Monitoring for fisheries or for fish? Declines in monitoring of salmon spawners continue despite a conservation crisis

Abstract

Monitoring of salmon in Pacific Canada has been declining for decades. Counts of spawning salmon are critically important, enabling researchers to quantify impacts of stressors, identify when and where management interventions are required to avoid extirpations, and evaluate the efficacy of recovery efforts. These data are more important now than ever, as uniquely adapted spawning populations underlie salmon resilience and their ability to adapt to climate change, and fine-scale data can inform sustainable fishing opportunities including the revitalization of terminal fisheries. We revisit the state of Pacific salmon spawner data from the Yukon to southern British Columbia. Almost two-thirds of salmon populations that were historically monitored have no reported estimates in 2014-2023 - the worst decade for data since broadscale spawner surveys began in the 1950s. We found a positive association between the number of populations monitored and landed value for three of the five Pacific salmon species, suggesting that monitoring is, to some extent, motivated by the information needs of commercial fisheries management. We recommend aligning monitoring objectives and strategic investments to improve monitoring outcomes for salmon, ecosystems, and the communities that depend on them. We emphasize data stewardship, as ensuring access to these baseline data is a cornerstone for rebuilding wild Pacific salmon.