100% hatchery mass‑marking
Petitioners ask the Minister to require 100% adipose fin clipping and coded‑wire tagging of hatchery Chinook for marked‑selective fisheries. The government responds it has increased mass‑marking and is piloting selective fisheries, noting CWT differs.
Why we would sign this petition
- Enables retention of hatchery fish while releasing wild fish, increasing fishing opportunity and local food security.
- Maximizes hatchery investment and supports science because CWTs help track survival and migration for assessment.
- May reduce unnecessary closures and aligns BC with neighbouring jurisdictions using marked‑selective fisheries.
Why we wouldn’t sign this petition
- CWT programs are costlier and require funding and logistics; implementing 100% tagging may be expensive and complex.
- Widespread hatchery enhancement and mass‑marking raise concerns about potential genetic or ecological impacts on wild stocks.
- Selective fisheries also depend on timing, marked‑fish proportions, incidental mortality and management trade‑offs, so marking alone may not guarantee more retention.
The summary and both sets of reasons are AI-generated from the petition and given equal weight. Claims are the petitioners’ own; consult the official record for the full text.
Official petition
PETITION TO THE Minister of Fisheries and Oceans WHEREAS • 30-35 million hatchery Chinook are released in BC each year, but only 10-15% are adipose-clipped (marked) and only 8-12% carry a Coded Wire Tagging (CWT) tag for scientific tracking. • Washington State clips 90-100% of all hatchery Chinook and Coho allowing the U.S. to run large marked-selective fisheries as almost every hatchery fish is clipped. • BC's low marking rate is the main barrier preventing more Chinook retention opportunities. Clipping and Coded Wire Tagging (CWT) programs: • Allow fishers and anglers to keep hatchery fish and release wild fish safely, improving food security. • Protect vulnerable wild stocks while still providing opportunity for families and communities. • Maximize hatchery investment, ensuring that hatchery fish can contribute to the public fishery. Support science and development as CWTS track survival and migration. • Reduce unnecessary closures, allowing managers to keep areas open by allowing retention of marked fish only. • Align British Columbia with Washington, Oregon, and Alaska, where marked-selective fisheries are proven successful. WE, THE UNDERSIGNED, Residents of British Columbia, CALL UPON THE Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to implement 100% clipping and Coded Wire Tagging (CWT) programs to support a Marked Selected Fisheries.
Government response
Response by the Minister of Fisheries Signed by Ernie Klassen Mass-marking, defined as the removal of adipose fin from hatchery-released juveniles, serves two primary purposes. First, it can support selective harvest opportunities for hatchery-origin salmon in Pacific salmon fisheries in southern British Columbia by enabling retention of marked fish while avoiding or requiring release of unmarked wild salmon. Second, it improves Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s ability to assess hatchery programs, monitor the proportions of enhanced versus unenhanced fish in a population, and evaluate the potential genetic influence of enhancement on wild populations. Mass-marking and coded-wire tagging are not synonymous. These are distinct fish identification methods that serve different assessment purposes and provide different types of information. Coded-wire tagging is a higher-cost assessment tool used to support stock assessment and related monitoring objectives, but it does not itself enable implementation of mark-selective fisheries. Over the past five years, Fisheries and Oceans Canada has invested over $800 million to support the conservation and protection of Pacific Salmon through programs like the Pacific Salmon Strategy Initiative (PSSI) and the BC Salmon Strategy and Innovation Fund (BCSRIF). Through the Pacific Salmon Strategy Initiative, Fisheries and Oceans Canada has invested in infrastructure and technical capacity to increase mass-marking in support of both harvest and assessment objectives. Since 2021, the Department has doubled the proportion of Chinook salmon mass-marked in southern British Columbia, reaching approximately 46 per cent for brood year 2024. Fisheries and Oceans Canada has implemented pilot selective fisheries in several areas of southern British Columbia and continues to assess their effectiveness while developing an implementation framework to support future consideration of selective retention fisheries. Even where mass-marking rates are sufficient, implementation of selective fisheries depend on a range of additional factors. These include the management objective of the fishery, the proportion and timing of marked fish available in the target fishery, incidental mortality rates on unmarked fish, and potential interactions with assessment programs. Decisions related to effective and sustainable selective retention fisheries are expected to continue through annual integrated fisheries planning processes that bring together hatchery and harvest management considerations, and are supported by an implementation framework for selective retention fisheries.