Well worth the trip - I will be attending - ticket purchased.
I think what we might hear is some updates to research underway...current paper that is unpublished:
Wild Chinook salmon productivity is negatively related to seal density, and not related to hatchery releases in the Pacific Northwest.
Nelson, B.W., C.J. Walters, A.W. Trites, and M.K. McAllister. (in press).
Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
Finding science-based solutions to address harbour seal predation on out-migrant smolts is an important solution.
Also think we will hear that these (SRKW) are urbanized whales as compared to their NRKW cousins who have the same diet, yet they are doing poorly. I anticipate Dr. Trites will explore this theme. Is it really diet? Could pollution be making these whales sick? Is this a disease issue? What is the role of vessel presence in reducing their ability to acquire prey - SRKW are exposed to way more vessel presence than their NRKW cousins? Dr. Trites lead a prey availability technical workshop in 2017 that investigated a number of prey issues and solutions, and an international panel landed on increasing access to prey by addressing vessel presence that creates acoustic and physical disturbance was the most viable solution.
Here's a study on impact on forage behaviour and 400 m spatial zone where vessel presence is observed to impact behaviours:
https://www.int-res.com/articles/esr2008/6/n006p211.pdf
What is the role of fishery removals when Canada has reduced marine fishery catch by just over a million Chinook - it certainly doesn't appear that there is any more juice worth the squeeze left in managing the marine chinook fisheries.
Fishery 1975 Removals 2016 Removals Reduction
ISBM 889,579 215,518 - 76% (674,061)
AABM 511,790 140,090 -84% (371,700)
The aggregate reduction in marine fishery removals totals 1,045,761 Chinook since 1975. Marine or ocean fisheries only...not fresh water.
In 2014 the rec fishery in Victoria area (Canada's highest ER for Fraser Chinook) was only 6,632 -
that's enough Chinook to feed 82 SKRW for exactly 7 Days...hardly a material difference to SRKW recovery if we closed this fishery! Again, is there scientific basis to support closing marine fisheries...I think not.
One fishery that Canada hasn't looked closely at would be our Terminal in-river fishery. Might be a good case for looking at selective in-river fishery technology like fish traps they are employing in the Columbia River? Fish traps could allow a totally selective harvest where we could allow larger spawning chinook to pass up river, while selecting other fish.
Here's some data on Exploitation Rates (ER) on an indicator stream for upper Fraser Chinook
2017 ER on Dome Ck (Upper Fraser)
Fishery ER
ISBM SBC Terminal (Fraser R) First Nations 41.2%
ISBM SBC JDF (Victoria) Sport 7.2%
ISBM Troll (S + N) South/North?? 6.4%
AABM North BC Troll 5.1%
ISBM SBC Terminal (Fraser R) Sport 3.3%
AABM WCVI Spring Troll 2.7%
ISBM GST (SOG??) Sport 1.2%
AABM WCVI Sport 0.9%
ISBM SBC JST (unknown) Sport 0.1%
Maybe we can expect to hear that hatcheries for Chinook abundance are not a bad idea - a quick way to particularly increase upper Fraser Chinook. Maybe rather than spend a ton of money and time constructing a traditional hatchery requiring a river etc, how about a quick facility build in a warehouse using ground water rather than river water - a central facility in Prince George for example could supply a ton of smolts that we could raise for all the upper Fraser stocks of concern. You could even transport those down to the coast, and raise them in an ocean sea pen to get them past all the estuary predators.
