SUSTAINING SALMON: How to save, buy and serve BC’s best
- Cinda Chavich
- Apr 23
- 10 min read
I asked experts to weigh in on how consumers and chefs can best support our wild BC salmon and coastal communities.
By CINDA CHAVICH
There are many fish in the sea but none really compare with salmon — an iconic coastal species, woven into the human, ecological and cultural fabric of its place of birth, and dramatic death, here on Canada’s west coast.
It’s the latter part of the story, the life cycle and migration of this big, silvery fish, that really sets salmon apart from all others.
We love the epic tale of the wild salmon, it’s struggle to navigate back to its home stream to spawn after a life in the open ocean, and then return to the earth, literally sharing its body with the land, the eagles and bears, even the rainforest trees that depend on its decaying flesh to supplement the soil.
But people love to eat salmon, too, and that, among other realities of the modern world, has brought our favourite fish to the brink.
So, what should a responsible diner do? It’s not an easy question to answer, but many people have informed opinions when it comes to salmon.
CHAMPIONS FOR SUSTAINABLE SALMON
Salmon is so essential to the psyche of all British Columbians that it’s not surprising that there are many non-profit organizations and volunteers working to champion wild salmon populations and their threatened habitats, along with the fishing families and indigenous communities who depend on this local resource.
According to a recent survey, British Columbians said wild salmon was their top environmental issue and it’s top of mind for groups ranging from Ocean Wise and Slow Fish Canada to the T. Buck Suzuki Foundation, the Watershed Watch Salmon Society and the First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance. Protection and rehabilitation of Pacific salmon populations and their habitats, plus support for small-scale fishers, fishing licensing and quotas, is all part of the work being done by those advocating for wild salmon.
Diving deeper into the topic by following these groups’ websites and publications is a great way to keep on top of this complex topic.
Restaurateur Brooke Fader of Wild Mountain Food + Drink in Sooke was one of the founding members of Slow Fish Canada, a network of fishers, chefs and fish mongers all committed to supporting small scale, local fishers and Canadian “seafood sovereignty,” that is, keeping Canadian fish in Canada and available to us all.
“It’s not that complex, I just want people fishing,” says Fader.
At Wild Mountain, chef Olive Kienast celebrates local salmon in season. Maybe it’s a starter bite of house-cured salmon in a cucumber cup, or wild coho roe, served on a house made bull kelp cracker with sunflower seed and winged kelp spread. It’s just one of the local specialties on their ever-changing, dynamic menu, one that’s all about supporting local farmers and fishers.
“We treat salmon as a delicacy and get it in when we can from local fishers,” says Fader. “There are many different species and all are valuable for different reasons — salmon deserves more respect.”
Beyond environmental degradation and habitat loss, one of the big pressures on the BC fishing industry revolves around who owns and controls fishing licences and quota, the total amount of the allowable catch (or TAC) any boat can bring in.
On Canada’s east coast, only working fishers can hold licenses and quota, but in BC, that owner-operator and “fleet separation” system (keeping ownership of fish harvesting separate from the processing sector) is not the case. Over the years, speculative investors, processors and other big corporate interests have purchased most of the licenses and quota, and so most BC fishers must lease expensive licences from owners, often leaving harvesters in a tenuous and unprofitable situation.
Small commercial and First Nations fishers in BC have been lobbying the federal government for years, asking for changes to the Fisheries Act that would return licensing and quota to active harvesters, and Sonia Strobel is a vocal advocate.
Strobel’s fishing family is behind Skipper Otto, the Community Supported Fishery (CSF), based in Vancouver. It’s a unique ocean-to-table system, similar to a CSA veggie box, that connects consumers directly with fishermen, giving them a guaranteed customer base and fair price for the fish they catch.
That business has helped some 45 fishing families stay afloat, and plunged Strobel into the political, social and cultural side of fishing, working with those in the industry — including fishers, First Nations, scientists and NGOs — to support community-based seafood systems.
“We’re fighting hard to save what’s left of the independent fleet,” said Strobel, who had just made a presentation to the standing committee considering changes to the Fisheries Act in Ottawa, when I spoke with her.
“When you prioritize protecting the way of life of the people who live and work on the water in our fisheries, you're necessarily supporting the objectives of the Act, which is protecting fish and fish habitat, advancing reconciliation with indigenous peoples and ensuring the long-term sustainability of marine resources,” she told the federal government committee.
