2023/2024 Salmon Conservation Stamp Winner Announced
The Pacific Salmon Foundation (PSF) is pleased to announce the winning image from our annual Salmon Conservation Stamp Competition. Valerie Rogers was awarded first place with her submission titled Rapid Ascent. Rogers’ submission is one of 20 entries in this year’s competition.
The winning entry will be featured on the 2023/2024 Salmon Conservation Stamp, a required purchase to retain any species of Pacific salmon caught in the marine environment in British Columbia.
Valerie Rogers, an award-winning professional artist, is a first-time winner of the PSF Salmon Conservation Stamp competition. The Salmon Arm-based wildlife and nature artist draws inspiration for her paintings from a lifetime spent outdoors – boating, hiking, and horseback riding in the Canadian wilderness. Rogers creates detailed, realistic paintings of wildlife to connect people with nature. Rogers spends recreational time on Shuswap Lake and other local waterways in Interior B.C., including the Adams River, where she views the famous sockeye run.
Rapid Ascent by Valerie Rogers
“This painting features a Chinook salmon and his fierce battle upriver to return to his home to reproduce. Here he has broken free from the constraints of the turbulent water and is successfully airborne over the falls,” says Rogers on her winning submission.
Rogers was named the Guide Outfitters Association of British Columbia Artist of the Year in 2014 and has twice received BC Wildlife Federation’s Artist of the Year title.
Through the individual purchase of each $6.24 Salmon Conservation Stamp, hundreds of thousands of recreational anglers support Pacific salmon conservation and restoration efforts. In 2022, PSF granted more than $1.3 million to 161 grassroots Pacific salmon conservation projects in communities across B.C. and the Yukon through the Community Salmon Program.
The Salmon Conservation Stamp is a decal that must be purchased annually by anglers and affixed to their saltwater fishing license to retain any species of Pacific salmon. Revenue from the sale of the Salmon Conservation Stamp is directed by the federal government to PSF, and provides, on average, more than $1.2 million for salmon stewardship each year through PSF’s Community Salmon Program.
“For over 30 years, PSF has stewarded revenue from the Salmon Conservation Stamp on behalf of DFO to advance critical salmon restoration, conservation, and enhancement projects in British Columbia and the Yukon,” says Hon. Joyce Murray, the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans, and the Canadian Coast Guard. “We all want to return this keystone species to abundance. This partnership between the sport fishing community, PSF, and DFO represents a vital form of collaboration required to rebuild and restore Pacific salmon populations and their habitats.”
An annual Salmon Conservation Stamp, valid between April 1 and March 31 of each fishing season, can be purchased online or through an Independent Access Provider.
Below please see the 20 submissions to this year’s Salmon Stamp Competition, including our second and third place entries.
PSF would like to thank the 2022 adjudicators for their time and effort in judging.
Second Place: Luke Raffin: Edge of the Surface
Third Place: Ronnie Hughes: Upstream Sockeye
