Canadian salmon shortage inquiry launched

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- A judicial inquiry into the decimation of sockeye salmon stocks in British Columbia was announced Friday by a federal minister in Vancouver.

At a news conference, Stockwell Day, minister of international trade. said British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Bruce Cohen had been appointed to lead the inquiry into why more than nine million salmon are missing from the Fraser River, the Globe and Mail reported.

The decline has major financial implications for the province while the sockeye salmon harvests in Alaska, Japan and Russia are booming, the Canwest News Service reported.

This year's seasonal harvest has netted 1,723 tons of sockeye, compared with more than 8,800 tons in 2000, the report said.

Only about one million fish returned from the Pacific Ocean to the Fraser River to spawn when 10 million to 13 million were expected.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has claimed climate change was a contributing factor for warming the river, killing the plankton on which salmon feed, Canwest said.