Good News!

After 30+ years of trying to get DFO to respond to community concerns about the loss of our herring spawns in the Southern Gulf Islands, the WSANEC Hereditary Chiefs are finally able to proceed with legal opinion recommendations to protect their Douglas Treaty rights to fish and uphold their request for a moratorium until stocks return to pre-contact abundance. 

In this presentation, Briony Penn will report on progress made in acquiring the Legal Opinion as well as present the next steps involved in the legal, political and citizen action for a Southern Gulf Island herring fishery moratorium. The program will include four short films about the issue and the natural spectacle of herring spawns (Silver Highways, The Silver in the Sea, Herring Rake, Preparing  and Smoking Herring) and Briony will report the good news about recent marine conservation progress, as well as summarize this year’s DFO rulings on the Herring Fishery.

Research is showing that we don’t know enough about how herring populations in our waters are responding to continued harvesting, a potential moratorium, or predicted changes in ocean conditions caused by climate change. Please join us at this presentation to find out how you might help be the eyes and ears for herring observation data and how you can support the WSANEC Hereditary Chiefs in their legal struggle. Nature Salt Spring is hoping to set up a Herring Watch Network to report observations of herring activities viewed from Salt Spring this spring.

Local author, artist, and Naturalist extraordinaire, Briony Penn, is the Treasurer of the Herring Conservation and Restoration Society , a group of community members, First Nation knowledge keepers and researchers supporting the chiefs in their challenge. 

The presentation is free and is open to the public at the Salt Spring Library Program Room on Thursday February 12, 7 pm to 8:30.

Nature Salt Spring is a fervent supporter of conservation efforts to rebuild the former abundance of herring in the Southern Salish Sea. In particular, we support the W̱SÁNEĆ Hereditary Chiefs in their Herring Declaration of November 2024.