Chum Salmon (Oncorhynchus keta)

• Chum salmon populations can vary dramatically in abundance from year to year. The majority of these populations are considered to be healthy and not in danger of extinction; some have declined to the extent that they are protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Historically, some populations in Washington and Oregon were overfished (often as incidental take in other fisheries), but no overfishing is presently occurring.
• Of the four distinct evolutionary significant units (ESUs) of chum salmon identified in the Pacific Northwest, two are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). No attempt has been made to identify ESUs of chum salmon in Alaska, and no populations of chum salmon in Alaska are listed under the ESA.
• Chum salmon is low in sodium, a good source of omega-3 fatty acids, and a very good source of protein, niacin, vitamin B12, and selenium. For more on nutrition, see Nutrition Facts. (USDA)
• In Alaska, commercial landings of chum salmon have recently been worth over $40 million dollars per year. Chum salmon eggs are highly valued as ikura, salmon roe used in sushi. Chum salmon are now one of the most valuable species in Southeast Alaska commercial fisheries due to high production from hatcheries in that region.

Sustainability Status

Biomass: Unavailable*
Overfishing: No**
Overfished: No**
Fishing and habitat: Chum salmon are primarily harvested in net fisheries. Purse seine fisheries take the largest volume, but chum salmon are also an important species for gillnet fisheries. Chum salmon are also caught in commercial troll and marine recreational fisheries, and are a very important species for subsistence use in Western Alaska. Fishing gear for salmon has little or no direct impact on fish habitat; however, lost net gear can pose an entanglement risk to marine animals.
Bycatch: The primary bycatch is other salmon species. Management measures seek to minimize bycatch and bycatch mortality to the greatest extent practical.
Aquaculture: Chum salmon are not farmed to market size. However, chum salmon are an important species in ocean-ranching aquaculture (hatcheries) in both the eastern and western north Pacific. They are released when they are juveniles to supplement the natural populations. In Alaska, hatcheries now produce the majority of chum salmon harvested in Southeast Alaska and Prince William Sound. In other areas of Alaska, natural production is dominant.

*Unlike most groundfish stocks, biomass metrics are not used to describe the status of salmon stocks. Instead, stock status is usually described using measures of spawning escapement, productivity, and recruitment. However, annual estimates of abundance of year classes that will contribute to fisheries are used for management purposes.
**This applies to the entire “Coho Salmon Assemblage,” which consists of coho, sockeye, pink, and chum salmon throughout southeast Alaska. There are 4 indicator stocks of coho salmon that are used to determine the status of the assemblage; these indicator stocks are Auke Creek, Berners River, Ford Arm Lake, and Hugh Smith Lake.

Science and Management

In Alaska, chum salmon are included in the Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for Salmon Fisheries in the EEZ off the Coast of Alaska. The Salmon FMP was developed to prohibit fishing for salmon in the EEZ (federal waters) except by a limited number of vessels using troll gear. All management of the salmon fisheries is deferred to the State of Alaska. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game manages chum salmon in state waters for commercial and recreational fisheries and subsistence and personal use. On Federal lands in Alaska, subsistence use of salmon is managed by Federal Subsistence Boards and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and Forest Service.

Chum salmon is also found off the coasts of Washington and Oregon but is not federally managed. Catch of chum salmon is incidental to catch of other salmon species in federal waters off the West Coast.

In 1985, the U.S. and Canadian federal governments signed the Pacific Salmon Treaty to cooperate in the management, research, and enhancement of Pacific salmon stocks that migrate through the waters of both countries. The Pacific Salmon Commission was formed to implement the Pacific Salmon Treaty. The commission does not regulate salmon fisheries, but provides regulatory advice and recommendations, and a forum for the two countries to reach agreement on mutual fisheries issues. A new, 2008 agreement has been negotiated between the U.S. and Canada and is currently being considered for ratification by the two countries.

Life History and Habitat

Life history, including information on the habitat, growth, feeding, and reproduction of a species, is important because it affects how a fishery is managed.

