Fraser River Sockeye Fisheries and Fisheries Management - Cohen ...

The reported excerpts from Bradford et al. (in preps) support the growing body of scientificresults showing that ecosystem tampering and productivity enhancements (hatcherysupplementation, captive breeding) are not always successful or beneficial to the long term, so itis important to use the best techniques available with caution. However no information isprovided to support the notion that DFO will cease making efforts to protect and rehabilitate thispopulation, so Recommendation 8 provided on p. 149 seems superfluous.LGL Response: During the MSC review of Fraser sockeye, several NGOs expressedconcerns regarding DFO’s commitment to implementing the recovery strategy for Cultussockeye. Thus, one of the conditions associated with MSC certification of Fraser sockeyewas a clear commitment from DFO that they will continue to implement the recoverystrategy for Cultus sockeye.Page 106+: The section on the Bristol Bay sockeye fishery is disproportionately long. Thatsection could be reduced by citing recent papers that summarize more succinctly some of themanagement and assessment procedures used (see for example Hilborn et al.1999) (Hilborn, R.,B.G. Bue and S. Sharr. 1999. Estimating spawning escapements from periodic counts: acomparison of methods. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 56: 888-896.). Irrespective of this fact, one islead to question the rationale used to require a review of the procedures used in a differentcountry, and in a context that is radically different from that of the Fraser River. What pertinentconclusions stem from this review could induce short term and substantial modifications of theDFO management practices, the current US/Canada treaty, and the current PSC operationalprocedures? If any, the authors do not highlight them in the report. For comparative purposes,one could use another major Canadian sockeye system, such as the Skeena River which wasrecently subject to a peer review by an independent science panel of experts (Walters, C.J., J.A.Lichatowich, R.M. Peterman, and J.D. Reynolds. 2008. Report of the Skeena IndependentScience Review Panel. A report to the Canadian Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans and the BritishColumbia Ministry of Environment. May 15, 2008. 144 p.). Potentially important issues to theCommission of Inquiry, and recommendations that come to mind from the review of the BristolBay system could include the following:Is there any evidence to suggest that the Fraser River sockeye catch in Alaskan fisheriesmight have been vastly underestimated, and would account (at least partly) for the lowreturns observed during 2009.The ADF&G forecasting methods are apparently not readily available so are notdescribed in detail and compared to DFO methods. Given the trends in Fig. 35, themethods seem to have improved over time. If so, one recommendation should be to havescientists from both countries compare the performance and merits of alternativeforecasting methods and where further improvements are possible. If some US methodsM-22