Maybe You Can't Get There from Here: A Foreshortened History of Research in Relation to Management of Pacific Salmon

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The standard religion of Pacific salmon research and management was developed by the 1930s and persists today: that adequate husbandry of the resource requires research on the biology of salmon, regulation to ensure sustained yield, protection of the environment to ensure the means of production, and enhancement measures to augment natural production and to mitigate effects of imperfect regulation and protection. Through the 1930s into the 1950s, there were substantial gains in understanding the biology of salmon and relating it to management. Salmon cultural techniques fell into disrepute. In the 1950s and 1960s, the pressures of other resource uses and international conventions greatly expanded perceptions of management and stimulated major discoveries about salmon biology. Economists began to seriously examine the salmon fisheries and perceived the need for limited entry. By the late 1960s the salmon fishery had become highly complex and there was a resurrection of the erstwhile hopes for salmon culture as an integral part of management. Planning exercises for the Salmonid Enhancement Program underlined that integration into a total system of management was crucial to success.For the future, for salmon to be doubled in abundance rather than halved, the manager's perspective must be more closely identified with that of salmon. In addition to the continuing needs for protection of environment and a broadly balanced enhancement program with an appropriate amount of research and evaluation, there are some necessary changes in attitude concerning regulation. Under no circumstances should the permissible harvest of any race of salmon be exceeded. Day-to-day regulation should be geared to salmon biology, not human convenience. Experimental regimes of regulation should be undertaken with suitable commitment to long-term research. Unless such measures are taken, it is realistic to speculate that "maybe we can't get there from here." Key words: Pacific salmon, resource management, salmonid enhancement