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Canada's Policy for Conservation of Wild Pacific Salmon has been heralded as a transformative approach to the management of wild salmon whereby conservation is the highest priority. Given that changes to the Policy are under consideration, it is timely that we understand whether our state of knowledge and the status of wild salmon in Canada have indeed improved after its adoption in 2005. To answer these questions, we used two indices of improvement: (i) monitoring effort and (ii) abundance of spawning adults. Our results, based on data for all species from British Columbia's north and central coasts, show that monitoring effort has continued to erode, abundance of spawning adults has significantly declined for several species, the status of many salmon Conservation Units are in zones of concern, and 42% of the Conservation Units that we assessed as Red (threatened) would have improved in status had the Canadian fishery been reduced. We conclude with recommendations to help improve our knowledge of the status of salmon and enable a robust and successfully implemented Wild Salmon Policy for the future. La Politique du Canada pour la conservation du saumon sauvage du Pacifique a ete annoncee comme constituant une tranformation dans l'approche de gestion du saumon sauvage axee prioritairement sur la conservation. Comme la modification de la politique est actuellement a l'etude, il est opportun de se demander si l'etat des connaissances et le statut des saumons sauvages au Canada se sont effectivement ameliores apres l'adoption de la Politique en 2005. Pour repondre a ces questions, nous utilisons les deux indices d'amelioration suivants : (i) l'effort de surveillance et (ii) l'abondance des adultes geniteurs. Nos resultats, qui reposent sur des donnees pour toutes les especes le long du littoral nord et central de la Colombie-Britannique, montrent que l'effort de surveillance continue de s'eroder, que l'abondance des adultes geniteurs a diminue de maniere significative pour plusieurs especes, que le statut de nombreuses Unites de conservation du saumon est preoccupant et que le statut de 42% des Unites de conservation que nous avons evalue comme etant rouge (mauvais etat) se serait ameliore si la peche canadienne avait ete reduite. Nous concluons en formulant des recommandations pour aider a ameliorer les connaissances sur l'etat du saumon et permettre la mise en oeuvre efficace d'une politique sur le saumon sauvage a l'avenir. [Traduit par la Redaction], Introduction Canada's Policy for Conservation of Wild Pacific Salmon, referred to as the Wild Salmon Policy (WSP; DFO 2005), provides an integrated approach to the management of wild salmon (Oncorhynchus [...]

Canada's Policy for Conservation of Wild Pacific Salmon has been heralded as a transformative approach to the management of wild salmon whereby conservation is the highest priority. Given that changes to the Policy are under consideration, it is timely that we understand whether our state of knowledge and the status of wild salmon in Canada have indeed improved after its adoption in 2005. To answer these questions, we used two indices of improvement: ( i) monitoring effort and ( ii) abundance of spawning adults. Our results, based on data for all species from British Columbia's north and central coasts, show that monitoring effort has continued to erode, abundance of spawning adults has significantly declined for several species, the status of many salmon Conservation Units are in zones of concern, and 42% of the Conservation Units that we assessed as Red (threatened) would have improved in status had the Canadian fishery been reduced. We conclude with recommendations to help improve our knowledge of the status of salmon and enable a robust and successfully implemented Wild Salmon Policy for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conservation scientists rarely have the information required to understand changes in abundance over more than a few decades, even for important species like Pacific salmon. Such lack of historical information can underestimate the magnitude of decline for depressed populations. We applied genetic tools to a unique collection of 100‐year‐old salmon scales to reveal declines of 56%–99% in wild sockeye populations across Canada's second largest salmon watershed, the Skeena River. These analyses reveal century‐long declines that are much greater than those based on modern era abundance data, which suggested that only 7 of 13 populations declined over the last five decades. Populations of larger‐bodied fish have declined the most in abundance, likely because of size‐selective commercial fisheries. Our findings illustrate how a deep historical perspective can expand our understanding of past abundances to a time before species incurred significant losses from fishing, and help inform conservation for diminished populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]