Conservation Risk and Uncertainty in Recovery Prospects for a Collapsed and Culturally Important Salmon Population in a Mixed-Stock Fishery
| dc.contributor.author | Connors, Brendan | |
| dc.contributor.author | Atlas, William | |
| dc.contributor.author | Melymick, Christina | |
| dc.contributor.author | Moody, Megan | |
| dc.contributor.author | Moody, Jason | |
| dc.contributor.author | Frid, Alejandro | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2020-07-06T17:11:21Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2020-07-06T17:11:21Z | |
| dc.date.copyright | 2019 | en_US |
| dc.date.issued | 2019 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Mixed‐stock fisheries simultaneously exploit populations that may differ in their conservation status, and uncertainty in stock‐specific harvest rates can hamper evaluations of recovery prospects for depressed populations. These difficulties are exemplified in the Sockeye Salmon population from the Atnarko watershed, which collapsed in the early 2000s, causing cultural and economic hardship. A recovery plan identified the incidental harvest of Sockeye Salmon by mixed‐stock fisheries in the Atnarko as a potential, but poorly understood, impediment to recovery. We reconstructed harvest rates for salmon in Indigenous and commercial fisheries and used an age‐structured state‐space model of stock–recruit dynamics to predict how a range of future mixed‐stock harvest rates would influence recovery. Under recent harvest rates, there is a 50–60% chance that the population will grow to exceed a recovery goal of 15,000 spawners over the next four generations. Eliminating the harvest of Sockeye Salmon altogether increased predicted recovery prospects to a maximum of 69%, suggesting that factors other than fisheries are contributing to the lack of recovery (e.g., ocean conditions) and that harvest management alone is unlikely to lead to recovery with a high degree of certainty. We developed a generalized migration, harvest, and catch monitoring simulation model to quantify how different monitoring scenarios might improve estimates for mixed‐stock harvest rates. Increasing the number of specimens collected for genetic samples improved the harvest rate estimates for each stock caught in the mixed‐stock fisheries, particularly for the smallest stocks, and relative to single sampling events conducted near the peak of the return migration, weekly sampling improved estimates only slightly but provided insurance against missing the peak of the return migration. Our study highlights collaborative research initiated and directed by the Nuxalk Nation to promote the recovery of a depressed stock that is inherent to traditional foods, thereby contributing to a global effort to integrate Indigenous cultural values with biological conservation. | en_US |
| dc.description.reviewstatus | Reviewed | en_US |
| dc.description.scholarlevel | Faculty | en_US |
| dc.description.sponsorship | This project was funded by the Habitat Stewardship Program for Species at Risk (project GCXE18C146), administered by Environment Canada, and it would not have been possible without the hard work and dedication of the many Nuxalk, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and private citizens involved in Sockeye Salmon monitoring, management, and science over the years in Atnarko. C. Melymick was unaffiliated for this work. W. Atlas was partially supported by QQs Project Society. Kate McGiveny generously provided updated Atnarko data, Julie Beaumont created Figure 1, and Brooke Davis, Kendra Holt, Cameron Freshwater, and two anonymous reviewers provided helpful feedback on earlier versions of the manuscript. Lastly we wish to thank the members of the Atnarko Sockeye Recovery Committee and acknowledge their contributions to the Sockeye Salmon Recovery Plan for Atnarko. There is no conflict of interest declared in this article. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.citation | Connors, B., Atlas, W., Melymick, C., Moody, M., Moody, J., Frid, A. (2019). Conservation Risk and Uncertainty in Recovery Prospects for a Collapsed and Culturally Important Salmon Population in a Mixed-Stock Fishery. Marine and Coastal Fisheries, 11(6), 423-436. https://doi.org/10.1002/mcf2.10092. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://doi.org/10.1002/mcf2.10092 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1828/11905 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Marine and Coastal Fisheries | en_US |
| dc.subject.department | School of Environmental Studies | |
| dc.title | Conservation Risk and Uncertainty in Recovery Prospects for a Collapsed and Culturally Important Salmon Population in a Mixed-Stock Fishery | en_US |
| dc.type | Article | en_US |