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By Liam Verster-Vernon Matters

SALMON RESTORATION

Investments supporting salmon in the Okanagan, Shuswap, and B.C.

Dec 18, 2023 | 6:29 AM

KAMLOOPS — Upper levels of government are supporting activities to protect salmon populations in B.C., which include some local investments.

The federal Ministry of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, along with the provincial Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship, announced over $86 million in funding for 58 projects under the second phase of the British Columbia Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund (BCSRIF).

The projects are jointly funded through the federal Pacific Salmon Strategy Initiative and the Province of B.C.

Among those projects is one in the Okanagan and two in the Shuswap.

The Department of Biology at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus, will receive $218,350. Those funds will be used to combine genetic, morphological and microchemistry analyses to investigate hybridization between sockeye and resident kokanee within the Skaha Lake system over a 15-year period.

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The Secwepemc Fisheries Commission, on behalf of the Thompson-Shuswap Salmon Collaborative and the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council, will receive $1,306,000 in funding. That money will be used to assess, monitor, and respond to freshwater habitat threats facing wild salmon and steelhead trout in the area.

The Little Shuswap Lake Band will receive $1,884,334 through this investment. The funding will be used to re-establish connectivity and habitat conditions to support and sustain recovery of sockeye, other salmon and other resident fish species in Adams River.

“Our government is committed to working with the Province of British Columbia to invest in programs that protect B.C.’s salmon populations and the fisheries they support,” Diane Lebouthillier, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, said.

“The project recipients being highlighted today are making significant progress in preserving and restoring salmon habitat while also providing long term, sustainable fisheries. The British Columbia Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund continues to be a successful contribution program that utilizes innovative techniques to safeguard the future of Pacific salmon and other priority fish stocks for years to come.”

Other projects supported through the investments are habitat and passage restoration and improvements, conservation and recovery research and actions, stock management, hatchery studies, and understanding climate change impacts on food sources.

The organization receiving the largest cuts of the investment are:

• Scw’exmx Tribal Council: $5.3-million to provide flood recovery actions in the Nicola Watershed.
• The Pacific Salmon Foundation: $5-million to refine its Passive Integrated Transponder tag to track fish; and $3.7-million to work with First Nations partners in addressing knowledge gaps around herring and Pacific Salmon in the Salish Sea
• The Skeetchestn Indian Band: $4-million for the Deadman River Watershed Restoration Program

The full list of organizations benefiting from this investment and the projects they are running can be found here.

“Our government is taking action to protect and enhance watersheds and ecosystem health throughout the province,” Nathan Cullen, Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship and the Minister Responsible for Fisheries, said.

“The projects we are announcing today will restore key salmon habitats, build climate-resilient salmon ecosystems and support the long-term economic and environmental sustainability of B.C.’s fisheries. These projects are using the best science and expert Indigenous knowledge to bring back abundance to B.C.’s waterways and the ecosystems and communities they support.”

Since its launch in March of 2019, the BCSRIF has supported 155 projects, representing over $214.67-million in investments to rebuild the wild Pacific salmon population and support the province’s fish and seafood sector.