“If the vast majority of our licences and quotas are owned by large export-oriented companies or foreign entities, we've given up our resource even before we've given Canadians the opportunity to nourish themselves with fish,” she said, adding the current licensing situation amounts to a “modern feudal system” in which fishers fish for licence holders, for a pre-determined fee, and cannot sell their catch locally. After paying for their vessels, gear and crew, some fishers are unable to pay themselves, she says.
It’s why much of the wild salmon found in our supermarkets comes from Alaska, and why BC wild salmon is disappearing from menus.
“We export around 90% of the seafood we catch,” said Strobel. “About 80% of what we eat in Canada is imported seafood, and we know it comes from fisheries that are not as well managed as ours, fisheries where the water isn't as clean and where we don't have labour laws to protect workers. Canadian consumers should be benefiting and nourishing their bodies from the bounty of our oceans.”
Strobel acknowledges some salmon populations are precarious, but says fishermen are in the best position to help them rebound. She points to the grass-roots cooperation among commercial, indigenous and sports fishers in Port Alberni as an example of how local communities can work together to save salmon for all.
“Real social change can happen when people come together with a shared objective,” she says.
KEEPING IT WILD
It was once the simple mantra of sustainable fisheries experts and chefs to “eat wild, to save wild” salmon, while avoiding the farmed competition. That’s still the case, but it’s complicated.
Those giant net-cage salmon farms — crowded, floating livestock pens in our coastal waters — feed our insatiable demand for cheap, accessible salmon, but do nothing for the clean environment wild salmon need to survive and thrive.
The federal government has promised to remove open net salmon farms from the most critical BC waters — where wild salmon smolts migrate into the open ocean and are most susceptible to the diseases and pathogens around fish farms — but the deadline was recently pushed from 2025 to 2029. Even as indigenous leaders, commercial fishers, scientists, and NGOs joined together in a rare show of solidarity on this issue, the government reneged. Salmon farms, and the jobs they bring, are now imbedded into the economy of some coastal communities, closing them has become a political nightmare.
And so, the BC salmon farms, along with the risks they pose to wild salmon populations and marine ecosystems, remain. Canada’s production of farmed salmon is dropping but we remain one of the world’s leading producers of Atlantic salmon (always farmed) and it is ubiquitous in supermarkets and on menus, with the vast majority of salmon served in sushi bars and used for smoked salmon coming from fish farms.
And even if those farms aren’t in Canada — farmed salmon comes to us from Chile, Norway and Iceland, too — farmed salmon is problematic on other levels. Not only does cheap farmed salmon depress prices for wild fish, salmon are carnivores and feeding farmed salmon is inefficient. It takes 1.5 pounds of fish food to produce 1 pound of farmed salmon, with much that food made from smaller fish, scooped up in other parts of the world where poorer human populations depend on it for sustenance.
There’s also the issue of higher levels of PCBs and dioxins, along with pesticides and other chemicals used to fight sea lice and other diseases in farmed fish. Even many who are willing to reap the revenue of farming salmon won’t eat it themselves.
Farmed salmon may be a cheaper choice, but there are many hidden costs, and wild salmon advocates say eating wild salmon, when it’s available, is the smart, sustainable choice to support both the fishing communities and the fish.
BUYING SUSTAINABLE SALMON
It used to be a fairly solid option to choose seafood that got the green light from certification programs like Canada’s Ocean Wise or the US-based MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) sustainble fishery guide.
But what were once clear waters are increasingly murky, with many suggesting pay-for-play, green washing and pure politics are getting in the way when it comes to the complex definition of what constitutes sustainable seafood.
Salmon was caught in the crosshairs in 2025 when several BC conservation groups and scientists challenged MSC’s “sustainable” certification of Alaskan salmon. Raincoast Conservation Foundation, Watershed Watch and Skeena Wild launched a formal complaint to MSC in April, claiming that fishers in southeast Alaska's District 104 intercept millions of salmon before they can reach their home rivers in B.C., Washington and Oregon, impacting both local fishers and the coastal environment, and depleting the food source for endangered southern resident killer whales.
While an independent adjudicator, appointed by MSC, dismissed that complaint, the submission was convincing enough to lead Ocean Wise to remove salmon from the southeast Alaska fishery from its eco-certification program.
