Researchers at the University of B-C say — for the first time ever — the extent of salmon habitat loss has been mapped in the Lower Fraser River and the findings are grave.
A team from the faculty of forestry estimates as many as 12-hundred dikes and other barriers have separated salmon from as much as 85 per cent of their historical floodplain habitat — the area coho and chinook salmon rely on for spawning grounds and rearing smolts.
The study’s senior author, Dr. Tara Martin says the loss of habitat could be a major contributor to current salmon declines.
Martin says large-scale habitat protection and restoration must be a key part of any effort to restore wild populations of salmon to the Lower Fraser.
