Managing Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) in the mixed stock environment: challenges and considerations

Abstract

Abstract Atlantic salmon, as a result of their population structure and behaviour, are potentially subject to a complex array of fisheries, ranging from those within rivers harvesting single stocks, to distant-water mixed stock fisheries that harvest fish from different countries, stock complexes, and continents. In addition, estuarine and in-river fisheries may catch fish from more than one stock or stock component, where these are present. One of the main challenges in managing salmon across this range of fisheries is to account for the differing status of stocks with respect to safe biological limits, noting that stocks of differing productivity may require different harvest strategies. Also, the existence of sequential harvest in different fisheries provides unique challenges, because decisions in an individual fishery cannot be made in isolation of the impacts of other fisheries on those stocks. We illustrate the uncertainties and complexities involved in managing mixed stocks of salmon, whether in home-waters or in distant-water fisheries, and examples are given to illustrate how science and management are, or should be, developing to face these challenges.