Stop the presses — the editorial board of the Kamloops Daily News has been doing research (Time To End Steelhead Sport Season, The Daily News, Oct. 9).

Seriously, ministry biologists can’t even get a hold of this fishery but the staff of The Daily News has concluded that closing the sports fishery indefinitely will somehow save this magnificent specimen so our children can watch them swim by. Brilliant. This is a reckless opinion. Shame on you.

Rob Bison, a ministry biologist and foremost expert on the Thompson steelhead, sent many of us an email last year that stated: “However, productivity assessments that have been recently updated using the current forecast for the 2011/12 return are beginning to reveal that the stocks may be stabilizing at lower levels of abundance.

“It also appears that the stocks are able to withstand the low level of fishing-related mortality associated with the catch-and-release recreational fishery.”

Apparently the editorial board at The Daily News didn’t get the email.

Truth is nobody knows for sure what will become of this magnificent fish. Habitat, interception, First Nations concerns, provincial and federal decision makers all figure into the outcome.

Certainly, you aren’t suggesting that just shutting down the sports fishery is going to save the day.

To further suggest that shutting down the sports fishery will somehow entice the provincial and federal powers that be into a brotherly brainstorming session to help save our steelhead is just pure conjecture.

Should the ministry heed your advice the town of Spences Bridge shuts down.

I would think if it was Kamloops that was going down with the steelhead that this opinion would have made it no further than the cutting room floor.

STEVE RICE

Spences Bridge