Pacific salmon outlook
Summary of Pacific salmon outlook units
This version of the outlook should be regarded as an early scan of salmon production, and is subject to change as more information becomes available. In addition, individual outlooks may be superseded with formal statistical forecasts and assessments, as they are completed and reviewed.
Since 2002, Pacific Region (BC & Yukon) Stock Assessment staff has provided a categorical outlook for the next year’s salmon returns.
For the Outlook, ‘Stock Management Units’ (SMUs) replace ‘Outlook Units’ (OUs). This change has been made because many OUs did not correspond well with stock aggregates used to inform development of Integrated Fisheries Management Plans (IFMPs) for salmon. Refinement is also required for implementation of the fisheries-related revisions to the Fishery Act.
A ‘stock management unit’ (SMU) is a ‘group of one or more conservation units (CUs) that are managed together with the objective of achieving a joint status’, meaning harvest control rules would apply to the aggregate, at least in a coarse sense. Use of SMUs does not preclude considerations related to conserving CU-level diversity, but rather is a practical aggregation of CUs for harvest planning and reporting purposes. That is, it is the scale at which harvest management plans, or better, management and assessment procedures, are developed in Integrated Fisheries Management Plans (IFMPs). In many cases, elements of the Precautionary Approach are implemented at finer scales of organization within a SMU. For the ‘Preliminary Outlook’ and for those SMUs for which statistical forecasts are not produced, either because the SMU is not intensively managed and/or is more data limited, categorical ‘outlooks’ are assigned. These outlooks are based on expert opinion qualified with information from monitoring programs. For each stock grouping an outlook of expected spawning abundance is assigned based on a scale of 1 to 4.
| Outlook Category | CUs or SMUs with references | Data Limited CUs or SMUs | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wild Salmon Policy (CU Level) | Precautionary Approach (SMU Level) | Category Definition | Expected spawning abundance | |
| 1 | Red Zone (i.e. below the LBB) | Critical Zone (i.e. below the LRP) | Well below average | <25th percentile |
| 2 | Amber Zone (i.e. below the LBB, below the UBB) | Cautious Zone (i.e. above the LRP below the USR) | Below Average | 25 to 40th percentile |
| 3 | Green Zone (i.e. above the UBB) | Healthy Zone (i.e. above the USR) | Near Average | 40 to 60th percentile |
| 4 | Green Zone (i.e. at or above the TRP) | Healthy Zone (at or above the TRP) | Abundant | >60th percentile |
| Data Deficient | - | - | Insufficient information | Unknown |
Lower Biological Benchmark (LBB), Lower Reference Points (LRP), Target Reference Point (TRP), Upper Biological Benchmark (UBB), Upper Stock Reference (USR)
Note that an SMU can be below its management target (and therefore subject to some level of harvest restriction as per the harvest control strategy), but well above levels that represent a serious conservation concern (i.e. the LRP or LBB). In other situations, an SMU may be well above its target but subject to harvest restrictions because the stock rears or co-migrates in mixed-stock fishing areas with other SMUs (or CUs) that are near or below their LRP (or LBB).
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