Adapting quantitative tools to support the assessment and management of wild Pacific salmon in an era of legislative, environmental, and socio-political change

Status assessments under Canada’s Wild Salmon Policy (WSP) were developed to meet objectives of maintaining biodiversity at the scale of Conservation Units, CUs, which are groups of wild salmon that cannot easily recolonize if lost because of unique adaptations. However, new legislative requirements in Canada under the Fisheries Act have led to the development of “Stock Management Units” (SMUs) for Pacific salmon that often require assessment at larger scales relevant for fisheries management. Standard approaches of aggregating information across units by summing abundances risk failure to achieve WSP biodiversity objectives. We describe alternative approaches for defining reference points and providing management-oriented advice at the SMU level that are consistent with objectives related to CU biodiversity and can more explicitly integrate risks associated with environmental change. In an era of sociopolitical change, we further provide visions for the future of inclusive, collaborative approaches to assessing status that bridge a plurality of knowledge systems. These approaches can be supported by new metrics that reflect spatial distribution, diversity at various scales, and the contributions of salmon to the ecosystem.