Abstract
In the 1960s and 1970s, six artificial spawning channels for sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) were constructed in British Columbia. I use the evaluation of these facilities and the response to the evaluation to test the hypothesis that fisheries management agencies can learn from experience. One of the facilities was almost immediately determined to be successful, but it took approximately 20 yr for the agency to evaluate the success of the other five. The evaluation was ambiguous for three of these. Only when facilities were overwhelmingly successful or total failures did clear answers emerge. The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has experimented, evaluated, and learned about design, construction, and operation of spawning channels. DFO appears to be less successful at using the evaluation of adult production resulting from spawning channels. Learning appears to work best when goals are well defined, experiments can be conducted and evaluated rapidly, and there is a close organizational connection between decision makers, evaluators, and operators.
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