Fraser River sockeye salmon: data synthesis and cumulative impacts

Response: We have kept these two paragraphs. We feel that it may be valuable to someaudience members. As discussed in Section 1 of this review, this report is intended formany audiences who will vary in their levels of technical proficiency. The prioritization ofthese audiences has also been clearly defined for us (see Section 1).P158: why are differences in stock composition so "striking"? Isn't that just a result ofthe dominant four-year life history? I also don't see an actual comparison of the 2009and 2010 returns referred to at the bottom of p158.Response: The reviewer is correct – the differences in stock composition are a result of thedominant four-year life history. The purpose of these graphs is simply to illustrate thatthere are in fact substantial differences in stock composition among the cohorts. This maybe a fairly obvious observation to those with a scientific background in sockeye salmon;however, based on our observations of media coverage and other public fora it appearsthat this difference in stock composition among cohorts is often not recognized. In thepublic discourse, the poor 2009 returns are often compared/contrasted with the high 2010returns (these are the “comparisons” to which we refer), without acknowledging that thesituation is actually more complicated since not only do the two years come from differentgenerations/cycles, but the composition of each is distinctly different. These graphs showquite clearly that 2009 vs 2010 is not a simple “apples-to-apples” comparison.The "Key things we need to know better" seem to include just about everything, and Isomehow doubt that we need to know all of it.Response: Within each life stage, we limited ourselves to 4-6 key recommendations, selectedfrom a much longer list. We strongly agree that further prioritization is required, and asnoted in section 5.2.2, have suggested some questions and procedures to help in thatprocess.148