Letters to the Editor

Skeena Steelhead by the Numbers

Dear Editor,

I am writing today in response to the 50 Year Perspective article (Hits and Misses) appearing in your Fall 2022 edition of The Osprey

In the article, author Pete Soverel claims that he fished the Skeena River system “pretty intensively from 19871993.” and that “This period coincided with the last fairly strong runs.”

In fact, those years (1987-1993) featured moderate returns of steelhead to the Skeena. Their numbers improved dramatically in the three decades after the period of perceived abundance the article claims were the “last fairly strong runs.”

I have included steelhead escapement estimates for the entire Skeena system below for reference. These numbers were provided by Kenji Miyazaki, Senior Fisheries Management Biologist, Ministry of Fisheries in Smithers, BC.

While 1988 was clearly a strong return year, the other years mentioned are well below the average run size (~30k). In particular 1991 was very low (9,695 fish) with the third worst steelhead return on record behind 2021 and 1957.

Skeena River System Steelhead Escapement 1987 - 1993

Here are the top 25 years of Skeena steelhead abundance over the past 7 decades. Of the years Soverel claimed were abundant, only one year(1988) appears on this list. However, starting in 1998 and up to 2018 there were 17 years (noted in bold) that appear on the top 25 list.

ational effort and impressive improvements in angler effectiveness and so on. Also, you do not account for the very heavy, but completely unreported, commercial interception in the Skeena estuary and marine approaches, include harvest in Alaska marine waters. These various interceptions harvested at least 50%-70% (i.e. 40,000-55,000 steelhead) of the pre-harvest return before the fish even entered the Tyee test fishery. Note: during the period I commented on, tribal harvest upstream of the Tyee fishery was minimal contrasted with very significant current tribal harvest. In this context consider the implications of tribal harvest on the 2021 Tyee count.

In his article, Soverel states:

“In the early 1990s, the Bulkley in particular had a very strong run of perhaps 50,000 steelhead.” In reality, during the 1990s the entire Skeena system had very low returns until the later part of the decade when things improved. Most years the return to the Bulkley/Morice will represent about 40% of the total Skeena steelhead return. So, given the sub-15,000 numbers attributed to the entire Skeena in 91, 92 and 93, the Bulkley run size at that time was actually closer to 5,000 than the 50k the author suggests.

Here is a breakdown of the 90’s for the Skeena system, note the abundance improvement at the end of the decade.

So why would Soverel not bother to check the official numbers for the Skeena, rather than going off his memory of past personal angling success?

Brian Niska

Terrace, British Columbia

Pete Soverel responds:

Brian:

As chair of The Osprey Editorial Committee, I have reviewed your detailed critique of my analysis of Skeena steelhead returns in my Hits & Misses column in the Fall 2022 issue, which I addressed Skeena River returns in the context of the broader problem of dramatic and continuing coast-wide wild steelhead declines that includes, sadly, Skeena populations. Tyee test fishery provides a long data set and can be a trend indicator. It is not, however, a reliable measure of pre-harvest abundance, sources of steelhead mortality or spawner abundance.The period I cited is radically different from current conditions that feature dramatically expanded native harvest fisheries, rough handling in the mark-tag-recapture program, very significant increase in recre-

Again, the main take away for the Skeena: returns are a very small fraction of the Skeena’s reproductive potential and an even smaller fraction of historic abundance. I stand by my basic premise: virtually all North American steelhead stocks, including the famous Skeena runs (especially the most recent 3-4 years), are small fractions of historical or even recent, abundance. For example, the 2021 Skeena Tyee enumeration was 70% below the historic; Thompson run has declined by 99%. These dismal statistics are reflected in angler effort over the period of my Hits & Misses: 130,000 angler days down to 40,000 province-wide now. All these indicators clearly confirm the reality that BC, along with all other West Coast steelhead populations, are in deep trouble.

Surely, papering over the dismal plight of Skeena steelhead does nothing to address the alarming state of wild Skeena steelhead populations, For the first time in history, the Skeena was closed by emergency regulation due to the worst return ever – 5,461 in 2021.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The smallest river I work on in Kamchatka (Snotalvayam), Russian Far East, has about half the volume of the Bear River but hosts a steelhead run of about 7,500, up from about 1,000 when I first started there in 1994. Imagine this tiny river hosting a return about 40% greater than the entire Skeena!

Respectfully,

Pete Soverel