April Newsletter 2016

April is the month we long for all winter as it’s the month where it becomes clear that winter is over and a new conservation season lies before us. It’s also the month that we unveil the 2016 projects approved by our Board of Directors.

We are pleased to announce that for 2016 61 projects have been approved (for the full list, please visit our website). These projects represent a total investment of close to $1.1 million in conservation project support across five provinces. Perhaps more significant is that the total value of these projects is $5,537,029 in cash and in-kind contribution, demonstrating excellent leveraging. Among the projects are several multi-year projects under the guidance of the Scientific Advisory Committee.

Our Foundation is proud to have supported nearly 300 salmon conservation projects in the nine years our Foundation has been offering grants. Altogether, we have received close to 500 project proposals, the quality of which has increased significantly over the years. These are all good proposals but, in a competitive process we are able to fund approximately 40 percent of the reasonable demand for funding.

I wish to recognize recent achievements of two of our Scientific Advisory Committee volunteers. Dr. Jeff Hutchings (noted in last month’s newsletter) was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2015. Also, in March this year, Peter Cronin, was elected President of the New Brunswick Salmon Council. These are prestigious accomplishments, and we are delighted to have Jeff and Peter helping us improve conservation.

This month’s volunteer of the month is, Rick Maddigan, a member of our Newfoundland & Labrador Advisory Committee. Rick is a long-time member of SAEN and has been a determined salmon conservationist for years. He brings a very keen and fair perspective to our NL Advisory Committee which is critical in helping guide ASCF support in the province.

As I have noted before, our Foundation is keenly interested in supporting top quality scientific projects. A great example is the joint Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) and University of New Brunswick -Canadian Rivers Institute (CRI) project “Building a water temperature monitoring network in Canadian Atlantic salmon rivers”. The partnership project under the direction of Dr. Normand Bergeron is aimed at establishing a standardized water temperature monitoring network in salmon rivers of Québec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador. This is another example of ground-breaking science that the ASCF is proud to support.

Yours in conservation,
Stephen Chase