Fisheries and Wildlife
The Fisheries and Wildlife Department manages the fish and wildlife within Wet’suwet’en territory, including catch monitoring, habitat assessment, enforcement, tagging and gear development. Department staff are responsible for managing the Wet’suwet’en catch to ensure stocks are harvested at sustainable levels. The department reports both to the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
The Fisheries Department has successfully set up a fisheries program that provides positions for a technician, biologist, rangers (two positions or more depending on the time of year) and various summer employment opportunities. The most successful program has been the tagging of coho and steelhead salmon at the Moricetown Canyon.
Another project well in the works is the Wildlife Harvest Survey – a survey that identifies the wildlife harvesting throughout Wet’suwet’en territory, done annually.
Providing food fish to our communities is another successful accomplishment. We also have good salmon sales at the canyon during the month of August. Safety concerns of people fishing in the canyon have been addressed and the canyon is now a much safer place to fish.
Summer employment is usually at a high with catch monitoring, tagging, fishermen, laborers, field workers, rangers, and pink harvesting. At the season’s peak, Fisheries & Wildlife employ’s up to an additional 50 people.