ICES WGNAS REPORT 2018 ICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE ICES CM 2018/ACOM:21 Report of the Working Group on North Atlantic Salmon (WGNAS) 4–13 April 2018 Woods Hole, MA, USA International Council for the Exploration of the Sea Conseil International pour l’Exploration de la Mer H. C. Andersens Boulevard 44–46 DK-1553 Copenhagen V Denmark Telephone (+45) 33 38 67 00 Telefax (+45) 33 93 42 15 www.ices.dk [email protected] Recommended format for purposes of citation: ICES. 2018. Report of the Working Group on North Atlantic Salmon (WGNAS), 4–13 April 2018, Woods Hole, MA, USA. ICES CM 2018/ACOM:21. 386 pp. For permission to reproduce material from this publication, please apply to the Gen- eral Secretary. The document is a report of an Expert Group under the auspices of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea and does not necessarily represent the views of the Council. © 2018 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea ICES WGNAS REPORT 2018 | i Contents Executive summary ................................................................................................................ 1 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 4 1.1 Main tasks .............................................................................................................. 4 1.2 Participants ............................................................................................................ 6 1.3 Management framework for salmon in the North Atlantic ............................ 7 1.4 Management objectives ........................................................................................ 7 1.5 Reference points and application of precaution ............................................... 8 2 Atlantic salmon in the North Atlantic area ............................................................. 10 2.1 Catches of North Atlantic salmon .................................................................... 10 2.1.1 Nominal catches of salmon ................................................................... 10 2.1.2 Catch and release ................................................................................... 11 2.1.3 Unreported catches ................................................................................ 12 2.2 Farming and sea ranching of Atlantic salmon ................................................ 13 2.2.1 Production of farmed Atlantic salmon ............................................... 13 2.2.2 Harvest of ranched Atlantic salmon .................................................... 13 2.3 NASCO has asked ICES to report on significant, new or emerging threats to, or opportunities for, salmon conservation and management ........................................................................................................ 14 2.3.1 Diseases and parasites ........................................................................... 14 2.3.2 Pink salmon captures in 2017 in the North Atlantic area ................. 17 2.3.3 Interactions between striped bass and Atlantic salmon in eastern Canada ....................................................................................... 20 2.3.4 Tracking and acoustic tagging studies in Canada ............................. 23 2.3.5 Progress with implementing the Quality Norm for Norwegian salmon populations .......................................................... 24 2.3.6 The impact of capture and tagging on estimates of Atlantic salmon adult return rates ...................................................................... 25 2.3.7 New opportunities for sampling salmon at sea ................................. 26 2.3.8 Update on poor juvenile recruitment in UK (England & Wales) ...................................................................................................... 28 2.3.9 Progress in stock assessment models; embedding Atlantic salmon stock assessment within an integrated Bayesian life cycle modelling framework .................................................................. 28 2.3.10 A conceptual framework for evaluating marine mortality in Atlantic salmon ...................................................................................... 29 2.3.11 Update on the Workshop on Current Status of Knowledge, Data, and Research Efforts on Atlantic Salmon at Greenland ............................................................................................................... 31 2.3.12 Progress with establishing scale archive/ biochronology repositories ............................................................................................. 33 ii | ICES WGNAS REPORT 2018 2.4 NASCO has asked ICES to provide a review of examples of successes and failures in wild salmon restoration and rehabilitation and develop a classification of activities which could be recommended under various conditions or threats to the persistence of populations ................................................................................. 34 2.4.1 Report of WGERAAS ............................................................................ 34 2.4.2 Establishment of a captive breeding Programme in Scotia- Fundy region of Canada ....................................................................... 36 2.5 Reports from ICES expert group relevant to North Atlantic salmon .......... 36 2.5.1 WGRECORDS ........................................................................................ 36 2.6 ICES and the International Year of the Salmon .............................................. 37 2.7 NASCO has asked ICES to provide a compilation of tag releases by country in 2017 .................................................................................................... 38 2.8 NASCO has asked ICES to identify relevant data deficiencies, monitoring needs and research requirements ................................................ 38 3 Northeast Atlantic Commission area ....................................................................... 71 3.1 NASCO has requested ICES to describe the key events of the 2017 fisheries ................................................................................................................ 71 3.1.1 Fishing at Faroes .................................................................................... 71 3.1.2 Key events in NEAC homewater fisheries ......................................... 71 3.1.3 Gear and effort ....................................................................................... 71 3.1.4 Catches .................................................................................................... 72 3.1.5 Catch per unit of effort .......................................................................... 72 3.1.6 Age composition of catches .................................................................. 73 3.1.7 Farmed and ranched salmon in catches .............................................. 74 3.1.8 National origin of catches ..................................................................... 74 3.1.9 Exploitation indices for NEAC stocks ................................................. 75 3.2 Management objectives and reference points ................................................. 75 3.2.1 NEAC conservation limits .................................................................... 75 3.2.2 Progress with setting river-specific conservation limits ................... 76 3.3 Status of stocks .................................................................................................... 76 3.3.1 The NEAC PFA run-reconstruction model ........................................ 76 3.3.2 Changes to national input data for the NEAC PFA run- reconstruction model ............................................................................. 77 3.3.3 Changes to the NEAC PFA run-reconstruction model ..................... 77 3.3.4 Description of national stocks and NEAC stock complexes as derived from the NEAC PFA run-reconstruction model ............ 78 3.3.5 Compliance with river-specific conservation limits .......................... 80 3.3.6 Marine survival (return rates) for NEAC stocks ............................... 81 3.4 PFA Forecasts ...................................................................................................... 83 3.4.1 Description of the forecast model ........................................................ 83 3.4.2 Results of the NEAC stock complex Bayesian forecast models ..................................................................................................... 84 3.4.3 Results of the NEAC country level Bayesian forecast models and probabilities of PFAs attaining SERs ........................................... 84 ICES WGNAS REPORT 2018 | iii 3.5 Catch options or alternative management advice .......................................... 86 3.5.1 Catch advice for Faroes ......................................................................... 86 3.5.2 Relevant factors to be considered in management ............................ 88 3.6 Framework of Indicators ................................................................................... 89 3.6.1 Background ............................................................................................. 89 3.6.2 Progress in 2018...................................................................................... 89 3.6.3 Next steps ...............................................................................................