Managing Pacific Salmon For Ecosystem Values

Canada's Wild Salmon Policy (WSP) was released in June 2005 with a goal to restore and maintain healthy and diverse salmon populations and their habitats. Strategy 3, Action Step 3.1 aims to include ecosystem values in decision-making by proposing "ecosystem indicators" to monitor the status of freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. The scientific basis for proposing ecosystem indicators within the WSP recognizes that Pacific salmon play an important role in marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems, including streams, lakes, riparian forest and wildlife food webs. Managers influence these ecosystems by considering changes in fisheries regulations (i.e., harvest levels) and artifical enhancement (e.g., hatcheries). This work serves three functions: (1) provide a first attempt at developing ecosystem indicators for Strategy 3 of the Wild Salmon Policy; (2) recommend further development and refinement of ecosystem indicators; and (3) suggest next steps.

Canada's Wild Salmon Policy (WSP) was released in June 2005 with a goal to restore and maintain healthy and diverse salmon populations and their habitats. Strategy 3, Action Step 3.1 aims to include ecosystem values in decision-making by proposing "ecosystem indicators" to monitor the status of freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. The scientific basis for proposing ecosystem indicators within the WSP recognizes that Pacific salmon play an important role in marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems, including streams, lakes, riparian forests and wildlife food webs. Managers influence these ecosystems by considering changes in fisheries regulations (i.e., harvest levels) and artificial enhancement (e.g., hatcheries). Thus, the role of ecosystem indicators is to provide a measure of ecosystem responses to changes in spawner abundance, thereby helping managers understand how changes in their actions affect freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. This work serves three functions: (1) provide a first attempt at developing ecosystem indicators for Strategy 3 of the Wild Salmon Policy; (2) recommend further development and refinement of ecosystem indicators; and (3) suggest next steps. To serve these functions, we reviewed the literature to develop a better understanding of the linkages among the five Pacific salmon species and freshwater / terrestrial ecosystems, and used our resulting summary on the "state of the science" to provide a scientific rationale for recommending ecosystem indicators and next steps.

The symposium "Pacific Salmon and Their Ecosystems: Status and Future Options',' and this book resulted from initial efforts in 1992 by Robert J. Naiman and Deanna J. Stouder to examine the problem of declining Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.). Our primary goal was to determine informational gaps. As we explored different scientific sources, state, provincial, and federal agencies, as well as non-profit and fishing organizations, we found that the information existed but was not being communicated across institutional and organizational boundaries. At this juncture, we decided to create a steering committee and plan a symposium to bring together researchers, managers, and resource users. The steering committee consisted of members from state and federal agencies, non-profit organizations, and private industry (see Acknowledgments for names and affiliations). In February 1993, we met at the University of Washington in Seattle to begin planning the symposium. The steering committee spent the next four months developing the conceptual framework for the symposium and the subsequent book. Our objectives were to accomplish the following: (1) assess changes in anadromous Pacific Northwest salmonid populations, (2) examine factors responsible for those changes, and (3) identify options available to society to restore Pacific salmon in the Northwest. The symposium on Pacific Salmon was held in Seattle, Washington, January 10-12, 1994. Four hundred and thirty-five people listened to oral presentations and examined more than forty posters over two and a half days. We made a deliberate attempt to draw in speakers and attendees from outside the Pacific Northwest.

What has happened to the salmon resource in the Pacific Northwest? Who is responsible and what can be done to reverse the decline in salmon populations? The responsibly falls on everyone involved - fishermen, resource managers and concerned citizens alike - to take the steps necessary to ensure that salmon populations make a full recovery. T

The importance of salmon to the Pacific Northwest--economic, recreational, symbolic--is enormous. Generations ago, salmon were abundant from central California through Idaho, Oregon, and Washington to British Columbia and Alaska. Now they have disappeared from about 40 percent of their historical range. The decline in salmon numbers has been lamented for at least 100 years, but the issue has become more widespread and acute recently. The Endangered Species Act has been invoked, federal laws have been passed, and lawsuits have been filed. More than $1 billion has been spent to improve salmon runs--and still the populations decline. In this new volume a committee with diverse expertise explores the complications and conflicts surrounding the salmon problem--starting with available data on the status of salmon populations and an illustrative case study from Washington state's Willapa Bay. The book offers specific recommendations for salmon rehabilitation that take into account the key role played by genetic variability in salmon survival and the urgent need for habitat protection and management of fishing. The committee presents a comprehensive discussion of the salmon problem, with a wealth of informative graphs and charts and the right amount of historical perspective to clarify today's issues, including Salmon biology and geography--their life's journey from fresh waters to the sea and back again to spawn, and their interaction with ecosystems along the way. The impacts of human activities--grazing, damming, timber, agriculture, and population and economic growth. Included is a case study of Washington state's Elwha River dam removal project. Values, attitudes, and the conflicting desires for short-term economic gain and long-term environmental health. The committee traces the roots of the salmon problem to the extractive philosophy characterizing management of land and water in the West. The impact of hatcheries, which were introduced to build fish stocks but which have actually harmed the genetic variability that wild stocks need to survive. This book offers something for everyone with an interest in the salmon issue--policymakers and regulators in the United States and Canada; environmental scientists; environmental advocates; natural resource managers; commercial, tribal, and recreational fishers; and concerned residents of the Pacific Northwest.

"By examining a suite of over 90 indicators for nine major U.S. fishery ecosystem jurisdictions, Link and Marshak systematically track the progress the U.S. has made toward advancing ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) and making it an operational reality. Covering a range of socioeconomic, governance, environmental forcing, major pressures, systems ecology, and fisheries criteria, they evaluate progress toward EBFM in the U.S., covering a wide range of longitude, latitude, and parts of major ocean basins, representing over 10% of the world’s ocean surface area. They view progress toward the implementation of EBFM as synonymous with improved management of living marine resources in general, and highlight lessons learned from a national perspective. Although US-centric, the lessons learned are applicable for all parts of the global ocean. Though much work remains, significant progress has been made to better address many of the challenges facing the sustainable management of our living marine resources"--Publisher's description.