Anglers, it’s Essential Your Attend!
… Fisheries Town Hall Meeting
… Tuesday February 27, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.
… Four Points by Sheraton Victoria Gateway Hotel
… 829 McCallum Road, Victoria, BC V9B 6W6
We are losing our opportunities to catch Chinook salmon in Southern British Columbia. Salmon anglers are growing increasingly frustrated with the defective management of our salmon fisheries. A problematic patchwork of Chinook salmon closures and frequently changing complex regulations that impede everyday Canadians from accessing abundant stocks, especially those of hatchery-origin.
It’s time to make this widely known!
Anglers are the real conservationists. Combined, we give millions of dollars annually to conserving salmon and our gumboot army of volunteers provides hundreds of thousands of hours each year to habitat restoration, enhancement and stock monitoring. We are also agreeable to doing our part in support of the recovery of Fraser River Chinook stocks of concern, but not at the death of our fishery, when viable scientifically-defensible opportunities exist. And as for Southern Resident Killer Whales, we, like every Canadian should, hold these magnificent creatures in high esteem and want them to recover from their endangered status. However, we find salmon anglers have unjustly lost the most closed to fishing area, only because expansive closures make great optics on a map for bureaucrats so desperate to show something is being done regarding the recovery plan to their Ottawa superiors. It is our opinion that the Southern BC salmon fishery has become the scapegoat for an amateurish recovery strategy.
Town Hall Agenda (press this link)
We simply ask for fair access to abundant Chinook salmon stocks and for government to stop putting up road blocks to a rapid roll-out of marked selective Chinook fisheries. It is time to stop using unproven science and kowtowing to anti-fishing ideologues. The Chinook salmon fishery in Southern BC is very important to Canadians who love to fish and the thousands of businesses that depend on the fishery for revenue.
South Vancouver Island Anglers Coalition has organized this Town Hall Meeting, with our friends from the Public Fishery Alliance, the Fraser River Sportfishing Alliance and the Port Renfrew-based BC Recreational Fishing Association. We want the public to hear about the injustice that is happening. Politicians, both federal MPs as well as provincial MLAs, are being invited to join us and the local media are all being notified of the event. We anticipate over 200 local anglers will attend in-person to show the level of discontent with the way our fishery is being managed.
We look forward to seeing you there!
