Editor’s note: To what extent is modern infrastructure responsible for the crash of fish populations? The book cited below explores how a 3,000 year-old fishery was destroyed when the city of Vancouver came into existence, but this is not a purely urban phenomenon. In a 2016 interview, Cortes Island streamkeeper Cec Robinson described how there is very little gravel left in Cortes Island streams because of early logging practises. This makes it more difficult for salmon to find places to spawn. When Provincial biologist Sean Wong installed a new culvert in Basil Creek, he told Cortes Currents there are 140,000 culverts in BC that are barriers to fish trying to migrate to their spawning grounds. Prior to the erection of the first dam in 1911, Powell River was a major spawning ground for Sockeye Salmon.

By Mina Kerr-Lazenby, North Shore News, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A new study examining the historical decline of fish populations in Vancouver waters highlights the detrimental impacts urban development has had on the local environment, and way of life for First Nations communities.

The Rise of Vancouver and the Collapse of Forage Fish, published in December by Western Washington University, tracks the decrease in numbers of ocean forage fish like herring, smelt and eulachon between 1885 and 1920.