SFU researchers sit on fisheries advisory panel
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Carla Shore, 604.658.3646, 604.329.0975; carla.shore@cohencommission.ca
Carol Thorbes, PAMR, 778.782.3035; cthorbes@sfu.ca
Two Simon Fraser University researchers will sit on a six-member scientific panel that will independently advise the Cohen Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River.
John Reynolds, a biology professor and Tom Buell B.C. Leadership Chair in Salmon Conservation, and Patricia Gallaugher, an adjunct professor and director of the Centre for Coastal Studies, are the SFU appointees.
The panel will advise the Cohen Commission’s research team on scientific issues and findings related to its hearings to investigate and report on the decline of Fraser River sockeye.
“The members of our scientific advisory panel are widely respected experts in their fields with impeccable credentials whose expertise will be valuable in our examination of the decline of Fraser River sockeye,” says Brian Wallace, senior commission counsel.
Bruce Cohen, the commissioner of the Cohen Commission and a B.C. Supreme Court justice, appointed the new advisory panel.
The federal government has tasked the commission with making recommendations for improving the sustainability of Fraser River sockeye, including, as required, changes to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ policies, practices and procedures.
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Background: SFU researchers sit on fisheries advisory panel
In the summer of 2009 the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans closed the Fraser River to commercial fishing after predictions of a sockeye run exceeding 10 million fish failed to materialize. Only about a million returned to the river to spawn.
The federal government appointed Cohen to investigate the collapse of the fishery.
Fisheries biologist John Reynolds and salmon physiologist Patricia Gallaugher at SFU were members of a think-tank of scientists that also looked at the collapse, before the Cohen Commission was created.
It found in December 2009: “The weight of evidence suggests that the problem of reduced productivity occurred after the juvenile fish began their migration toward the sea (but) there are many knowledge gaps out there that we have to fill."
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