State of the Physical, Biological and Selected Fishery Resources of Pacific Canadian Marine Ecosystems in 2017 Peter C. Chandler, Stephanie A. King and Jennifer Boldt (Editors) Fisheries & Oceans Canada Pacific Biological Station 3190 Hammond Bay Road Nanaimo, B.C. V9T 6N7 Canada 2018 Canadian Technical Report of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 3266 Canadian Technical Report of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences Technical reports contain scientific and technical information that contributes to existing knowledge but which is not normally appropriate for primary literature. Technical reports are directed primarily toward a worldwide audience and have an international distribution. No restriction is placed on subject matter and the series reflects the broad interests and policies of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, namely, fisheries and aquatic sciences. Technical reports may be cited as full publications. The correct citation appears above the abstract of each report. 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Les demandes de rapports seront satisfaites par l'établissement auteur dont le nom figure sur la couverture et la page du titre. Les numéros 1 à 456 de cette série ont été publiés à titre de Rapports techniques de l'Office des recherches sur les pêcheries du Canada. Les numéros 457 à 714 sont parus à titre de Rapports techniques de la Direction générale de la recherche et du développement, Service des pêches et de la mer, ministère de l'Environnement. Les numéros 715 à 924 ont été publiés à titre de Rapports techniques du Service des pêches et de la mer, ministère des Pêches et de l'Environnement. Le nom actuel de la série a été établi lors de la parution du numéro 925. Canadian Technical Report of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 3266 2018 STATE OF THE PHYSICAL, BIOLOGICAL AND SELECTED FISHERY RESOURCES OF PACIFIC CANADIAN MARINE ECOSYSTEMS IN 2017 by Peter C. Chandler1, Stephanie A. King2 and Jennifer Boldt3 (Editors) 1Fisheries & Oceans Canada Institute of Ocean Sciences 9860 West Saanich Road Sidney, B.C. V8L 4B2 Canada [email protected] 2Sea This Consulting 1814 Bay Street Nanaimo, B.C. V9T 3A2 Canada [email protected] 3Fisheries & Oceans Canada Pacific Biological Station 3190 Hammond Bay Road Nanaimo, B.C. V9T 6N7 Canada [email protected] i © Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, 2018. Cat. No. Fs97-6/3266E-PDF ISBN 978-0-660-26900-9 ISSN 1488-5379 Correct citation for this publication: Chandler, P.C., King, S.A., and Boldt, J. (Eds.). 2018. State of the physical, biological and selected fishery resources of Pacific Canadian marine ecosystems in 2017. Can. Tech. Rep. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 3266: viii + 245 p. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents .....................................................................................................................iii Abstract ................................................................................................................................. vi Résumé ................................................................................................................................ vii 1. Highlights ................................................................................................................... 1 2. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 2 3. Overview and summary.............................................................................................. 4 4. Acknowledgments .....................................................................................................11 Individual reports on conditions in the Northeast Pacific and British Columbia’s outer coast ........................................................................................................................................13 5. Land temperature and hydrological conditions in 2017 (Anslow) .............................14 6. Wind-driven upwelling/downwelling along the northwest coast of North America: timing and magnitude (Hourston and Thomson) .......................................21 7. La Niña and another warm year (Ross and Robert) ................................................27 8. Hakai Oceanography Program: British Columbia Central Coast time series (2012-2017) (Hunt et al.) .........................................................................................33 9. Sea level in British Columbia, 1910 to 2017 (Ballantyne) ........................................38 10. Sea surface temperature and salinity observed at lighthouses and weather buoys in British Columbia, 2017 (Chandler) ............................................................40 11. Oxygen concentration in subsurface waters of the B.C. coast (Crawford and Peña) ........................................................................................................................45 12. Satellite and in-situ observations (Gower and King) ................................................49 13. Phytoplankton in surface waters along Line P and off the west coast of Vancouver Island (Peña and Nemcek) ....................................................................55 14. NSERC strategic SPEAR project: net primary production, net community production, and phytoplankton community composition in the Northeast Pacific (Izett et al.) ................................................................................................................60 15. Lower trophic levels in the Northeast Pacific (Batten) ..............................................65 16. West coast British Columbia zooplankton biomass anomalies 2017 (Galbraith and Young) ...............................................................................................................69 17. Preliminary results of the 2017 East Coast Haida Gwaii Northern Abalone index site survey (Curtis) .........................................................................................76 18. Pacific Herring in British Columbia, 2017 (Cleary et al.) ..........................................80 19. Eulachon status and trends in B.C. (Flostrand et al.) ...............................................85 20. 2017 Distribution and abundance of Pacific Hake (Merluccius productus) (Gauthier et al.) .........................................................................................................90 21. WCVI small-mesh multi-species bottom trawl surveys (target species: Smooth Pink Shrimp): 2017 update (Perry et al.) .................................................................94 22. A review of groundfish surveys in 2017 (Workman) .................................................99 iii 23. Relationship between early marine growth and adult Fraser Sockeye Salmon recruitment (Godbout) ........................................................................................... 105 24. 2017 Juvenile salmon catch rates on the Vancouver Island continental shelf (King et al.) ............................................................................................................. 106 25. Chatham Point to Cape St. James; the critical place (McKinnell) .......................... 111 26. Sockeye Salmon indicator stocks regional overview of trends, 2017 returns and 2018-2019 outlook (Hyatt et al.) ..................................................................... 116 27. Albacore Tuna abundance and trends in B.C. (Zhang) .......................................... 121 28. Seabird observations along the outer B.C. Coast (Hipfner) ................................... 124 29. DFO Salmon Net (Akenhead et al.) ....................................................................... 126 30. Pollution Tracker: a new coast-wide initiative (Delisle et al.) .................................. 133 31. Unusual events in Canada’s Pacific marine waters in 2017 (King et al.) ................ 137 Individual reports on inside waters (including the Strait of