How Ottawa thwarted efforts to help an endangered species

[Gone_Fishin]

Trudeau and his government should be in jail over this. Their deliberate muzzling of scientists in order to appease their wealthy friends in the fishing industry is criminal. Disgusting!

How Ottawa thwarted efforts to help an endangered species


Three main threats include inadvertent bycatch by gillnet fisheries targeting Pacific salmon; habitat degradation; and poor ocean conditions. Only one of those threats could be easily controlled – but curtailing the fishery would be an unpopular move.

And it was a political decision. COSEWIC asked the federal minister of environment to protect the southern interior steelhead trout under Canada’s Species at Risk Act (SARA), which would have had significant implications for commercial, recreational and Indigenous fisheries.

The minister rejected the request in 2019. But not before an intense behind-the-scenes battle over what the science called for.

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Roughly 2,800 pages of documents obtained by the B.C. Wildlife Federation under an Access to Information request show management at Fisheries and Oceans Canada worked to rewrite the findings of a scientific panel that assessed the recovery potential for these fish.

Steelhead trout are jointly managed by B.C. and Canada. A team of scientists from both levels of government produced a peer-reviewed report in response to the COSEWIC designation.

Justine Mannion, the acting manager for fish population science at the Department Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), alerted the team on Oct. 31, 2018, that she was “getting questions” about the report from senior bureaucrats in the assistant deputy minister’s office. The office was asking for “slight modifications,” the documents say.

That same day, Sean MacConnachie, DFO’s section head for aquatic ecosystem and marine mammal science, said the changes being sought were undermining the integrity of the process.

“The ongoing involvement by people who were not part of the process, who have not been involved in the development of the materials or the advice, continues to compromise our ability to meet the deadlines as well as the scientific integrity of the process,” he wrote.

The edited report was published, sparking a furious response from scientists on the B.C. side. They argued that the report no longer reflected the work of the science team, and that the changes specifically removed key points.

“The new summary report is inconsistent with the joint science team’s determination regarding how immediate action to reduce mortality provides the best chance of recovery,” wrote Jennifer Davis, B.C.’s director of fish and aquatic habitat, in a Dec. 7, 2018 e-mail. She demanded that DFO remove the report from public circulation. Ottawa refused.

“As it stands now, the published summary report contains substantive changes which are not supported by B.C. scientists,” wrote Manjit Kerr-Upal, the province’s director of conservation science.

One change was key. In the early drafts, the lead authors concluded that “any harm will inhibit or delay potential recovery” and that exploitation by fisheries should be reduced below current levels wherever possible.

That version never made it into the final report, which instead concluded that “allowable harm should not be permitted to exceed current levels.”

After the final, altered report was made public, the federal government announced it would not recognize the steelhead as a species at risk. “Listing Chilcotin and Thompson River Steelhead as endangered under SARA would result in significant and immediate negative socio-economic impacts on Canadians,” the decision read.

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Eric Taylor, a zoologist at the University of British Columbia and an expert in freshwater fish, was the chair of COSEWIC when it issued the emergency statement in 2018. He said DFO’s meddling in the reports was “indefensible” because management changed the conclusions against the advice of its scientists.

Had the federal government accepted COSEWIC’s advice and listed the steelhead trout under SARA, it would have required the government to adopt a recovery plan that would have been in place by now, Prof. Taylor noted.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/ ... ed-species

[Gone_Fishin]

Revealing video of the Trudeau Liberals falsifying reports to keep their wealthy friends and voter base in riches at the expense of an iconic species.

DFO accused of risking B.C. steelhead extinction

The federal government is being accused of risking the extinction of B.C steelhead runs by not listening to the advice of its own scientists. That’s the claim of the BC Wildlife Federation. It’s obtained DFO documents which raise some serious questions about how the resource is being managed. Linda Aylesworth reports.

https://globalnews.ca/video/7871083/dfo ... extinction

[common_sense_guy]

Revealing video of the Trudeau Liberals falsifying reports to keep their wealthy friends and voter base in riches at the expense of an iconic species.

DFO accused of risking B.C. steelhead extinction

The federal government is being accused of risking the extinction of B.C steelhead runs by not listening to the advice of its own scientists. That’s the claim of the BC Wildlife Federation. It’s obtained DFO documents which raise some serious questions about how the resource is being managed. Linda Aylesworth reports.

https://globalnews.ca/video/7871083/dfo ... extinction

Where is this so-called video you describe where the Liberals are falsifying reports. Come on man don't make claims that you can't back up

[Gone_Fishin]

Where is this so-called video you describe where the Liberals are falsifying reports. Come on man don't make claims that you can't back up

The Assistant Deputy Minister is a Liberal Party of Canada ADM. The direction to falsify the reports comes from the top.

And the Federal Minister of Fisheries was Jonathan Wilkinson in 2019 - you know him, right? The one who used the fabricated information to justify his refusal to list the steelhead as endangered. Come on man, next time read the article!

[Gone_Fishin]

More revelations. The rotten, corrupt filth in Trudeau's government must be sent packing.

DFO ignored pleas from scientists, altered report to downplay risks to imperilled steelhead: docs


The report, which was meant to inform the DFO’s decision on whether to list Thompson and Chilcotin steelhead under the federal Species at Risk Act, was weakened to downplay the risks to steelhead, to the dismay of scientists involved in the process, the documents show. (The documents in their entirety are available at these links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

The emails shed new light on a July 2019 decision made by Jonathan Wilkinson, then minister of Fisheries and Oceans, to not list the steelhead populations under the act, which would have given policy makers more leverage to manage for their decline in the Fraser River.

In October 2018, a month before the altered report was eventually published, the chair of the Canada Science Advisory Secretariat’s steelhead review warned the changed document was undermining the scientific credibility of the process. The secretariat conducts peer review of science advice for DFO.

“The ongoing involvement by people who were not part of the process, who have not been involved in the development of the materials or the advice, continues to compromise our ability to meet the deadlines as well as the scientific integrity of the process,” Sean MacConnachie, a DFO scientist who advises on the species at risk program, wrote in an email contained within the released documents.

One month later, after the report was made public, Jennifer Davis, provincial director of fish and aquatic habitat for the B.C. Ministry of Forests, warned DFO the altered wording in the report did not reflect the scientific consensus. But DFO did not act on these concerns.

The published report summary, Davis wrote, was “inconsistent” with the joint science team’s conclusion that immediate action was needed to reduce steelhead mortality, including changes to commercial fisheries, in order to give the fish a chance at recovery.

“The report, as published, downplays the threats associated with salmon fisheries bycatch mortality,” members of a B.C. science team warned in another email.

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Zeman said DFO is prioritizing fisheries over fish conservation, a view echoed by Taylor.

“I continue to be shocked by the deliberate mismanagement,” Taylor said.

Taylor said because of its conflicted mandate to advocate for fisheries and conserve fish at the same time, DFO “cannot be objective.”

“DFO needs to be broken up, and have some responsibility taken away,” he said. “Aquaculture should be in agriculture.”

“That doesn’t mean tweaking. The entire ministry needs to be reconfigured.”

Taylor also emphasized the intrinsic value of protecting these fish. Steelhead are unique, and many people value them simply for existing, he said.

“When you drive through the landscape, you can’t help but think of the rivers and the fish,” he said. “It’s like polar bears in the Arctic… they reflect the landscape, and people’s connection with the landscape.”

“They are not just any other fish.”

https://thenarwhal.ca/dfo-steelhead-scientists-emails