Linking Alaskan Salmon Fisheries Management with Ecosystem‐based Escapement Goals: A Review and Prospectus

Abstract

AbstractA growing body of literature documents that spawning Pacific salmon have profound effects on terrestrial and aquatic ecosytems. This has led to calls for considering ecosystem effects in setting salmon escapement goals; most stocks, however, are still managed using single‐species stock‐recruit models. Our objective is to ascertain whether current knowledge is adequate for setting ecosystem‐based escapement goals, with particular reference to Alaskan fisheries. We review the literature to determine how well the quantitative relationships between salmon and a given ecosystem component (e.g., the growth rate of a given species) have been identified. In most cases, quantitative relationships are not available for a wide enough range of physical and biological conditions to make accurate predictions of the response to a given level of salmon escapement. Thus, fisheries managers might curretly have difficulty in justifying ecosystem‐based escapement goals. We discuss the potential costs and benefits of increasing escapement goals as a precautionary approach, and the possibility of managing for key species for which quantitative data do exist. We conclude that developing ecosystem‐based escapement goals will require better collaboration between researchers and managers. Even under the best of circumstances, however, it will be a long‐term process, and the results are likely to be site‐specific.