Why Skeena System Steelhead Matter: A Conservation Perspective

Since 1991, when fishery scientists documented the perilous condition of the scores of salmon and steelhead stocks throughout the Pacific Northwest that were not yet extinct, we have come to understand the enormity of the crisis facing North America's Pacific salmon. The loss of salmon stocks in Pacific Northwest region of the U.S. is potentially the largest mass extinction since the demise of the American bison in the late19th Century. Actually, when you factor in what is happening to salmon and steelhead stocks in Canada and in some of Alaska's watersheds, the scale of this ecological disaster is greater still.

Three lodges on the Babine River are selling trips this fall during prime weeks and donating the proceeds of those specific trips to the non-profit North Coast Steelhead Alliance and other environmental organizations fighting to protect Skeena River steelhead. If you want to fish the world-famous Babine River, and you want the price of your trip donated to one of these charities, please contact one of the lodges below and ask if any of their charitable trips are still available. Babine Norlakes Lodge Babine Steelhead Lodge Silver Hilton Lodge

Wild rivers and truly wild fish make the Skeena system so unique in contrast to the landscapes of devastation that once were so many of our other salmon and steelhead rivers. The steelhead runs native to the Babine, the Kispiox, the Bulkley, and other Skeena system waters represent steelhead as they once existed, in a state of watershed and marine productivity that has been lost and is merely a memory elsewhere in the fishes' North American range. To swing a fly down and across on one of the Skeena system's rivers is to pay homage to a natural legacy and angling heritage that began to disappear a generation or two ago in the much of the Northwest, on both the American and Canadian sides of the border.

The Skeena system's rivers and fish may be wild, but they are not strangers to environmental insults and unsound management practices. Skeena-system rivers have had their share of habitat loss from logging-related activities. Net fisheries for sockeye in the Skeena Estuary and River take an undetermined percentage of the summer steelhead run at a critical chokepoint in their spawning migration. Now, to add what may be last link of insult to a lengthening chain of injury, new proposals to loosen and expedite the approval process for Atlantic salmon aquaculture projects could result in the development of fish farms in the Skeena Estuary.

My organization is in the business of restoring wild fish in places that, despite their scenic amenities, have often been trashed from an aquatic perspective. However much we perfect our restoration techniques, we recognize that prevention is the only effective cure. For that reason, we work extra hard to keep bad things from happening to good fisheries.

Those who have savored the experience of fishing in Skeena system's waters, and those many others who relish the idea that such an experience still can exist, have one last opportunity to prevent the demise of its steelhead fishery. The Babine River Foundation and North Coast Steelhead Alliance are working both on the ground locally and at all levels of the provincial and federal governments to ensure that the Skeena system's steelhead do not go the way of the American bison. Trout Unlimited is pleased to join in this critical effort, and I hope you will too by pledging your financial support to [specify] and contacting [specify] to advocate for strong protection and sound management of the Skeena system's steelhead and their watersheds.

Charles Gauvin is the National President and Chief Executive Officer of Trout Unlimited.

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