Bob Fearn says: You mention river temperature as a possible reason for low Fraser sockeye. I think we should acknowledge that logging overhanging trees has done far more to raise temperatures than global warming. As a former helicopter pilot I had a unique vantage point. Prior to logging, many large rivers were completely obscured by vegetation. In many cases the B.C. Forest Service allowed logging to the river banks due to "blow down," as it was explained to me. In addition to higher temperatures, this policy ruined many spawning beds due to silt buildup.

Answer: Good point. The Klanawa toward

Bamfield is the worst. It has 20 kilometres of logging destroyed river: featureless small gravel and silt from side to side, then a spectacularly beautiful bottom canyon. Where the gradient steepens, it blows the damage out the bottom end. But look at the two ends of the river and it's very clear what the damage is. And it's the spawning area.

David Campbell: I agree seals and sea lions are depleting salmon, but also rock fish. John Passage, west of Coal Island used to be popular for rock fish. Five years ago sea lions made the rocks a haul-out and now it is a no-fish zone.

Answer: Because

California sea lions are quadruple historical numbers, haul-outs deplete the surrounding areas of all fish species and invertebrates. From the Broughton archipelago to Milbanke Sound there are many such spots. The same thing

happened in Saanich Inlet off Wain Rock and Ardmore a decade ago. I fished from before to after, and without doubt, the California sea lions wiped out other life.

Jacques Sirois asks: Please write on ranching in the U.S. How big is it? What are its impacts? Why is this not done in B.C.?

Answer: Will do, but briefly: Alaska puts out more than a billion pink fry. Korea and Russia do the same with chum. 'Ranching' is a kind term for using the international 'commons' to feed excess fish that then return home for harvesting. There are two serious problems: competition for food, as chum from both sides are in the mid-Pacific; and, a serious homogenizing of Alaska's pink salmon genes. Returners escape the nets and stray into streams, wiping out the genes best suited to a particular drainage.

Canada does not ranch because we protect wild fish via the Wild Salmon Policy. The states to our south seriously compromised chinook genes by pumping early spring-springs -- springers -- and introducing them far and wide, wiping out specific gene pools' abilities to bounce back after difficult conditions. Finally, an astonishing stat: in the open ocean the global fish factories dump 50 billion dead fish a year off their decks because they don't fit their packages.

Staci R. Peters: Seals and sea lions eat five to eight per cent of their body weight daily, not their entire body weight; they eat many types of fish; and blaming animals for

consuming their natural diet is preposterous. Rather than thinking seals should be "culled," perhaps we should be trying to fix a problem we created by the use of sustainable fishing techniques and management.

Answer: My stats are very conservative. I used about three kilograms of food a day to compute the overall numbers. Your numbers are much higher. They work out to 56.8-90.9 kg of food a day for an adult California sea lion. As for overall numbers, the point is that California sea lions, at 120,000 animals, are quadruple their historical numbers. That's the problem. Predation from transient killer whales, aboriginal hunting and others is way down, resulting in the excess. The third point is that we use public dollars to put more salmon in the ocean. An unintended consequence is higher harbour seal and California sea lion numbers. Do note that I am not including Stellar sea lions. Their numbers are way down, and they absolutely need our help to survive.

Nathan Pyne-Carter: Seal scrammers wait for seals and then aurally scare them away from, for example, fish farms. See: www.aceaquatec.com.

Answer: Interesting product. Hmm, if we put one every 50 metres, we would need only 25,000 for the east coast of Vancouver Island.

dcreid@catchsalmonbc.com