• Geographic range: Chum salmon's range extends farther along the shores of the Arctic Ocean than that of the other salmonids. Spawning populations are known from Korea and Japan and into the far north of Russia. In North America, chum salmon were historically distributed throughout the coastal regions of western Canada and the United States, as far south as Monterey, California. Now, major spawning populations are found only as far south as Tillamook Bay on the northern Oregon coast.
• Habitat: Salmon spawn in freshwater and live in the ocean. Chum salmon are similar to pink salmon in that they do not have an extended period of freshwater residency like coho, Chinook, or sockeye salmon do. Instead, chum salmon typically migrate directly to estuarine and marine waters after they emerge as fry in their natal streams.
• Life span: Like other Pacific salmon, both male and female chum salmon die after spawning. They typically spawn between the ages of 3 and 5, and may reach 6 years of age in Alaska.
• Food: Chum salmon feed on insects as they migrate downriver, and on insects and marine invertebrates in estuaries and near-shore marine habitats. As adults in the ocean, their diet consists of copepods, fishes, mollusks, squid, and tunicates.
• Growth rate: Growth is rapid during the first few months of living at sea, then moderate after the first summer at sea.
• Maximum size: Chum salmon grow to be among the largest of Pacific salmon, second only to Chinook salmon in adult size. They can grow up to 3.6 feet in length and 30 to 35 pounds in weight. The average weight is around 8 to 15 pounds.
• Reaches reproductive maturity: Most chum salmon mature and return to their birth stream to spawn between the ages of 3 and 6. Age at maturity tends to be younger in more southern populations.
• Reproduction: Chum salmon are anadromous. In order to mate, they must migrate from the ocean into the freshwater streams and rivers in which they were born. They spawn once and then die (called semelparity). Chum salmon in North America typically have 2,000 to 4,000 eggs per female. Eggs are laid in nests called redds which are covered in gravel. Juveniles emerge from the gravel and almost immediately migrate to sea, unlike most other anadromous salmonids which usually migrate to sea at a larger size after months or years of freshwater rearing. As a result, survival and growth in juvenile chum salmon is less dependent on freshwater conditions than on favorable estuarine conditions.
• Spawning season: Chum salmon spawn soon after entering the streams in which they were born. In the far northern portion of their range, spawning occurs in early summer, but further south, the spawning time can range from late summer to March but is usually concentrated in early winter when the river flows are high.
• Spawning grounds: Chum salmon often spawn in the lowermost reaches of rivers and streams, typically within 62 miles of the ocean. However, chum salmon may make much more extensive spawning migrations; some populations of chum salmon in the Yukon River migrate across Alaska to spawn in the Yukon Territory, over 2,000 miles from the Bering Sea. Chum salmon prefer to nest in areas with upwelling currents to provide oxygen for their developing embryos.
• Migrations: Chum salmon are anadromous, meaning they migrate from the ocean to freshwater rivers and streams to spawn. Chum salmon migrate from freshwater to marine waters as fry. They initially rear in estuarine and nearshore marine waters, moving offshore across the north Pacific as they grow larger. As they approach maturity, they migrate back into coastal waters and return to their natal watershed to spawn.
• Predators: Chum salmon are preyed upon as juveniles by a variety of fish and avian predators, and as adults by sharks, sea lions and seals, and orcas.
• Commercial or recreational interest: Both
• Distinguishing characteristics: Chum salmon are best known for the enormous canine-like fangs and striking body color of spawning males (a calico pattern, with the front two-thirds of the flank marked by a bold, jagged, reddish line and the posterior third by a jagged black line). Females are less flamboyantly colored and do not have fangs. When in the ocean, chum salmon are metallic greenish-blue along the back with black speckles, very similar to both sockeye and coho salmon at this stage. As chum salmon enter fresh water, their color and appearance changes dramatically. Both sexes develop a "tiger stripe" pattern of bold red and black stripes. When juvenile chum salmon are about to migrate to sea, they lose their parr marks (vertical bars and spots useful for camouflage) and gain the dark back and light belly coloration used by fish living in open water.

