Rivers Inlet Sockeye Salmon: An Experiment in Adaptive Management

Abstract

Historically the Rivers Inlet fishery for sockeye salmon Oncorhynchus nerka was one of British Columbia's largest salmon fisheries. Suspecting that spawning escapements had declined to far below optimum levels, in 1979 the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans initiated an adaptive management experiment to rebuild spawning runs in hopes of producing larger recruitments. The fishery was essentially closed from 1979 to 1984 and was allowed to increase gradually from 1984 to 1988 in expectation of higher recruitments following the closure. The higher recruitments have apparently not materialized, implying either that the stock was not so badly overfished in the first place, that there has been an unlucky run of poor years for ocean survival, or that the stock has responded but increases have not been detected due to poor spawner enumeration methods. Our inability to distinguish among these alternatives, even after a decade of experimentation, illustrates difficulties in designing effective plans for adaptive management. Industry and government have cooperatively developed a new strategy that they feel represents a better balance between short-term fishing opportunities and long-term information gathering, and that will be less demanding to implement in terms of in-season regulatory tactics.