Terms of Reference

Guidelines for Integration of Wild Salmon Policy Biological (Strategy 1) Status Indicators and Their Application to Fraser River Sockeye Conservation Units

Pacific Regional Science Advisory Process

November 14 – 16, 2011
Nanaimo BC

Chairperson: Marilyn Joyce

Context

As part of implementing Strategy 1 of Canada’s Wild Salmon Policy (WSP), Canada is required to assess the biological status of WSP Conservation Units (CUs) for Pacific salmon. To meet this requirement for Fraser sockeye, this Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat (CSAS) workshop will investigate methods to integrate recently generated status information from various metrics and model assumptions.

Objectives

The workshop has two objectives:

Using Fraser River sockeye as a test case, develop clearly documented guidelines for combining information from different status metrics.
Provide integrated status evaluations that include identification of relevant metric(s) used for the status determination for each of the 24 Fraser River sockeye CUs.

Small break-out groups will work through “blind” case studies (ca. 6 groups * 16 case studies each = 4 replicate assessments for each of the 24 CUs), using summaries of the information published in Grant et al. (2011). Note that the workshop will deal exclusively with assessments of biological status under WSP Strategy 1, and will encourage the use of CSAS-accepted metrics.

Considerations for addressing these objectives:

How should status assessments be combined across different metrics and model assumptions?
How should uncertainty in abundance metrics be considered (e.g. alternative estimates of lower benchmarks)?
How should data quality be considered in the status evaluation?
How should additional information be considered in status integration?

Participants will be provided background information and case study materials in advance of the meeting. Participants will also be invited to provide initial thoughts on these 4 questions through small-group or individual interviews prior to the workshop. A summary of pre-workshop interviews will be presented on the first day.

Expected publications

CSAS Proceedings document summarizing the discussions.
CSAS Science Advisory Report on the status (Red, Amber, or Green) for 24 Fraser sockeye CUs, with accompanying rationale.
CSAS Research Documents (2), one providing a detailed record of the assembled information, status and rational for each status determination for 24 Fraser Sockeye Salmon CUs, and the second the presenting guidelines developed from this process for combining information from multiple indicators.