Thank you.
My name is Stephanie Peacock. I'm a senior analyst with the Pacific Salmon Foundation. I am based in Whitehorse, Yukon, and I am joining you today from the traditional territories of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council.
The Pacific Salmon Foundation is a non-governmental organization dedicated to the stewardship and conservation of Pacific salmon in B.C. and the Yukon. We invest in community-driven initiatives and lead science programs that help inform salmon conservation and management efforts.
My area of expertise is in salmon population ecology. My work centres around compiling and analyzing salmon-related data to understand the status of salmon in B.C. and the Yukon. Through that work, I have gained familiarity with the status and trends of Canadian-origin Yukon chinook salmon—not just a uniform group of fish but one comprised of 12 genetically and ecologically distinct populations called “conservation units”.
Each of these conservation units has a unique evolutionary history and is an irreplaceable unit of biodiversity. Conserving this diversity within Yukon chinook is essential for resilience in the face of climate change. A recent study found that Yukon chinook return migrations to Canada were 2.1 times longer and 1.4 times more stable through time than they would have been if there was just a single homogeneous population.
Unfortunately, the reality is that we have very little information on how most salmon conservation units are doing. The publicly available data on Yukon salmon is focused on border passage. There is not a single estimate in DFO's publicly available spawner database for any chinook spawning in the Yukon since 2008. We need to improve monitoring and data availability at the scale of conservation units to be able to identify when and where actions are required to avoid local extinctions and loss of biodiversity. From the limited data that we do have, the recent declines in Yukon chinook seem to be reflected across conservation units.
Why are these salmon disappearing? There's no single cause. The likely suspects are the usual—decades of habitat degradation and loss. In the Yukon this is mainly due to mining and hydroelectric dams, commercial fishing and climate change. However, there are a couple of things that make Yukon chinook unique. Canadian Yukon chinook are the longest-migrating salmon in the world, and this increases their exposure to threats in fresh water. In particular, with climate change we are seeing unprecedented increases in river temperatures, which has correlated with reduced productivity of Yukon chinook over the past 28 years. This does not bode well, given the predicted impacts of climate change. Strategies to mitigate rising river temperatures and their impacts on salmon, such as the protection of undeveloped watersheds and wetlands, need to be prioritized.
Yukon chinook are bilaterally managed under the Yukon River Salmon Agreement of 2001, which recognizes that effective conservation and management are of mutual interest. However, harvest remains a primary focus of management, even as allowable catches have declined to zero. Further, the Yukon River Panel has failed to agree on management recommendations in recent years. In the face of unprecedented declines, we need to re-examine this agreement and sharpen the focus on biodiversity conservation and rebuilding.
The complexity of the life-cycle and management systems for Yukon chinook necessitates a multipronged approach to recovery. Management discussions must shift from border passage to preserving the biodiversity within Canadian-origin Yukon chinook. Canada can lead this discussion by supporting the monitoring and assessment of conservation units and improving access to data. There needs to be pressure on the U.S. to prioritize effective salmon conservation, as outlined in the Yukon River Salmon Agreement, and reduce any illegal fishing or incidental mortality of chinook.
Although research into the drivers of these declines must continue, we cannot wait for evidence to accumulate before taking actions to prevent the extinction of Yukon chinook.
Thank you.