That puts what’s deemed “sustainable salmon” into a grey area at best, leaving consumers and chefs even more confused about what to serve, even removing BC salmon from their menus.
But Chef Robert Clark, one of the original founders of the Ocean Wise program and now working with his own culinary consulting business, says not serving wild BC salmon is the wrong approach and only hastens the demise of the small and indigenous fishing fleet, those best positioned to fish in a low-impact, sustainable manner.
Clark reminds me that when a specific wild salmon fishery is opened to commercial fishing in BC its absolutely sustainable as scientists have determined that the salmon population there has returned in sufficient numbers to sustain its population.
Buying wild BC salmon helps the local fish, he says, because it keeps the small, independent fishers in business, and ensures that wild fish maintain their value in a world where industrial fishing and cheap farmed fish dominates.
“If you don’t support BC salmon you’re degrading the value,” he says. “Large multi-nationals buy up the fish and all of the money goes offshore.”
The best approach for chefs and consumers is to look for local salmon that’s fresh in season or frozen at sea and be flexible about the species you buy.
“We don’t depend on one river or one species and, from a hospitality point of view, that’s a bonus,” says Clark who is now working with Organic Ocean, a Vancouver wholesaler of BC salmon and other wild, sustainable seafood.
This season, Organic Ocean offered wild salmon from various BC fisheries, including Haida Gwaii Chinook and Pink salmon, ocean run Sockeye, Johnstone Strait Wild Keta (aka Chum) salmon.
Clark also connected with indigenous fishers to bring Gitanyow Fisheries Sockeye salmon, harvested in northwestern BC, to discerning chefs. It’s fished and handled in a traditional way, the Nass River salmon scooped up in dip nets and fish wheels, then bled in holding pools, producing a very high-quality product and economic value for the community.
Other independent fish stores specializing in salmon caught by smaller harvesters in local BC waters include Finest at Sea in Victoria, with their own fishing boats, and Codfathers Seafood in Kelowna, where owner Jon Crofts is a passionate supporter of local fishers, who has also made presentations to the federal Fisheries and Oceans standing committee.
“You need to buy fish from somebody you trust,” says Crofts of the complicated world of “sustainable” seafood.
“Sustainable is massively overused, I talk about ethical — who is fishing, how they are fishing and why. When it comes from a small-scale fishery, you know its sustainable.”
Crofts, who also helped launch Slow Fish Canada, wholesales fish to Okanagan chefs and offers a weekly “fish box” delivery to local consumers, featuring local fish that’s affordable and often underutilized. That might be wild swimming scallops, halibut cheeks, ling cod or salmon, especially less expensive species such as Keta (chum) or Pink (humpback) salmon.
“The emphasis is on west coast fish, but it must be Canadian and traceable,” he says. “It’s all about good, clean and fair fish.”
There are also opportunities to buy direct from fishers if you live near a fishing community. Michelle Rose is a small CSF on Vancouver Island while Skipper Otto ships locally-caught wild fish to thousands of customers across the country.
SERVING WILD SALMON
The beauty of wild salmon is that it comes in five different species — which offers a wide variety of ways to serve it.
While the rare Gitanyow sockeye from Organic Ocean ended up on the menu at upscale Boulevard Kitchen in Vancouver, Crofts sold more than 600 pounds of Keta through his small fish market in Kelowna. Some turned up on menu at Cedar Creek Estate Winery, where chef Neil Taylor features fresh wild salmon in season.
“I’m open to using all of the species,” says Taylor, who cooks on a wood-fired grill at upscale Home Block. “All salmon is different —Sockeye is very lean, Spring is fatty and Coho is a balance. Pinks are pale and beautiful, and Keta has a decent amount of fat. I love it.”
With a strong run of Keta this year and good Chinook returns to some rivers, including the Port Alberni inlet, there is optimism from these experts about the future of wild BC salmon. Strobel says she’s confident that the federal government will finally hear the pleas of BC fishers and start the process of returning commercial licences and quotas to those working on the water.
Crofts says chefs and consumers can help if they buy and serve all species of salmon.
“We have to eat what’s seasonal and what the ocean provides,” he says.
Adds Clark: “I’ve been advocating for salmon for more than 25 years, and I’ve never been more excited about BC salmon.”
This story originally appeared in Edible Vancouver & Wine Country magazine in 2025
©CindaChavich
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