Fraser River sockeye salmon: data synthesis and cumulative impacts

a single database for other researchers and scientists to use. These data could be examinedusing many other analytical techniques. In Appendix 3 (summary in section 5.2.2), we havesuggested some further methods that might yield interesting results. Such a working groupwould be able to expand that list further and decide to prioritize those expected to providethe most benefit. Furthermore, we have relied on the contractors of other projects toforward the most appropriate data sets but have not actively searched for additional data.However, this working group may also be able to improve upon the database by identifyinggaps for particular stressors or life stages where some data is known to exist but was notavailable within the Cohen Commission technical reports.6. Please provide any specific comments for the authors.Overall, there needs to be a major clean up of the text to make it more readable.Please fix ambiguous references, especially beginning sentences (i.e., search for "this","these", "It", "It's"), over-use and misuse of "it's", apparently random use of italic andbold fonts, incorrect use of "which" vs "that", useless jargon (e.g., what is a "focal"VEC?), etc.Response: The text has been corrected as suggested.We recognize that the draft report contained an over usage of contractions and that suchlanguage is not appropriate for scientific writing – all such words have been replaced. Tothe extent possible, we have examined the usage of “which” vs. “that” throughout thedocument and corrected it where necessary.The second paragraph of the Executive Summary leaves the reader hanging with "Thisis the pattern that we seek to explain", and then no pattern is actually described.Presumably, the authors mean the patterns described in the two referenced papers andthe text that follows on the next page. Please move that text to the second paragraphwhere it belongs.Response: The text has been corrected as suggested.Another sentence "Major data gaps led us to the outcome that no conclusion waspossible". Hopefully, the authors meant to include the phrase "In some cases", justbefore "Major".Response: The text has been corrected as suggested.P2, par3: the last sentence does not seem accurate. The statement of work did notdescribe any intent to guide "management strategies".Response: The text has been corrected as suggested.Statements like: "None of the factors considered for Stage 2 are likely to have shown a143