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Centenary Articles 2008 Roderick Haig-Brown Conservation Awarded to Terrace Resident
Centenary Articles 2008 Roderick Haig-Brown Conservation Awarded to Terrace Resident
To promote the links between ecology and economy through watershed management, and to inspire a conservation ethic through education and literature. |
Centenary Articles 2008 Roderick Haig-Brown Conservation Awarded to Terrace Resident
| 2008 Roderick Haig-Brown Conservation Awarded to Terrace Resident |
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Years of Conservation work net an award for local angler..TERRACE ANGLER Jim Culp has been presented with the Roderick Haig-Brown Conservation Award for more than 50 years of work to protect fish and fish habitat.The award, named after pioneering writer, conservationist, and judge Roderick Haig-Brown, comes from the oldest fly-fishing club in B.C. – the Totem Flyfishers of B.C.Club president Ehor Boyanowsky cited Culp’s “lifetime of dedication to fish and fish habitat” in bestowing the award.Culp’s career of conservation began 52 years ago when Culp, then a high-school student, joined the Port Coquitlam Hunting and Fishing Club.He became the Coquitlam club’s secretary when he was in Grade 11.Soon thereafter, he and one other member represented the club at meetings of the B.C. Wildlife Association’s Lower Mainland Zone.Culp has since raised his concerns at every political level - municipal, regional, provincial and federal.And he was instrumental in founding the Steelhead Society of British Columbia in 1970, becoming its third president.In 1974, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans appointed Culp to the Skeena Salmon Advisory Board, the significance of which is that every board member but one represented the commercial fishing industry.Culp calls the period from 1979 to 1992 his “busiest” years.His two decades of volunteering with the Sport Fishing Advisory Board began in 1979.He and others fashioned the Terrace/Kitsum-Kalem Salmon Enhancement Society in 1982, but the First Nation members soon withdrew.Culp served the reorganized and re-named society, the Terrace Salmonid Society, for many years, as salmon hatchery manager, board member and director.Also in 1982, Culp was elected the regional district director for Thornhill.The next year – in 1983 – Culp began a six-year stint as the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’s restoration fisheries advisor for the North Coast, as well as being the department’s ombudsman for the sports fishery.In 1985, Culp was able to have angling regulations changed on a section of the Morice River.From a total closure, fly fishing was permitted with dry or walking flies only.That protected spawning Chinooks and permitted angling for commingling steelhead.In 1991, Culp led an initiative that created interim employment for 60 Terrace area residents, including eco-centred jobs such as creel censuses on the Skeena and Kitimat rivers, and restoring fish passage on the Kitimat River and Williams Creek.He has also received a National Recreational Fisheries Award for his contribution to sport fishing.Culp currently provides advice on salmon harvesting plans for Watershed Watch and the Pacific Marine Conservation Caucus. |