Submitter: Jack Minard

Community: Courtenay

Date Submitted: September 15, 2023

Summary:

Stock assessment has been underfunded for far too long. It is the only activity that will provide the information upon which to base any action for restoration, rehabilitation or stock enhancement, let alone a fishery.

Submission:

Dear Cohen Commission,



My comment for the Commission is simple. How can we manage what we don’t measure?



If we knew how many sockeye smolts left the Fraser River each year this would give us something to go on. Without this information we simply will never know if it is survival issues in the more and more impacted freshwater system or the same old catch all when we don’t know “ocean survival”.



Stock assessment has been underfunded for far too long and is the only activity that will provide the information upon which to base any action for restoration, rehabilitation or stock enhancement let alone a fishery. All our hopes are held within the Wild Salmon Policy which is also hampered by a lack of will/resources to fund the information gathering to actually make it work.



Please include this in any recommendations put forward. We must measure what we propose to manage. We are dealing with a plethora of variables and complex systems that require resources to measure.