2017 International Council for the Exploration of the Seas’ Working Group on North Atlantic Salmon Annual Report

 

The Working Group on North Atlantic Salmon (WGNAS) met at the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas’ headquarters from 29 March–7 April 2017. A total of 32 participants representing 17 countries met to consider questions posed to ICES by the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization. 

Major summary of the findings of the WGNAS are as follows:

• The Working Group reported on a range of new findings regarding salmon assessment and management, including tracking programs of Atlantic salmon in the Northwest Atlantic, monitoring of bycatch in mackerel fisheries in Iceland providing additional information on salmon at-sea, recovery programs in the River Rhine, and progress in life cycle modelling to further opportunities for understanding salmon dynamics.

 

• Information was provided on prey species of Atlantic salmon during the marine phase.  Atlantic salmon are opportunistic feeders and changes in diet reflect changes in distribution at sea and changes in prey size availability as salmon grow. Prey consumed by Atlantic salmon include fish species that are commercially exploited in the North Atlantic (herring, capelin, blue whiting, mackerel) as well as numerous fish and invertebrate forage species that are not fished.

 

• Specific for the Northeast Atlantic, exploitation rates continue to decline and catches in 2016 were 1043 t, among the lowest in the time-series. Northern NEAC stock complexes, prior to the commencement of distant-water fisheries in were considered to be at full reproductive capacity. The southern NEAC maturing 1SW stock complex however, was considered to be at risk of suffering reduced reproductive capacity and the non-maturing 1SW stock complex to be suffering reduced reproductive capacity.

 

• Specific for North America, the 2016 provisional harvest in Canada was 134.8 t; overall, harvests remain very low relative to pre-1990 values (>1000 t). In 2016, the midpoints of the estimates of returns to rivers for all regions of NAC except Labrador, are suffering reduced reproductive capacity. The 5th percentile of the estimated returns to Labrador was below CL and for this region the stock is at risk of suffering reduced reproductive capacity.

 

• In Greenland a total catch of 27.1 t was reported for 2016 compared to 56.8 t in 2015. North American origin salmon comprised 66% of the sampled catch.

 

For more information please contact Tim Sheehan at 508-495-2215 or [email protected].

ICES. 2016. Report of the Working Group on North Atlantic Salmon (WGNAS), 30 March–8 April 2016, Copenhagen, Denmark. ICES CM 2016/ACOM:10. 323 pp.

http://www.ices.dk/community/groups/Pages/WGNAS.aspx