pens came up at every single meeting."
Other issues attendees brought up included the loss of eel grass and kelp, reduction in watersheds, spawning habitats and bait fish and pollution from various sources ending up in the Strait.
"Each community has some local interest. We'll look at all the comments that were made and see if there are four or five central themes and we'll see how they would be integrated into the program," he said.
One of the things that set the Sechelt meeting apart, Riddell said, was the number of people questioning who the possible donors are and what their motives for funding a study would be.
Riddell could not say just how much money was being offered or who is offering it, as the proposal must be accepted before that information can be made public, but he assured attendees the donors were neither in the commercial nor sport fishing business and that their motives were "altruistic."
"These are people that have made their livelihoods in British Columbia, but they're not in any way in conflict with what they are asking us to do," he said.
Riddell said his proposal would be complete within a month.
