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Coordinating knowledge about Pacific salmon conservation and restoration efforts
Coordinating knowledge about Pacific salmon conservation and restoration efforts
Problem Statement
Scientific data on Pacific salmon, collected to support the National Marine Fisheries
Service's (NMFS) mission of recovering threatened and endangered salmon stocks,
have not been integrated with data collected to support its parallel mission of
managing sustainable ocean salmon fisheries.
Critical Factors
- Lack of data integration hinders fishery management decisions and
stock restoration activities carried out by state and federal agencies
and tribes.
- A comprehensive management model is needed to anticipate multi-species
impacts resulting from changes in environmental conditions and fishing regimes.
- The extensive database on salmon abundance, habitat, landings, and
hatcheries gathered during Endangered Species Act status reviews is
not incorporated into the StreamNet database maintained by the Pacific
States Marine Fisheries Commission.
- A multi-species, multi-impact model for Pacific salmon is needed to
effectively coordinate harvest issues with restoration efforts and
conservation activities.
Status of Research
Researchers at the NWFSC are integrating data on all salmon stocks in Washington, Oregon, and California generated by the
NMFS's Endangered Species Act (ESA) status reviews with data housed in the StreamNet
database maintained by the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission. This unified
repository will be updated annually. In addition, NWFSC scientists are helping develop
a multi-species, multi-impact analytical model that focuses on 1) differences in life
history parameters, migration patterns, and environmental responses among fish
stocks and 2) impacts to mixed-stock groups as a result of changes in environmental
conditions and fishery regimes. When complete, the model will be able to estimate
the ways in which changing ocean conditions affect the marine distribution of salmon.
The NWFSC has formed an interagency team to provide state and tribal fishery managers
with data and analytical support focused on maintaining the long-term viability
and genetic diversity of local breeding populations.
Future Considerations
Collaboration between the NMFS and other government and tribal fishery managers
is needed to identify important gaps in data collection, evaluate the adequacy
of current management approaches, and develop new management options. Once the
Pacific salmon databases have been fully integrated, the information they contain
will be used as a basis for coordinating and prioritizing fishery management and
stock restoration activities. At that point, data gathering must be extended to
include Alaska and British Columbia and the database structure must be expanded
to accommodate additional fields required to develop more detailed analytical
models.
Key Players
Resource Enhancement & Utilization Technologies (REUT) Division, NWFSC
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Canada Department of Fisheries & Oceans
Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife
Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife
Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission
Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission
Tulalip Indian Tribe
Skagit Systems Cooperative
University of Washington
Univeristy of Idaho
Contact: Dr. Walton Dickhoff, Director, REUT Division (206/860-3234)
NWFSC Issue Paper REUT 6206 (HQ ID 276)
Issue Papers Home
last modified 2002-07-30
Web site owner: Northwest Fisheries Science Center
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