Categories:
- Fish/Shellfish Research and Management
- Fish/Shellfish Research and Management -- Management and Conservation
Published: December 2024
Pages: 111
Publication number: FPT 24-04
Author(s): Dr. Mickey Agha, WDFW Matthew Bogaard, WDFW Bill Patton, NWIFC Elsa Toskey, WDFW Dr. Marisa Litz, WDFW Gordon Rose, NWIFC
Executive Summary
Executive Summary
- Puget Sound chum salmon populations have experienced considerable stochasticity in survival over the recent decades, driving declines and suppression of escapement for several systems.
- Conservation concerns for Puget Sound chum salmon range from basin-scale marine climate variability to predation, competition, harvest, and habitat changes in nearshore and freshwater environments.
- Tribal and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) co-managers use a variety of tools pre-season and in-season to evaluate the status of Puget Sound chum returns; however, data collection gaps represent an ongoing challenge to advancements in modeling recruit-spawner rates, carrying capacity, escapement goals, harvest impacts, and forecasts.
- To address population-level conservation concerns, the co-managers have continued to discuss conservation-fishery tradeoffs, hatchery programs, and the development of sustainable and adaptive harvest management strategies.
- Puget Sound co-managers have identified potential additions to chum salmon management structure and tools that may improve or stabilize declining populations, primarily pre-season and in-season genetic stock identification and population-level impact evaluation modeling.
- Puget Sound co-managers have also identified a need to understand and quantify conservation-based data gaps (e.g., predation and climate effects) for various regions to develop sustainable mixed-stock fishery management plans.
- Next steps in the comprehensive chum salmon management process for Puget Sound include identifying conservation-based objectives for individual management units, in-season data collection needs, clearly defined fishery proposals by Tribes and WDFW, in-season catch accounting processes, and developing harvest controls for stocks of high conservation concern.
- Additionally, strategies need to be developed to address basin specific chum salmon habitat needs for improved resiliency to climate change, along with integrated hatchery production and population-level specific recovery planning.
Suggested citation
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Puget Sound Treaty Tribes, and Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. (2024). Puget Sound Comprehensive Chum Salmon Management Report (2023–2024): A State of the Science, Population Trends, and Harvest Management on chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) Returning to the Puget Sound Region of Washington State. Fish Program Technical Report No. FPT 24-04. Olympia, WA 114p.