More bad news for BC’s sockeye salmon fishery.
Predictions for this summer’s return are dismal.
Numbers put together by the Fraser River Panel of the Pacific Salmon Commission show little more than two million fish could return this season –the lowest since records started being kept in 1956.
The average return is usually about four million.
The primary cause is the number of effective female sockeye spawners when this four-year cycle started in 2008 was the lowest since 1968.
Forecasts for 2012 remain highly uncertain due to variability in annual survival rates and changes in productivity.
There’s a one-in-four chance the actual number of returning sockeye could drop to about 1.2-million.