Wild Salmon Policy Strategy 1
Standardized Monitoring of Wild Salmon Status

The Wild Salmon Policy requires a systematic process to organize all Pacific salmon streams and lakes into geographic units for conservation and specification of the means to monitor abundance and distribution of Pacific salmon within those units over time.

Implementation Update for Strategy 1

Action Steps	Progress Made to Date	Next Steps
1.1 Identify Conservation Units (CUs)	Developed method for delineating CUs. Developed and consulted on list of CUs for BC. Consult on list of CUs for Yukon in March 2011	Ongoing review of all CUs
1.2 Develop criteria to assess CUs and identify benchmarks to represent biological status	Finalized methodology papers on Indicators of Status and Benchmarks for CUs and Evaluation of Benchmarks for CUs. Completed technical report on metrics distribution. Developed draft software developed to identify benchmarks of status on spawner abundances using spawner and recruitment data.	Continue to develop tools and guidelines to support the development of benchmarks. Identify lower/upper benchmarks for Barkley Sound CUs for all species. Collaborate with First Nations and stakeholders.
1.3 Monitor and assess status of CUs	Draft stock status reports have been completed for Fraser sockeye, Skeena and Nass sockeye and chum CUs.	Develop generalized assessment framework for all CUs. Monitor and assess CUs Collaborate with First Nations and stakeholders.

Conservation Units

Conservation Unit Methodology

2008 – CSAS 2008/052. Holtby, B. Framework for characterizing conservation units of Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) for implementing the wild salmon policy [PDF]. Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Pacific Biological Station. 2007 – CSAS 2007/070 - Conservation Units for Pacific Salmon under the Wild Salmon Policy, 2008 by Blair Holtby and Kristine Circuna.

Summary List and Maps of Conservation Units in BC

Summary List and Maps of Conservation Units in BC [PDF] Description: This document contains table summaries and maps of the Conservation Units in British Columbia for each of the seven species-types covered by the Wild Salmon Policy. These are sockeye-river type [SER], sockeye-lake type [SEL], Chinook [CK], chum [CM], coho [CO], pink-odd year [PKO], and pink-even year [PKE]. The CU names, acronyms, and index numbers are used in the List of Sites for Conservation Units (below) to identify the CUs.

List of Sites for Conservation Units

List of Sites for Conservation Units [PDF] Description: This workbook contains lists of the sites used to describe the diversity of Pacific salmon in British Columbia. For each conservation unit, there is a list of one or more sites where salmon are known to or are believed to have successfully reproduced. The biological characteristics of those salmon and/or the geographical characteristics of the site were used to characterize the conservation unit. A site is a place where salmon have been regularly seen, counted or sampled. A site is not a population in any sense of that word. Sites range in geographic scope from side-channels or small tributaries of small creeks up to major rivers. The presence of a specific place in these lists implies only that there exists some easily accessible information about salmon in that place. More importantly, the absence of a specific place from the lists does not mean and cannot be construed as meaning that salmon are not persistently present there.

WSP Strategy 1 - Reports & Presentations

Some of the following links connect to non federal government sites. These sites do not conform to the same policies for content and official languages.

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2011 - Grant, S. et al. Evaluation of Uncertainty in Fraser Sockeye (Oncorhynchus nerka) Wild Salmon Policy Status using Abundance and Trends in Abundance Metrics. Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat Report 2011/087.

2010 – Indicators of status and benchmarks for Conservation Units in Canada's Wild Salmon Policy, Holt, C. Presentation to SEHAB on May 28, 2010.

2010 – CSAS Research Documents on Wild Salmon Policy Evaluation of Stock Status for Fraser River Sockeye Salmon, Nass River Sockeye Salmon, Nass River Chum Salmon and Skeena River Chum Salmon (pending)

2010 – CU’s posted on WSP web-mapping application

2010 - Peacock, S. and C. Holt. A review of metric of distribution with application to Conservation Units under Canada’s Wild Salmon Policy [PDF]. Canadian Technical Report of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 2888.

2009 - Indicators of status and benchmarks for Conservation Units in Canada's Wild Salmon Policy [PDF] Carrie Holt, Blair Holtby, Alan Cass and Brian Riddell. Presentation to State of the Salmon Conference on February 5, 2009.

2009 - CSAS 2009/059 - Holt, C. 2009. Evaluation of Benchmarks for Conservation Units in Canada's Wild Salmon Policy: Technical Documentation

2009 - CSAS 2009/058 - Holt, C., Cass, A., Holtby, B., and Riddell, B. 2009. Indicators of Status and Benchmarks for Conservation Units in Canada's Wild Salmon Policy

2009 – Hyatt K. Workshop on methods for assessing status and identifying benchmarks for conservation units of the Wild Salmon Policy [PDF], January 5-6, 2009, Vancouver, BC. Ottawa, ON: Fisheries and Oceans Canada

2009 - Irvine, J.R. 2009. The successful completion of scientific public policy: lessons learned while developing Canada's Wild Salmon Policy. Environmental Science & Policy 12(2): 140-148.

2009 - Irvine, J. R. 2009. Canada’s Wild Salmon Policy - where is it now, and how to improve the likelihood of its success [PDF]. Pg. 71-77 in P. Gallaugher and L. Wood (Eds), Proceedings Haig-Brown Symposium on Sustaining Wild Salmon: Moving from Words to Action. Continuing Studies in Science and the Centre for Coastal Studies, Simon Fraser University.

2008 - Irvine, J. R., and G. A. Fraser. 2008. Canada’s wild Pacific salmon policy and the maintenance of diversity. American Fisheries Society Symposium 49:391-398.

2008 - Assessing the Status of Conservation Units for the Wild Salmon Policy [PDF] WSP Forum March 2008 by Carrie Holt