Climate contributions to hard times in US West Coast salmon fisheries
SPEAKER: Nate Mantua
NOAA NMFS Southwest Fisheries Science Center
The “warm blob” of 2014-2016 was the latest, and perhaps most dramatic, case of climate extremes that had severe negative impacts on west coast salmon fisheries. U.S. west coast Chinook salmon catches in 2016 were the 5th lowest since 1971, harvest quotas were not met, and spawning escapements to the Klamath and Sacramento River basins were very low. Salmon fisheries were sharply restricted from southern Oregon to southern California in 2017, and salmon fisheries are again sharply restricted in 2018. Sustained hard times for modern US west coast salmon fisheries arguably began in the early 1990s, with 11 of the past 25 years marked by federal disaster declarations. In this talk, I use an integrated framework to link nature, law, and economy to evaluate the role that climate extremes, resource management policies, and the evolving salmon production system played in federal fishery disaster determinations for US west coast Chinook salmon fisheries since the early 1980s. I also evaluate the role of climate change in recent Northeast Pacific climate trends and extremes, and what future climate projections suggest for the future of the west coast salmon fisheries.
Tuesday, September 18, 2018 @ 5:00pm
Please Register at EVENTBRITE OR EMAIL larkinlecture@oceans.ubc.ca
UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
AQUATIC ECOSYSTEM RESEARCH LABORATORY
GROUND FLOOR, AERL, 2202 MAIN MALL
VANCOUVER, B.C. V6T 1Z4
Reception to Follow the Lecture