Date: May 5th, 2006

2006 Legislative Session: Second Session, 38th Parliament
Official Report of
DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY
(Hansard)
TUESDAY, MAY 2, 2006
Afternoon Sitting
Volume 10, Number 6

THE FUTURE OF STEELHEAD STOCKS

R. Sultan: Oncorhynchus mykiss is the provocative Latin name for steelhead fish, a strong and wild provincial icon. This weekend MLAs gathered with biologists and officials to form the steelhead futures caucus. Fuelled by wine and good intentions, we filled an evening with fishing stories from our youth and schemes for habitat restoration.

Steelhead multiply in the fast and cold rivers of our north, but in the south their future is threatened by temperature change in the ocean and stream destruction ashore. Unlike salmon, steelhead commute many times to the sea, grow to great size and spawn wherever they find clean gravel in fast rivers from the Capilano to the Coquihalla.

My friend and steelhead expert Al Lill has said that wild stocks cannot recover unless freshwater productivity is increased to compensate for reduction in marine survival. This involves repairing streams from the ravages of logging done as practised in the bad old days, nutrient enrichment and spawning bed development — not cheap.

This week the Premier and our Environment Minister tripled this government's investment in the living rivers trust fund, totalling $21 million for protecting and preserving rivers, watersheds and fish habitat for future generations.

To learn where this money goes, biologist Craig Wightman will lead our group on a snorkel survey down some fast river this summer — pure ecstasy. Roderick Haig-Brown once wrote: "It is something more than a sport. It is an intimate exploration of a part of the world hidden from the eyes and minds of ordinary people. It is a way of thinking and doing, a way of reviving the mind and body, that men have been following with growing intensity for hundreds of years."