North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission

Workshop 2011

NPAFC International Workshop on Explanations for the High Abundance of Pink and Chum Salmon and Future Trends

The two-day workshop included oral presentations and posters. Proceedings of the workshop will be published in the NPAFC Technical Report Series in early 2012.

Dates: October 30–31, 2011
Venue: Vancouver Island Conference Centre
Background

Total commercial catches of Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) in the Subarctic North Pacific are at historic high levels, with recent catches over one million tonnes. High catches were caused by an increase of pink and chum salmon production, which represented over 80% of the total catch. At the same time Chinook, coho, and masu salmon have been decreasing in abundance. These trends in Pacific salmon catches are generally recognized to result from processes within the ocean that appear to improve the capacity to produce pink and chum salmon, perhaps decrease the capacity to produce Chinook and coho salmon, and contribute to recent extreme variability in sockeye salmon production. Understanding how future trends in ocean production capacity will change is particularly important for hatchery programs. The Workshop aims to bring together international experts to identify what is known about the reasons for recent production trends and to identify future research needs.

Objectives

1) identify production trends of pink and chum salmon by region
2) identify reasons for high production of pink and chum salmon (and low production of other salmon species)
3) predict future production of pink and chum salmon
4) identify key areas of future research.

Topic Sessions

1) Trends of pink and chum salmon production by region
2) Hatchery production
3) Migration and distribution patterns during the marine life history
4) Feeding, growth, and survival strategies
5) Ecological capacity of the ocean to produce wild and hatchery pink and chum salmon
6) Prediction and management of Pacific salmon production in a changing climate
7) Future research

Schedule

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Program & Abstracts

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Abstract Guidelines

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Announcement

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View Poster

Organizing Committee
    • Richard Beamish (Pacific Biological Station, DFO, Canada; Chairperson)
    • Alexander Bugaev (Kamchatka Fishery and Oceanography Research Institute, Russia)
    • Sanae Chiba (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Japan)
    • William Crawford (Institute of Ocean Sciences, Canada)
    • Edward V. Farley, Jr. (Auke Bay Labs., Ted Stevens Marine Research Institute, NMFS, USA)
    • Toru Nagasawa (National Salmon Resources Center, FRA, Japan)
    • Ki Baik Seong (Cold-Water Fish Research Center, NFRDI, Korea)
    • Nancy D. Davis (NPAFC Secretariat)