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MSI: Stock Assessment & Enhancement

ABL Home
Marine Salmon Interactions
Stock Assessment:
Coho Indicators
LPW Rockfish
Weir Data
Coded-Wire Tags
Pink Salmon Forecasting
Enhancement:
Hatchery-Wild
Chinook
Endangered Species
Program Activities:
Publications
Posters
Reports & Activities
Archives
Juvenile sockeye salmon in kelp forest
Juvenile sockeye salmon in kelp forest.
 
Sampling plankton in bongo nets
Sampling plankton in bongo nets.
 
Coho salmon smolts in net pin
Coho salmon smolts in net pin.

The Marine Salmon Interactions (MSI) Program at Auke Bay Laboratories conducts stock assessment and enhancement research on Pacific salmonids. This is an important group of keystone fishes that are widely distributed, generally abundant, commercially valuable, and historically and symbolically important in the cultures of peoples around the North Pacific Rim.

MSI stock assessment research includes operation of counting weirs at Sashin Creek and Auke Creek, epipelagic trawling for juvenile salmon and associated fishes in key migration corridors, modeling and genetic studies to evaluate interactions between wild and hatchery salmon, and forecasting to predict adult returns and run strength for harvest management. MSI stock assessment research also uses tagging technologies, such as coded wire tags, to document migratory patterns, fishery contribution, exploitation rates, and interceptions of ESA listed stocks.

Juvenile rockfish stock assessment is focused on behavioral responses to different types of benthic habitat in the presence and absence of predators. This research is designed to evaluate the impacts of disturbed seafloor habitats from commercial groundfish fishing on the well being and survival of juvenile rockfishes using those habitats.

MSI enhancement research centers around interactions between hatchery and wild stocks of salmon, genetic studies and hatchery effects on two introduced stocks of anadromous Chinook salmon and an endemic stock of steelhead at the Little Port Walter Marine Station on Baranof Island. Chinook salmon studies include comparing stock differences and effects of 7 generations of hatchery culture with the original parental wild populations. Steelhead studies, focused on potential ESA recovery principles, examines relationships between the extant anadromous run in Sashin Creek and an 80-year old isolated freshwater population in Sashin Lake derived from the same stock. Other enhancement related research includes interactions between wild and hatchery juvenile salmon in various marine habitats. These studies are possible because a large percentage of hatchery salmon in southeast marine waters are marked either with otolith tags or coded wire tags that identifies which hatchery they came from.

 

Featured Research, Publications, Posters, Reports, and Activities

  • MORRIS, J. F. T., M. TRUDEL, M. E. THIESS, R. M. SWEETING, J. FISHER, S. A. HINTON, E. A. FERGUSSON, J. A. ORSI, E. V. FARLEY, Jr., and D. W. WELCH. 2007. Stock-specific migrations of juvenile coho salmon derived from coded-wire tag recoveries on the continental shelf of western North America, p. 81-104. In C. B. Grimes, R. D. Brodeur, L. J. Haldorson, and S. M. McKinnell (editors), Ecology of Juvenile Salmon in the Northeast Pacific Ocean: Regional Comparisons. Am. Fish. Soc. Symp. 57. Bethesda, Maryland. 
     
  • HEARD, W. R., E. SHEVLYAKOV, O. V. ZIKUNOVA, and R. E. McNICOL. 2007. Chinook salmon – trends in abundance and biological characteristics. N. Pac. Anadr. Fish Comm. Bull. 4:77-91. (.pdf, 1.46MB).  Online.
     


See the publications and poster databases for additional listings.

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