For the love of the salmon

Atlantic salmon have benefactors in Ottawa. Deputy Minister of Fisheries Matt King, MPs, diplomats, fishers, business people and civil servants turned out to support these iconic creatures that swim 3,000 kilometres from northern Europe to spawn in the rivers of their birth in Eastern Canada and the U.S.

The 250 people who attended the Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF) 18th Annual Fall Run Conservation Dinner and Auction at the Museum of History were treated to a lively evening that raised $75,000 for salmon conservation. They bid on donated allexpense-paid trips, fishing gear, restaurant and spa vouchers, jewelry, clothes, spirits
and art.

It was a festive night — complete with music by Duelling Pianos of Ottawa — for a serious cause. The salmon need help, and fast: As their numbers plummet, with most of Canada’s Atlantic salmon rivers down 30 to 50 percent from last year — itself not a great one — so goes the $150 million fishery. And with it, go some 10,000 good seasonal and full-time jobs, ASF chairman and CEO Bill Taylor told attendees.

Mr. Taylor talked salmon with Fisheries Deputy Minister Matt King, who sat beside him throughout the dinner. On his other side was Manitoba MP Robert Sopuck, an inland salmon expert. Mr. Taylor told the crowd that ASF and the Department of Fisheries are not adversaries. The time for study is over, though, he said, and for Fisheries to execute its 2009 salmon policy paper. (Fisheries Minister Gail Shea, who was to attend, had to fly to Nova Scotia.) The department lacks funds to manage

the salmon fishery, he added, with budgets at half the $25 million of the mid-’80s.
Catches are too large: “Last year, anglers and First Nations fishermen in Eastern Canada killed 136 tonnes of Atlantic salmon. Greenland fishermen killed another 47 tonnes, or 14,000 salmon, more than 80 percent of Canadian origin and all large spawners,” Mr. Taylor said.

He listed four fast-effect solutions: no harvest of populations with low spawning rates; no harvest of mixed stocks of migrating salmon at sea; release by anglers of all large salmon and grilse (salmon that spent one winter at sea); use by First Nations fishers of selective gear, release of all large spawners and banning of gill nets for salmon.

Of course, salmon was served that night. The appetiser buffet, with its mounds of smoked salmon, drew rave reviews. This salmon wasn’t from sea farms, which are made of floating pens where salmon are often treated with pesticides, antibiotics and sickened by sea-lice parasites and diseases that afflict the tightly penned fish and spread to healthy wild salmon.

Rather, these salmon were land-raised by the Atlantic Salmon Federation and The Conservation Fund in closed-containment land facilities with fresh-pumped ocean water; Canada has three of the world’s 10 operations.

Jim and Judy Hands of Hands Auction in Perth donated their services and auctioned fishing trips to Quebec’s Gaspé and Matapedia River, 12 Ottawa Senators tickets in a 200-level suite, a Macallan’s private scotch-tasting for 10 and a week in a Paris apartment.

Two ambassadorial gifts drew high bidding. Portuguese Ambassador José Fernando and his wife, Maria de Lurdes Moreira da Cunha, donated a dinner for 10 at their residence, featuring Portugal’s famed cuisine.
Icelandic Ambassador Sturla Sigurjónsson and his wife, Elín Jónsdóttir, will serve 10 diners their country’s food and drink specialities. In addition, the embassy secured two round-trip tickets from Icelandair for a week-long fishing package with wellknown Icelandic fishing and tour guide Axel Oskarsson, CEO of I am Iceland (www. amiceland.is). Attending in his Viking helmet to boost the Icelandic-themed evening,
he donated two one-week guiding trips. The winners were his friends and fellow fishers, husband and wife, Dan Greenberg (honorary dinner chair) and Barbara Crook.
They vigorously bid against each other, to the delight of the crowd. And to the benefit of the salmon.
Donna Jacobs is publisher of Diplomat magazine.