Protecting weak stocks (diversity) may be key to salmon recovery

[depakid]

Adult sockeye salmon in spawning colours moving into Berm Creek, Wood River System, AK. to spawn.
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Study of Alaskan sockeye shows that ensuring a wide diversity of stocks within a given species can lead to sustainability.

A new U.S. study on sockeye shows the salmon fishing strategy for British Columbia needs to be reorganized to do a better job of protecting weak stocks, rather than on maximizing the catch when runs are large, salmon experts say. “I think it has huge implications to our current sockeye situation,” Craig Orr, executive director of Watershed Watch Salmon Society, said in reaction to a research paper released Wednesday by the University of Washington.

The study found the key to maintaining healthy salmon stocks over time lies in ensuring there is a wide diversity of stocks within a given species.

The researchers looked at Bristol Bay, Alaska, where the annual run of 30 million sockeye has remained stable since 1950 because of a harvest strategy that ensures weak stocks are protected, while maximizing the commercial catch. During that same period, sockeye runs in B.C. rivers, such as the Fraser and Skeena, have gone through dramatic ups and downs. Mr. Orr said the problem in British Columbia has been that fisheries target big runs of salmon where many stocks are mixed together. The result has been an erosion of the smaller stocks, which diminishes the population diversity the Alaska study found to be so important.

“The … paper clearly shows that our best bet for maintaining both Fraser sockeye productivity and fishing opportunities for Fraser sockeye is to manage for diversity,” Mr. Orr said. “Right now we tend to base fisheries on the strength of one or two dominant runs … and we are prepared to fish those runs hard, even if it means overfishing less productive stocks, sometimes to the very brink of extirpation.”

Jeffery Young, an aquatic biologist with the David Suzuki Foundation, agrees. “We’ve always known that protecting biodiversity is a key element of keeping ecosystems functioning … what this study homes in on is how true that is for salmon,” Mr. Young said.

More: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/protecting-weak-stocks-may-be-key-to-salmon-recovery/article1589500/

[aquart]

1. Well, do it, dammit!

They may end up the only fish we have left.