Proceedings 2015/049

Proceedings of the Pacific regional peer review on the Determination of Escapement and Exploitation Rate Benchmarks for the Three Georgia Strait Southern BC Coho Management Units; November 4-5, 2014 & April 14, 2015

Chairperson: Mary Thiess
Editor: Julia Bradshaw

Summary

These Proceedings summarize relevant discussions and key conclusions that resulted from the CSAS Regional Peer Review meeting of November 4-5, 2014 held in Nanaimo, British Columbia to review the working paper titled, “Habitat-based Benchmarks for Coho Salmon in Georgia Strait Mainland, Georgia Strait Vancouver Island and Lower Fraser Management Units”.  A follow-up review meeting was held on April 14, 2015.

In-person and web-based participants included current and retired DFO Science and Fisheries Management staff, members of the Pacific Salmon Commission Coho Technical Committee, environmental non-governmental organizations and biological consultants with expertise on relevant Coho Salmon conservation units, stock assessment and fisheries management models. 

The working paper presented the results of a habitat-based Coho Salmon carrying capacity model, along with a Bayesian stock-recruit analysis.  This regression model, based on empirical data, was presented as a novel method for providing science-based recommendations for escapement and exploitation rate benchmarks for Coho Salmon in the five Lower Fraser and East Vancouver Island-Georgia Strait Coho conservation units (CUs).   Additional meeting objectives were: to provide advice on methods to combine CU benchmarks into management unit (MU) benchmarks and to identify gaps in data and uncertainties. Note that no assessment of status for either the CUs or MUs was intended to be part of this work.

The conclusions and advice resulting from this RPR process will be provided in the form of a Science Advisory Report, and will be used to inform the ongoing development of WSP benchmarks, assessment of WSP status at the CU level and MU-level management reference points.  The Science Advisory Report and supporting Research Document will be made publicly available on the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat (CSAS) Website.

Complete document (PDF, 197 KB)

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