How Salmon populations work an explanation of salmon stock dynamics

IBIS / AST Stocking Conference Marriott Hotel, Glasgow, Scotland 27th and 28th November 2013

Ken Whelan Research Director Atlantic Salmon Trust

Layers of Complexity
Salmon populations : Complex Highly variable Highly structured Specific adaptations for each life history choice Discrete, self sustaining populations No matter how complex our models are population estimates are only as good as last years data!!

Pre-history 27k BP

Natures Safeguards
Ancestors of salmon around 50 million years ago Good at adapting have done it often before, without mans help! Ice age refugia number of invasions reflected in todays populations Life history strategies: smolts 1 7; sea ages 1 to 5 + previous spawners; spring / summer autumn and even winter runs Drowes and Owenmore

Mortality

Eggs Alevin Fry Parr Smolts (ova to smolt 98.5% to 99.5%) Post-smolts Feeding at sea summer 1 to summer 4
(.c. 3m / 40 years ago 8m)

High Seas Commercial Fisheries (Greenland) Return journey (smolt to grilse 90% to 95%) Estuarine / near shore (CC impacts!) Commercial Exploitation Rod Exploitation /losses due to C&R Natural in-river mortality / poaching Spawning mortality

Freshwater - key factors influencing productivity

Underlying geology and overall water chemistry The aquatic vegetation The quality and quantity of water in the system. A reduction in the quality or quantity of water will affect the natural fish stocks Water temperature and flow rates - fish are cold blooded, the temperature of the water has very significant effects on their growth and productivity The state of the river and stream channels that the water flows in The general land-use in the catchment of a river or loch. This can have major effects on fish through silt levels, acidification, fertiliser run-off etc.

Freshwater Recruitment - concerns??

Natural reproduction of salmon is inefficient e.g. natural fertilisation rates are low 20% redds / 100% hatcheries? Nature needs a helping hand to fill the gaps in a year when the number of adults is low Artificial stocking of rivers is required whenever catches fall, as it is thought that every drop in adult numbers means that there is unused space for juveniles, which must be filled by means of stocking

Freshwater Recruitment - Reality!

Natural fertilisation is very efficient precocious males / 7 spawners per redd Salmon produce very large numbers of eggs (rule of thumb: 200 x 8lb females = 1 million eggs), adult stocks have to be very low before the number of juveniles they produce are also low A salmon stock can be biologically sustainable even when the numbers of adults are well below what is needed to sustain fisheries for either anglers or nets-men. Major fisheries depend on consistent surpluses River Suir

Freshwater Recruitment - Reality!

If female salmon had only 5 or 10 eggs each, then stocking would be required as adult numbers drop, as many females would be needed to produce adequate young Female salmon have thousands of eggs each - a few hundred adults can produce millions of young. Relationship between the number of spawning adults and number of juveniles in the next generation is complex and indirect.

Are you looking at the bottom or the top?

Adults

Carrying capacity: how many juveniles can a stretch / a river hold ? Is 100,000 ova a large number? = 20 to 25 females!

90 % of salmon < 12cm!!

Eggs

Marine - key factors influencing productivity

Water temperature Salinity Surface currents inter-annual variation in wind fields Shelf-edge currents Food availability and composition Predation and competition By-catch ??

Marine survival

Marine Survival is key In the 1960s up to 30% / 40% of smolts survived at sea Now 5% to 10% Marine survival variable Bay of Biscay v North West Ireland Marine growth rates vary between years, highest growth rates 2002, followed by 2003 and 2009. Lowest growth rates in 2008 Need to sustain / boost smolt numbers

Surplus = a good harvest !

200
Conservation Limit = 5,000 adults Management Target = 6,200 adults Max smolt prod = 11,500 adults Replacement point = 15,000 adults

Smolts (thousands)

150

100
Max sustainable catch = 7,700 adults

50

0 0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 25,000

Adults

Biological Reference Points

The Conservation Limit defines the minimum number of fish we want to see spawning in the river. Below this limit, the risk of the stock suffering serious decline greatly increases To offer greater protection to the stock, we set a Management Target which ensures that, in the long run, the stock must exceed the Conservation Limit in at least 4 years out of 5 On average, the Management Target is often around 40% higher than the Conservation Limit Fisheries administrations have a flow chart called the Decision Structure, which helps us to decide what action to take depending on a rivers risk category and whether its getting worse or improving A Decision Structure is applied to each salmon river annually. Fishery managers for each river decide what changes in regulation are appropriate as guided by the Decision Structure outputs and other information, such as Water Framework Directive surveys of young fish. The Replacement Point, where the number of smolts migrating out will generate sufficient adult returns to ensure that the number of adults coming back from these smolts, will match the number of adults that produced the smolts.

AST / IFM stock / recruitment model

IFM / AST web- based demonstration tool showing how salmon populations work. Insert your own scenarios and see how the population is affected e.g. halve the number of fry / double the rod exploitation rate / or increase marine survival by two fold.