The Price of Salmon Fishing in Nova Scotia - Part 1

The history of salmon fishing in Nova Scotia for the last 5000 years looks broadly like this:

3000 BC - 1600 AD - Aboriginal Food Fishery - salmon in abundance
1600 AD - 1750 AD -First European contact - salmon in abundance
1750 AD - 1850 AD -Widespread Settlement - salmon in abundance
1850 AD - 1900 AD - Industrialization - logging, dams - salmon at risk
1900 AD - 1950 AD - Acid Rain, pollution - salmon in decline
1950 AD - 2000 AD - Commercial factory fleet ocean fishing - salmon in peril
2000 AD - Conservation efforts - salmon extinct in some rivers, remnant populations in others.

The scenario deserves a better analysis than I have sketched, but the trend is towards extinction. The cumulative effect of habitat degradation in rivers and oceans, and the pressures of commercial fishing, poaching, and angling have created a catastrophic decline of Atlantic Salmon in Nova Scotia rivers. Conservation efforts, including grilse-only retention for anglers, promotion of Catch and Release angling, and buy-outs of commercial salmon fishing licenses have only slowed the rate of decline.

Habitat improvement is the focus of conservation-minded anglers, but the cost of recovering acid rain-impacted rivers is beyond the scope of individuals. Expensive to build and to operate, lime-dosers such as those in use in Norway and on the West River Sheet Harbour are viewed with optimism. They have the ability to raise pH levels in river water by adding limestone to mitigate the acidity. It puts me in mind, however, of trying to save frogs from slowly boiling in a pot of water, by adding ice cubes, when the obvious solution is to turn down the heat.

Good Luck and Good Fishin'!
-Random Phrump