Status of Salmon Stocks and Fisheries in the North Pacific Ocean

• Main Authors: Harold J. Geiger, Ted Perry, Masa-aki Fukuwaka, Vladimir Radchenko
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Pacific salmon; stock assessment; catch; recruitment; Bering Sea; Gulf of Alaska; Canada; Pacific; Sockeye; Alaska
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.581.2793; http://www.npafc.org/new/publications/Technical Report/TR4/page 6-7(Geiger).pdf

Overall, the status of Pacific salmon stocks and fisheries is currently viewed as favorable by scientists around the Pacific – although there are some areas of definite concern. Stocks in the Pacific Northwest of the United States are at historically low levels. Along the west coast of Canada, coho salmon stocks have been a concern for several years, and restrictions to coho and other fisheries have led to general increases in spawning stock sizes. Stocks of salmon in Alaska are generally at very high levels, although some salmon stocks declined rapidly in Western Alaska in the late 1990s. Stock status in the Russian Far East is somewhat mixed. In Japan, survival rates for chum salmon, the primary species, declined in the late 1990s but abundance is still at relatively high levels. The total commercial harvest, by weight, of Pacific salmon declined slightly more than 15 % from 1993 to 2001, although the total harvest of pink and chum salmon remained almost constant throughout that period. The situation for salmon stocks in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States is often referred to as one of “crisis ” (e.g., NRC 1996, Lichatowich 1999). Stock trends are downward. In contrast, Alaska stocks that migrate in the Gulf of Alaska are generally at very high levels, although many stocks that migrate into the Bering Sea declined sharply in the late 1990s. For example, the commercial harvest of salmon in Bristol Bay reached a peak of over 44 million fish in 1995. The commercial catch of Bristol Bay sockeye salmon declined to just over 12 million in 1997, and then further declined to just over 10 million in 1998. In 2001, the commercial catch of Bristol Bay