03/20/2026
🐟 Our Voice in Salmon Management Planning
Each year, member organizations of the Marine Conservation Caucus come together to provide detailed feedback on Canada's salmon fisheries management plans — this year we're building on previous conservation successes, while responding to familiar threats. Currently, SkeenaWild Conservation Trust, Raincoast Conservation Foundation, Watershed Watch, Coastal Rivers Conservancy, and Wild Salmon Centre Canada are developing comprehensive recommendations in response to DFO's draft 2026/27 Northern and Southern Salmon Integrated Fisheries Management Plans.
Here's what we're working on with our trusted partners.
⚠️ Stronger protection for endangered Steelhead — Thompson Steelhead should have been listed as Endangered years ago. With a return of fewer than 20 individuals, we're demanding DFO either expand fishing closures or accept the reality that these fish require legal protection under the Species At Risk Act.
📉 Sustainable access to sockeye — Sockeye returns this year look very promising — and we want to see that abundance put to good use. We believe selective fishing and strong monitoring are the path to more openings, not fewer. We'll continue urging DFO to resist premature reopenings and instead build the monitoring, terminal fishing opportunities, and selective gear requirements that earn broad support when abundance allows.
📊 Improved catch monitoring and transparency — With budget cuts on top of inadequate monitoring, the core work that makes fisheries management possible is at risk. Conservation can't happen without honest science, transparent data, and management that puts fish first.
🐟 Managing Chinook for Everyone — Marine recreational fisheries, which are always open somewhere, dominate chinook harvests. Meanwhile inland fishing communities who steward these fish are almost always shut out. This is especially troubling because so many chinook needlessly die due to regulations requiring the release of unmarked fish. We're advocating for fairer access and better regulations that conserve more chinook, while ensuring we meet our obligations under the Pacific Salmon Treaty, and protect prey-availability for Southern Resident Killer Whales.
🎣 A win for precautionary management — DFO took the coho crisis seriously and prioritized rebuilding over decades. We're excited to help develop new fishing plans that provide opportunities coho anglers haven't seen in a generation, and we're thankful for proposed new gear restrictions (like smaller hooks) that make recreational fishing more sustainable.
We'll submit this year's feedback shortly. In the meantime, our feedback last year provides a sense of what's involved and how seriously we take our role as a conservation stakeholder.
You can read our 2025 feedback here: https://www.mccpacific.org/2025/08/mcc-feedback-on-the-2025-26-salmon-ifmp/
Conservation can't happen without honest science, transparent data, and management that puts fish first. We'll keep showing up at the table to make that case.
