Date: March 17 2025
On March 14th, Save Miramichi Salmon filed suit in Federal Court against the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Save Miramichi Salmon’s spokesperson Alex Mills said that “DFO mismanagement and bad science over several years are destroying a National and New Brunswick Provincial treasure – the Miramichi Atlantic Salmon – and immediate remedial action is needed now.”
A picture is worth a thousand words and these photos tell a big part of the tragic story here.
+ That is, adult striped bass are expert ferocious predators. Juvenile Atlantic salmon are the perfect sized prey.
+ For years, excessive and poorly checked numbers of foraging striped bass have been devouring juvenile Atlantic salmon and will continue to do so, until Atlantic salmon perish from the Miramichi River.
+ The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) is legally charged with managing, in a balanced way, the Miramichi River fishery for the benefit of all people. To be clear, DFO does not have the legal right to destroy a specie or promote one species over another.
+ DFO has done just that and defaulted on this important legal obligation for years – as confirmed by good science and data (see the graph of historic versus recent adult salmon returns to headwater protection barriers and striped bass estimates on page 3).
+ DFO has spent years of simply watching the population of Atlantic salmon plummet, while embracing misguided science and failed policies as the numbers of striped bass have exploded.
+ An immediate remedial plan needs to be implemented now to save Miramichi salmon.
+ DFO recently sent out a press release apparently announcing the formal adoption of its July 24 Wild Salmon Conservation Policy draft that was forwarded last summer. This policy, despite being years overdue, is simply a collection of platitudes that offers nothing at all to ease the crisis in the Miramichi that has been caused by DFO’s previous activities or lack of them.
To address DFO’s failures and protect Atlantic salmon for future generations, a new organization, Save Miramichi Salmon Inc. (SMS) comprised of a small group of committed conservationists, business owners, resident and non-resident riparian rights property owners, recreational Atlantic salmon anglers, and Atlantic salmon outfitters and guides has been diligently working on the goal of rebuilding the Atlantic salmon stocks in the Miramichi River system to a responsible eco-balanced level after a catastrophic decline caused by DFO mismanagement of the Miramichi striped bass population. Credible science and data support this effort and DFO’s non-response has precipitated this lawsuit.
The historic loss of Miramichi salmon is being, and will continue to be felt, culturally and economically by a broad spectrum of indigenous and non-indigenous communities in the Miramichi Valley and throughout New Brunswick and beyond. The final 2024 Miramichi run statistics have come in even worse than expected. The Atlantic salmon runs for the entire river system are on the edge of extinction and this decline is the direct result of DFO’s prioritizing striped bass to the exclusion and the complete mismanagement of Atlantic salmon and all other species. See linked drone video of striped bass in the Miramichi River system.
While the bass overabundance is causing grave damage to the Miramichi River ecosystem, evidence exists that it may also be impacting Miramichi Bay and the southern Gulf of St Lawrence through lobster predation, as well as predation of the salmon populations of other rivers draining into the Gulf. There is strong evidence that Miramichi populations of sea run brook trout, and smelt are also being severely impacted.
Erroneous interpretation of data by DFO’s Gulf Region’s Science Branch has resulted in failing to implement the policy for multi-species, eco-based management under the Precautionary Approach framework, which, if applied appropriately, would prevent the mismanagement of one stock to the detriment of others. Due to DFO’s failure to acknowledge the obvious population-level influence the bass are having on salmon, the bass stock continues to be managed to maximize that fisheries yield while the salmon, whose population they negatively affect, rapidly moves towards regional extinction.
First Nations’ representatives and conservation organizations such as the Miramichi Salmon Association, the Atlantic Salmon Federation, and the New Brunswick Salmon Council have recently urged DFO to lower the striped bass population by allowing greater commercial and recreational harvest level. While DFO has reluctantly permitted a greater commercial bass harvest for 2025, SMS’s and DFO’s science clearly show this will not bring the bass population to the level that will protect salmon and the ecosystem.
In November SMS sent a demand letter to DFO based on available data and sound science to drastically reduce the striped bass population and to fund substantial Atlantic salmon supplementation and restoration projects. DFO reluctantly responded to this demand, but did not offer any solution and stalled any further efforts by SMS to resolve this grave situation. SMS has now filed litigation against the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. This link will take you to the Statement of Claims that outlines SMS’s case against DFO.
SMS had hoped to resolve this situation and start the process of restoring Atlantic salmon in the Miramichi river system. Since DFO has ignored any efforts to work collectively to correct this mismanagement, SMS had no alternative to filing this legal action.
For additional information contact: Alex Mills alex.mills@millswaterlaw.ca
