Fisheries Management and the Wild Salmon Policy
Fisheries management is a fascinating, albeit disheartening, vocation that is caught in the same conundrum that plagues most resource management – it’s really the humans that need managing, not the resource. Where fisheries management gets really interesting however, is the divergent perspectives of biologists drawn to study it. Though attracted to fish and their biology, fisheries scientists have historically been employed to protect the fishery; and with that, the economic, employment and social benefits it might provide. This approach uses what ecologists term ‘single species management’. It considers the dynamics of a fish population within the context of maximising the number of fish that can be harvested.
Changes in the trophic composition of harvests. Ocean & Coastal Mgmt, 2000
Increasingly however, biologists attracted to fish are studying their dynamics within the context of marine ecosystems. Ecologists study the food web and the relationships between species and processes. Their primary consideration is to protect the diversity of organisms at all trophic levels that interact with specific species.
These conflicting objectives have fueled the divergent perspectives on the impacts that fisheries have had on global fish stocks. Ecologists like UBC’s Daniel Pauley, who feels the oceans are the victim of a giant Ponzi scheme waged by the world’s fisheries, go head to head with fisheries biologists defending their stock recruitment models and exploitation rates while fingering other drivers for fishery collapses.
In one fascinating outcome of this debate, a weighty paper was published in the journal Science in July 2009 following a public dispute about the global trend toward fisheries collapse. As a result, eminent US fisheries biologist Ray Hilborn and Canadian ecologist Boris Worm teamed up to lead a group of 19 international scientists in a united effort to reconcile the contradictory messages coming from the scientific community on the state of global fisheries. The paper, Rebuilding global fisheries and its supplement can be found here. The next step however, is to reverse the identified trends to a point where ecologists believe that our fisheries and marine ecosystems are not impaired by fisheries management and extraction.
The Status of Salmon
There is no question that fisheries management presents complex biological, economic, and political challenges. The status of salmon throughout much of BC and the US Pacific Northwest substantiates this difficulty.
In the lower continental US, salmon have disappeared from 40% of their historic spawning range and commercial fisheries proceed only as exceptions. In British Columbia, commercial catches of salmon between 1995-2005 were the lowest on record and the number of stocks contributing to this catch has declined, shifting over the decades from many diverse runs to fewer large runs.
In 2008, Raincoast published a paper in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences on the status of salmon on BC’s central and north coast. Our findings show that since 1950, salmon runs have repeatedly failed to meet their DFO escapement targets – meaning that not enough fish are returning to spawn. This resulted in a diminished status given to all species in nearly every decade. Only 4% of monitored streams consistently met their escapement targets (by decade) since 1950.
Species currently in the worst shape are chinook, chum and sockeye, which were depressed or very depressed in more than 70% of runs (2000-2005; 85%, 72% and 73% respectively). While specific to the north and central coast, this is likely true coast wide.
There has also been a continual erosion of stream counts and monitoring efforts since the 1980s. By 2005, only 137 indicator streams were consistently monitored (of 215 indicator streams; this represents 8% of the 2600 salmon runs on the central and north coast).
Further, monitoring efforts have been eroding in a biased manner that contributes to a shifting baseline syndrome, since runs not meeting their targets are disproportionately dropped from monitoring. For example, the percentage of runs classed as diminished during 2000-2005 was 35%. Yet, if runs classified likewise in the previous decade were included (instead of dropped), the percentage increases to 72%. For more findings from Ghost Runs, the poster overview, the abstract or the full paper click here.
Since 2008, preliminary assessments of the 456 Conservation Units in BC suggest 1/3 are now threatened or endangered and another 1/3 are data deficient (i.e., their status is unknown).
Canada’s Wild Salmon Policy and MSY
Canada’s new Wild Salmon Policy (WSP) states that the conservation of wild salmon and their habitat is the top priority in decision making. While it sounds good, the reality is the WSP is embedded in a single species management approach that uses Ricker curves and single generation stock recruitment models to maximise fisheries harvest while minimising the number of fish returning to spawn. This approach, encapsulated in the philosophy of Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY), has been criticized for almost three decades for its failure to safeguard fisheries and maintain ecosystem structure and function. Generally, these models provide a simple understanding of (often) complex ecological systems, they are overly optimistic of productivity, they don’t capture uncertainty, they downplay the risk of over-fishing, and they assume harvested “surplus’ fish have no role other than their purpose for human consumption. Still, MSY remains the touchstone of salmon management in BC, even under the Wild Salmon Policy.
In Rivers Inlet, where the commercial sockeye fishery has been closed since 1996, we modelled stock recruitment data according to the assumptions of DFO’s Ricker model. The results reveal that the three primary assumptions of the model are violated, yet this model was/is routinely used to manage our salmon fishery. (This paper is in preparation).
Where to next….
One of the most important shifts needed within fisheries management is to set ecosystem-based escapement goals. Such goals would consider environmental uncertainty, the trophic position of salmon in the marine food web, the role of nutrients in terrestrial ecosystem processes, and the needs of carnivores that rely on spawning salmon. Identifying thresholds and specific needs of terrestrial carnivores is the focus of Raincoast’s salmon-carnivore project.
Coupled with lowering harvest rates to incorporate wildlife objectives, we also believe it is time to establish truly protected salmon runs – runs that would be managed solely for their importance to wildlife and ecosystems. Currently, even salmon runs that spawn in protected watersheds and parks are subjected to exploitation by commercial fisheries at levels as high as 80 percent. Often, these parks were created to protect species such as grizzlies, black bears and wolves that have an energetic and evolutionary dependence on salmon. Allowing salmon to return to spawning grounds of parks and protected areas without encountering the nets of the Pacific salmon fleet is a bold and ambitious proposal (because runs are only protected from harvest when they are overfished or endangered), but we believe it is one the public is ready for, and is long overdue for fisheries management.
