As oolichan populations across the coast collapsed, impacting culture and access to traditional food for many First Nations, the Nisg̱a’a Lisims Government undertook a multi-year research project to understand and support the Nation’s efforts to conserve the oolichan population, and to ensure Nisg̱a’a citizens can continue to harvest the fish year after year.
The oolichan is a fish of many names: eulachon, ooligan, hooligan. It is sometimes called candlefish because it is so high in oil content that, when dried, it can be fitted with a wick and used as a candle. To scientists it is Thaleichthys pacificus. To the Nisg̱a’a it is saak, the saviour fish.
For thousands of years, the Nisg̱a’a people have harvested oolichan from Ḵ’alii-Aksim Lisims, the Nass River. Sim’oogit Naaws (Harry Nyce Sr), director for the Nisg̱a’a Fisheries and Wildlife Department, says the fish continues to be a mainstay of the Nation’s culture. “For us, it is a life-saving fish,” he says. “It’s the first fish that comes in the new year arriving as winter supplies are dwindling.”
The slender, silvery-blue fish began to disappear from the waterways of the province in the 1990s, likely due to a combination of climate change, overfishing, industrialization, and by-catch. The population decline—estimated at 98 per cent—negatively impacted First Nations’ culture and access to traditional foods.
In 2011, the Ḵ’alii-Aksim Lisims oolichan was assessed as “threatened” by the Government of Canada’s Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). The Nisg̱a’a Nation worried its connection to oolichan might also be in danger, and acknowledged the need to begin collecting better data on the culturally and ecologically important fish in order to ensure a sustainable fishery could be maintained.
After pushing for a re-assessment of oolichan as a “Species of Special Concern,” the Nisg̱a’a Fisheries and Wildlife Department undertook a multi-year research project that would provide concrete evidence of the fish’s population, support its efforts at conserving oolichan, and ensure Nisg̱a’a citizens could continue to harvest the fish each year.
The results of the research project, which is still continuing in 2018, were surprising. “We found that…over the last three years the biomass of oolichan has risen,” says Edward Desson, fisheries manager for the Nisg̱a’a Nation.
Sim’oogit Naaws (Harry Nyce Sr.) says the project was effective at putting together data sets for historical reference and providing more ways to maintain the resource. “That’s extremely important for us,” he says.
Careful monitoring of the traditional Nisg̱a’a fishery, and data collection of the oolichan population ensure that its numbers will not be reduced to a threatened level on one of the few river systems where their numbers are still abundant. That data will play an important role when COSEWIC reassesses the status of Nass River oolichan in 2023, and ensure the Nisg̱a’a can maintain their cultural connection to the saviour fish.
Photo captions in order of appearance: 1. Nisg̱a’a fishers harvest oolichan through the ice at Fishery Bay. Photo by Nicole Morven. 2.Saak (oolichan), the Nisg̱a’a Nation’s saviour fish, hang to dry at a camp along the Nass River. Photo by Brodie Guy. 3. Nicole Morven, Harvest Monitoring Coordinator for the Nisg̱a’a Fisheries and Wildlife Department, holds up an oolichan while collecting samples at Fishery Bay. Photo by Nicole Morven 4. Lonny Stewart holds out a pint of oolichan grease at Walter’s Camp on Fishery Bay. Photo by Brodie Guy.
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This piece was edited and posted onto SEVENSEAS Media by Giacomo Abrusci