On Tuesday, March 7th a small group of us, Brenley, Nicole, Donnah and Caroline, went to the Fraser River Discovery Centre (FRDC) to attend the first of the Fraser River Dialogues. The discussion was led by Dr. Brian Riddell, President and CEO of the Pacific Salmon Foundation, and the FRDC Executive Director. They spent the evening discussing the current state of the Fraser and Pacific salmon and some of the issues associated with salmon in the Fraser today. Many industry partners were present and interested to hear about the ongoing efforts surrounding salmon research and what their industry can do to help ensure they aren’t contributing to the overall issue of salmon decline. The great part about this dialogue series is the open floor questions to get the audience involved and broaden the range of the discussion.

Dr. Riddell was very positive towards the current condition of the Fraser and stated that it isn’t in as bad of a condition as people make it out to be. However, he pointed that the cause of salmon numbers is still an unanswered question and that we must act quickly to find the leading causes before the populations hit a place where they may never be able to recover.

We had a few moments following the discussion to speak with Brian and he was excited to learn about our program. It was great to hear that where we are headed following graduation there is plenty of restoration work! Especially involved with estuaries, rivers and salmon. Our group of young restorationists are the next generation that can help to really make a difference by restoring degraded systems associated with such global issues as declining salmon populations.

Stay tuned to view the whole filming of the discussion on the Pacific Salmon Foundations YouTube page!
https://www.psf.ca
http://fraserriverdiscovery.org
https://www.youtube.com/user/SalmonFoundation