Today, most salmon fisheries are managed based on crude stock-recruitment assumptions, rather than a more sophisticated understanding of how biological and physical diversity within systems contribute to productivity over time. As a result, salmon escapement targets are routinely set at suboptimal levels. At times, this leads to harvest in excess of ecologically sustainable levels. In others, it results in harvest targets that are set at lower than necessary levels, jeopardizing the fishery’s commercial viability.

The Wild Salmon Ecosystems Initiative is working to address this problem by supporting research on the biophysical drivers of salmon production in naturally functioning ecosystems, and by investing in work that translates this knowledge into improved management. This grant to the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fisheries Science (UW SAFS) will support research on production in salmon ecosystems in southwest Alaska. This work will advance the body of knowledge on salmon bio-complexity and productivity by complementing and enhancing similar research that the Initiative is already supporting through the University of Montana (U MT). Specifically, UW SAFS will tailor their long-term studies to link to the Salmon Rivers Observatory Network (SaRON) research being driven by U MT, bringing the benefit of UW’s long-term and geographically focused dataset. In addition, UW SAFS will develop and help implement improved tools for fishery management that are designed to maintain the biophysical bases of production in intact systems. Thus, this project is aimed at instituting a new paradigm for salmon fisheries, whereby management decisions are based on simultaneously achieving healthy ecosystems and sustainable harvest.