Pat Demeester grew up in rural southwestern Ontario. Angling was a family tradition and by the age of three, he was fishing the local ponds and tributaries of Lake Erie. One highlight from his childhood was landing a skamania trout, a breed that is known for its fighting spirit. A similar tenacity would one day define Pat’s efforts to protect sensitive fish species on the Sunshine Coast.
During his youth, Pat was intrigued by the storied life cycles of west coast fish. Moving to BC as a sixteen-year-old, he lived in a small tent on the Gulf Islands. One of his priorities was to explore the rivers described in the books and articles written by his fishing idols: Roderick H. Brown, Art Lingren, Berry Thornton, Ian Forbes, and Trey Combs.
Pat moved to the Powell River area in the 1990s, where he has lived since. Pat, his wife Tera, and two sons earned a living farming and operating a permaculture nursery for many years. During that time, Pat also began working as a fishing consultant and guide. Of particular interest to him was the unique coastal cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii), a popular game fish.
Oncorhynchus clarkii is a blue-listed species in British Columbia. There is concern about its long-term survival due to its vulnerability to human activities. Considered to be a sentinel species, these cutthroat trout are an indicator of the overall health of their marine ecosystem. Juveniles are particularly sensitive to changes in water quality and flow.
Lois Lake on the Upper Sunshine Coast is a critical habitat for the Oncorhynchus clarkii.
In 1973 West Coast Fishculture Ltd. was granted a license to operate a fish farm on Lois Lake, 15 km east of Powell River. In 2013, Agrimarine purchased the business. Their product was marketed in stores and restaurants using the environmentally friendly Oceanwise label.
Pat had been monitoring the farmed fish for over twenty years and began to notice problems.
The Agrimarine fish were spilling into Lois Lake. Their fins were supposed to be clipped but this wasn’t consistently being done. As a result, the escaped fish were not always easy to identify and were, therefore as protected as the other fish in Lois Lake.
These genetically modified fish were huge (weighing up to 30 lbs) and voracious eaters. They consumed sculpin, stickleback, Kokanee trout, and insects, food which the cutthroat trout also relied upon. They also fed directly upon the blue-listed cutthroat trout and may have even interbred with them, which was another major concern.
Over time, the number of violations committed by Agrimarine grew. They were operating outside of their tenure and had installed hundreds of feet of pipe from the lake shore to the floating fish tanks. These plastic tubes ran along the surface of the water, and were unmarked and unlit in the dark, posing a safety risk to boats. Styrofoam and equipment were strewn along the lakeshore.
Pat reported his observations to biologists and collaborated with them for several years to track the population of alien fish and its impacts on the endemic clarkii cutthroat. When he eventually appealed for government intervention, his concerns were dismissed by an official who advised him not to get involved. Pat didn’t give up. Hundreds of phone calls, reports, and meetings were conducted over a twenty-two-year span.
In 2021, roughly 20,000 of the fish escaped when a tank tipped. Pat alerted Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), which sent officers to investigate. They discovered that the farm was operating 300 – 500 metres outside of its tenure. Several pens had no netting to prevent escapes, none of the fish had their fins clipped, and the onsite manager couldn’t provide the required inspection records.
DFO decided to help Agrimarine bring its fish farm into compliance. The company had to submit an amendment plan by July 30, 2021 but failed to meet the deadline. It asked for an extension until 2022 but did not follow through and continued to operate outside of its tenure.
In 2023 a provincial inspection report revealed the fish farm was pumping out over 1.7 million kilograms of genetically modified trout a year — more than 1,100 times its licence permits. Effluent coming off the farm also exceeded multiple limits, including high phosphorus concentrations.
Pat persevered with letter writing and encouraged the federal, provincial, and local governments to resolve the situation. In 2023 he spoke at a qathet Regional District meeting. His presentation helped to convince the District to oppose the proposed amendments to the fish farm. Lois Lake is a future water source for the community. The farm was releasing large amounts of fish feces.
On August 24, 2024, the owners of the Lois Lake fish farm pled guilty and were fined $350,000 in provincial court. The site has not had any fish in the pens since the fall of 2023 and is no longer operational. The company must remove any remaining infrastructure from the lake by August 31, 2025.
This is a long overdue but vital victory for the resident native populations of cutthroat trout!
Pat also helped to keep fish farms off Texada Island in the early 2000s. He is an expert citizen scientist who remains involved in studies and educational programs. Other contributions have included collecting fish DNA and helping to breed fish for the Chapman Creek steelhead program.
One of Pat’s goals has been to gain protection for every wild trout and char, in every stream, from Jervis inlet to Philips Arm, 60 km north of Campbell River. He continues to work as a sport fishing consultant, collaborates on research with local fish biologists, and has contributed greatly to new regulations that govern sport fishing in the region.
Addendum
Pat was keen to share a few more details about what he has learned about his favourite fish.
There are four groups (genera) of Cutthroat Trout (Oncorhynchus) in the Salmonidae family: Coastal, Westslope, Lahontan, and Rocky Mountain. They can live in both saltwater and freshwater environments. In our region, 12 species of Oncorhynchus exhibit five life history strategies: resident, fluvial, ad-fluvial, anadromous, and amphidromous.
Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), often mistaken for cutthroat, is native to Pacific drainages in North America and Asia, usually weighing under 10 pounds. Steelhead, a sea-run subspecies of mykiss, migrates to the ocean and returns to freshwater to spawn.
Coastal cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii clarkii) is a unique species found in freshwater and estuarine habitats along the Pacific Coast from Alaska to Northern California. Clarkii on the Sunshine Coast occurs in all life history strategy expressions.
THE CONSTITUTION OF A FLYFISHER
by Pat Demeester