Salish Sea Marine Survival Project

7 INTRODUCTION BACKGROUND CONTEXT In 2009, the Pacific Salmon Foundation (PSF) was asked to investigate why the production of Chinook and Coho Salmon within the Strait of Georgia crashed during the 1990s and has not recovered. The Strait of Georgia is British Columbia's (BC) inland sea located between Vancouver Island and the provincial mainland. The Strait of Georgia Basin and tributaries are home to three-quarters of the population of BC, many of whom use the area for a wide variety of recreational and commercial activities. In the past, fisheries for Coho and Chinook were amongst the most valuable in Canada, but that changed dramatically in the mid-1990s. Catches that annually had numbered in the hundreds of thousands to a million fish decreased to a mere tenth or less of those levels and have not recovered despite continued investments in hatchery programs and significant reductions in fishing pressures (Figure 1). Regrettably, these losses have not been explained or addressed 1 ; and the public is increasingly concerned about the future of salmon, the health of our inland sea, and the continued economic impacts on local communities. Monitoring of hatchery salmon released into the Strait of Georgia and Fraser River has clearly demonstrated a significant decrease in the ocean (marine) survival rate of these fish but the cause(s) of this decline has not been determined. The PSF developed a scientific program 2 to determine what presently limits the production of Chinook and Coho Salmon and what mitigation actions may be undertaken to increase production. Promoting the restoration of these fisheries could be invaluable to British Columbia, and studies of the early marine life of Pacific Salmon were understood to be a natural extension of the Foundation's core programs working in freshwater streams and with local communities. However, the Strait of Georgia is also part of a larger ecological zone contiguous with the Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca; in combination this region is referred to as the Salish Sea. As in Canada, the American portion of the Salish Sea is also a human population center with extensive development, and many similar problems for Pacific Salmon. Many fisheries in these joint waters are considered under the Pacific Salmon Treaty (1985) between the United States and Canada (www.psc.org). Decreased production of salmon in the Salish Sea has severely limited fishing opportunities and presents numerous issues under the Treaty. To address these issues, in October 2013, an endowment fund under the Treaty agreed to fund 25% of an international research program modelled after the Strait of Georgia program, and named the Salish Sea Marine Survival Project (SSMSP). The SSMSP was developed to identify the factors determining annual production of Chinook, Coho Salmon and steelhead trout in the Salish Sea. It was initiated in response to the declines in Chinook, Coho and steelhead production, but also because of other ecological changes in the Salish Sea, and increasing evidence that the overall survival of juvenile salmon at sea is largely determined in the first few months after entry to the marine environment (a scientific hypothesis referred to as the "critical period" hypothesis). 1. The most recent effort to examine the Strait of Georgia and its biodiversity has been reported in the scientific journal Progress in Oceanography (2013), volume 115. 2. The Strait of Georgia Chinook and Coho Salmon proposal (2009). Available at: www.marinesurvivalproject.com 0 300,000 600,000 900,000 1,200,000 1,500,000 1970 1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 CATCH YEAR CHINOOK COHO CATCH (IN NUMBERS) Figure 1. Landed catch of Chinook and Coho Salmon in the Strait of Georgia and Strait of Juan de Fuca, 1970 to 2014. Previous to 1995, catches included recreational fishing and commercial troll; after 1995, catch is limited to recreational catch as troll gear is prohibited for Chinook and Coho in this region.

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