Vuntut Gwitchin gov't eases some fishing restrictions, but ban on chinook salmon remains

With just over 500 chinook salmon now past Old Crow, Yukon, on the Porcupine River, the Vuntut Gwitchin government is easing some fishing restrictions, including the use of gill nets to catch freshwater fish, but a complete ban on catching chinook salmon remains in place.

This summer marked the first time the Indigenous government implemented a comprehensive gill netprohibition. The net ban extended from the end of June until the first of August.

"Hopefully we will not need to take this extreme of a step in a future year. However, all options need to be on the table," said Jeremy Brammer, the Vuntut Gwitchinfish and wildlife manager.

"Sadly, the impact is quite large," he said, noting freshwater fish are an important part of people's diet, especially in light of declining salmon numbers and the need for conservation. He explained that salmon can sometimes inadvertently get caught when people are gill netting for other species and that risk was too high during the main pulse of the chinook run.

"Vuntut Gwitchin fishers are making a huge sacrifice to ensure that all the chinook,as many as possible, are getting to their spawning grounds," said Brammer.

While this year's run is looking better than last year's, the increase is marginal and the overall picture remains grim.

"We're still not in the thousands we would hope to be in, but a small improvement year on year is certainly where we want to be. That's better than a continued decline,"said Brammer.

'We have to think of future generations'

Joe Tetlichi, aTetlit Gwitchincitizen, said the community must do all it can to protect the chinook.

"Sometimes we have to look at conservation over Aboriginal rights. It's my Aboriginal right to go out and hunt, but it's also my Aboriginal right to take responsibility when conservation is an issue."

For Tetlichi, protecting the fish is protecting the future of a way of life.

"When it comes to conservation we have to think of future generations," he said.

With the absence of fishing in the community, the Vuntut Gwichin government has done like some other communities in a similar position and turned to buying fish.

So far, every household has received one sockeye salmon flown in from the Taku River in northern B.C. where the stocks are still doing well.

The Old Crow Early Years Program, which supports parents and caregivers with babies and young children, received several fish, and this week, children and families in the community gathered to help with the fish.

"Just to have that experience with our young ones and let them taste salmon ... it's such an important moment," said Bree Josie, who runs the program.

As a mother of two young children, Josie said the decline of the chinook salmon in the Porcupine River is significant. She said her family used to set nets, fish and eat salmon from the Porcupine River every summer.

"It's been really sad. My youngest daughter is two and a half and she has never tasted salmon from the Porcupine River," said Josie. "She's just not been able to have that experience."

"All the kids, three and under, have never been able to have that," she added. "We really wanted to give [them] that kind of traditional experience."

And while the number of chinook passing Old Crow is far from the thousands it once was, for Brammer, there is reason to be hopeful.

"I just really want to highlight the sacrifice [of] Vunutut Gwitchin citizens here in the name of protecting chinook populations in the Porcupine," he said.

"It's a really important gesture of the commitment of this First Nation to ensuring the sustainability of this population of salmon, and that the fishery for chinook can return for future generations, for children or for children of children."