Role in the Ecosystem

As with other Pacific salmon species, chum salmon are an important mechanism for transporting nutrients from marine to freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. Salmon carcasses, as well as eggs, embryos, alevins, and fry, provide nutrients to stream and lake ecosystems. Carcasses have been shown to enhance salmon growth and survival by contributing significant amounts of nitrogen and phosphorous compounds to streams. Additionally, aquatic and riparian plants uptake nutrients from salmon carcasses. In marine waters, chum salmon play a role as a predator on forage fish species, and as a prey species for a variety of fish, birds, and marine mammals. Because of their relatively large biomass in oceanic feeding areas for salmon, chum salmon are potentially an important competitor with other salmon species utilizing the same habitats.

Additional Information

Market names: Salmon, Chum or Keta
Vernacular names: Dog Salmon, Calico Salmon, Chub, Keta Salmon

Salmonid species on the West Coast of the United States have experienced dramatic declines in abundance during the past several decades as a result of human-induced and natural factors including ocean and climatic conditions, dams, habitat loss, urbanization, agricultural and logging practices, presence of wood in streams, water diversion, and predators (including humans). Two chum salmon "evolutionary significant units" (population or group of populations that is reproductively isolated and an important part of the species' evolution) were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1999. A variety of conservation efforts have been undertaken with some of the most common initiatives including captive-rearing in hatcheries, removal and modification of dams that obstruct salmon migration, restoration of degraded habitat, acquisition of key habitat, and improved water quality and instream flow. The Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery Fund was established by Congress in 2000 to support the restoration of salmon species. The fund is overseen by NMFS and carried out by state and tribal governments.

Biomass

Biomass refers to the amount of chum salmon in the ocean. Biomass estimates are not available for chum salmon. Unlike most groundfish stocks, biomass metrics are not used to describe the status of salmon stocks. Instead, stock status is usually described using measures of spawning escapement, productivity, and recruitment. Information related to the status of stocks can be found among the websites listed at the bottom of this page.

Chum salmon may historically have been the most abundant of all Pacific salmonids. Now, seven of 16 historical spawning populations in the Hood River Evolutionary Significant Unit (ESU) are extinct. Recently some of these populations have shown encouraging increases in numbers, but the 2005 status review report shows the overall population trend declining by 6% each year. In the Columbia River, historical populations reached hundreds of thousands to a million adults each year. In the past 50 years, the average has been a few thousand a year. Currently, it is thought that 14 of the 16 spawning populations in the Columbia River ESU are extinct. About 500 spawners occur in the ESU presently, and the long-term trend is flat. No populations of chum salmon in Alaska are listed under the ESA.

Landings

Landings refer to the amount of catch that is brought to land.

Biomass and Landings

Are landings and biomass related? Landings are dependent on biomass, management measures in the fishery, and fishing effort.

Data sources:
Landings from NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service Annual Commercial Landings Statistics using "SALMON, CHUM" as Species and "Pacific" and "Alaska" as State

Important Dates

1978 – Original Salmon Fishery Management Plan for federal waters off the coast of Alaska is adopted
1985 – Pacific Salmon Treaty goes into effect; average harvest for salmon species drop
1990 – Alaska Salmon FMP is amended, deferring regulation of salmon fisheries in federal waters to the State of Alaska (the Alaska Department of Fish and Game)
1999 – Hood Canal Summer-run and Columbia River ESUs are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act

Notes and Links

General Information:
NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Office of Protected Resources - Chum Salmon information

NMFS Northwest Regional Office Chum Salmon Endangered Species Act listings

NMFS Northwest Regional Office - Salmon Fishery Management Summary

Updated Status of Federally Listed ESUs of West Coast Salmon and Steelhead

Fishery Management:
Fishery Management Plan for the Salmon Fisheries in the EZZ of the Coast of Alaska

Stock Assessments: