Pacific Salmon Strategy Initiative will conserve marine birds with fishery closures and gillnet license retirements

Abstract

Due to their lack of selectivity, entanglement of marine birds, along with a wide range of other species, in gillnets is a conservation issue worldwide. In Pacific Canada, mortality from incidental take in salmon gillnet fisheries has been identified as one of the largest sources of human-induced mortality for marine diving birds, a conservation concern impacting both local breeders and visiting migrants. In 2021, to address historic declines in Pacific salmon populations, Fisheries and Oceans Canada introduced the Pacific Salmon Strategy Initiative (PSSI). The PSSI is transformative and includes long-term commercial closures and a license retirement program. The PSSI will move the fishery away from gillnets towards more selective fishing methods with lower release mortality of non-target salmon species. Gillnet fishery closures and license retirements related to new policies under the PSSI will reduce entanglement mortality of migratory marine birds and species at risk from Canada and elsewhere, as a significant conservation byproduct. Closures and license retirements are the most effective tools to reduce bird entanglement mortality in gillnets because of the lack of technical solutions to reduce bycatch and the challenges to fund and develop robust, long-term, interdepartmental monitoring programs to inform the management of incidental take.