Atlantic salmon have always failed in B.C.
Millions introduced here over the years
More than eight million Atlantic salmon have been intentionally released into B.C. rivers and lakes, beginning more than a century ago.
With the support of the federal government, dozens of attempts were made to establish viable Atlantic salmon populations on the West Coast between 1905 and 1935.
The experiments are documented in studies of salmonid distribution dating to the 1950s and as recently as 2002, which concluded that no spawning populations survived.
The escape last month of 165,000 Atlantic salmon from an oceanbased fish farm in the San Juan Islands has reignited concerns that escapees could out-compete Pacific salmon species or colonize B.C. rivers.
But history has shown Atlantic salmon don’t feed well in the Pacific and have never established spawning populations outside their natural range despite transplant programs around the world.
“There are Pacific salmon in Lake Ontario, which is home for Atlantic salmon, and guess who is winning? The Pacific species,” said Tony Farrell, a professor in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at the University of B.C.
Early efforts to establish the East Coast native here may have been a response to pressure from anglers, who were keen to catch Atlantic salmon considered superior to Pacific species, Farrell said.
The number of fish released in a year varied from as few as 1,200 in 1906 to as many as 1.1 million by 1928.
“At the time, the Fraser River sockeye was in the midst of one of the biggest population crashes in history after the Hell’s Gate slide in 1913 that blocked spawners,” he said. “There were about a million (Atlantic salmon) released each year from 1923 to 1928.”
Atlantic salmon release programs on the West Coast were a collaboration between the provincial government and the Dominion Department of Fisheries, said Andrew Thomson, regional director for Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO).
B.C. appears to have been the target of one of the world’s most intensive programs of Atlantic salmon introductions.
“Nearly 200 introductions were made into 52 different water bodies and a total of 13.9 million eggs, alevins, fry or smolts were introduced,” according to a 2017 report to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The Cowichan River on Vancouver Island was repeatedly stocked beginning in 1905 with Atlantic salmon in various early life stages. Eggs were sourced from hatcheries on the Atlantic coast of Canada, but also from Scotland, according to a UBC alien-species report. The report notes three credible reports of Atlantic salmon that may have been the product of local spawning being caught by anglers in the Cowichan River, but none since 1926.
Juvenile fish were also released into the Coquitlam River, Lillooet River, Harrison Lake, the Campbell River, Comox Lake, Horne Lake, Nanaimo Lake, Cowichan Lake and Koksilah River.
“None of these introductions was successful in terms of establishing runs of Atlantic salmon,” reads the OECD report.
Foreign fin fish introduced to B.C. that still thrive today include Brown trout, Speckled Char, American Shad, Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass and Yellow Perch.
“The DFO no longer promotes the introduction of new species into British Columbia and we have programs in place to monitor sightings of invasive species,” Thomson said.