“Understanding the Drivers of Chinook Salmon Decline in Western Alaska & Exploring New Approaches to Sustainable Salmon Management & Stakeholder Engagement”
May 22-24, 2018
Egan Center
Anchorage, Alaska
Symposium Summary
Some of the world’s largest populations of Chinook salmon spawn in the rivers of western Alaska. Over the past decade, Chinook salmon returning to the Yukon, Kuskokwim and other rivers of this region have shown disastrous declines in abundance. These declines have resulted in years of closed commercial fisheries, unmet escapement targets, and great hardship for subsistence dependent communities. Strategic investments in scientific research and stakeholder engagement over the past decade have focused on understanding the causes of these declines, and exploring new ways to evaluate management strategies in these vast and remote rivers where scientific uncertainty is substantial. This symposium will feature two types of presentations: 1) The results of research to address the leading hypotheses explaining the decline in Chinook salmon across this region, and 2) New approaches in western Alaska to management and stakeholder engagement including: participatory modeling, structured decision making, stakeholder capacity building regarding salmon management, local ecological knowledge and community-based monitoring. The symposium will showcase the newest science relevant to understanding Chinook salmon dynamics in western Alaska, providing explicit links to management of fishery resources within the region, but also valuable insights relevant to fishery management in complex ecosystems elsewhere.
» Click here to Download the AFS Symposium Full Listing
AYK SSI Symposium Organizers
Daniel Schindler, University of Washington
AYK SSI Scientific Technical Committee Member
Joseph Spaeder, AYK Sustainable Salmon Initiative
Research Coordinator
Aaron Martin, US Fish & Wildlife Service
AYK SSI Steering Committee Member
John Linderman, AK Dept. of Fish & Game, Comm. Fish Div.
AYK SSI Steering Committee Member