The Salmonid Enhancement Program (SEP) in British Columbia has been the largest government fisheries program in Canada designed to enhance fisheries production. Canada has spent over CA$1 billion in the past 49 years, with an original objective of doubling the harvest of Pacific salmon Oncorhynchus spp. in British Columbia. We reflect on whether the program has been a success and how its objectives have changed. We find that the program has totally failed to meet its original objective of doubling the harvest of salmon in British Columbia. Instead of doubling, the harvest of salmon has declined from 60,000 tonnes to 5,000 tonnes in recent years, and SEP production has constituted only 13-30% of the value of the commercial harvest and a similar proportion of the recreational catch. By the 1990s, it was recognized that the goal of doubling salmon production by technology was not realistic, and the objectives of the program have shifted much more toward rebuilding depleted stocks, habitat restoration, and community involvement. However, the dramatic decline in catch is only partially due to declining salmon returns, which have declined roughly 35% since the 1970s, far less than the harvest. The focus of management in SEP is now on protecting and rebuilding depleted stocks not on augmenting commercial and recreational harvest.
A persistent challenge in fisheries is that field data sets from related studies are often difficult to compare and extend across years and systems. Examples include (1) surveys of native or invasive organisms conducted in one watershed may not predict trends in another watershed; (2) fish stocking protocols that result in high survival in one year may not produce the same results in subsequent years; and (3) data from single-period, single-location creel surveys may not represent angler attitudes, reactions, or preferences in other systems at other times. In our Strategic Connections Applied Across Leveraged Evaluations (SCAALE) framework, we develop a general model to address the knowledge gaps of how to better link related data sets, coordinate relevant perspectives, and merge individual data streams across years, systems, and taxa. We apply SCAALE to three case studies and show an example of the framework for fisheries agency planning. Whereas some external barriers to multi-study strategic planning can be modified through professional resolve (e.g., lack of training in strategic project planning), other barriers may require more extensive discussions (e.g., how funding is allocated). The SCAALE framework provides a relevant and practical approach that manager-researcher-administrator teams could use to advance data syntheses across years, systems, species, and projects. Our perspective initiates this profession-wide conversation.
Catch inequality is common in fisheries, indicated by a minority of fishers catching a disproportionate number of all fish. Skill, experience, and heterogenous investment of time and resources are typical factors proposed to underly catch inequality in recreational fisheries. Technological innovations that impact catch outcomes may either increase (if only adopted by a minority) or decrease catch inequality (if adopted by a majority and such adoption reduces skill differences among fishers). Understanding how fishers’ skill and technologies, including the uptake of live sonar technology, drive inequality is important, as uneven catch distribution can undermine the effectiveness of management measures and influence recreational fisher satisfaction. We investigated the effects that technology adoption and average fishers’ skill levels have on catch inequality in recreational spearfishing, relying on data from Italian spearfishing tournaments from 2004 to 2025. We also examined whether technological innovations influenced the composition of catches. Catch inequality was quantified using the Gini coefficient. We assessed the effect of technological innovations (specifically the use of live image sonar and use of mobile lead in the dive) and average fisher skill (represented by different categories of tournaments) on catch inequality. No evidence that new technologies affected catch inequality was found, although a weak increasing trend of inequality over time was detected in some tournament categories. Inequality was highest in pair and semifinal tournaments, which gather more heterogeneous competitors, and lowest in finals, restricted to the most skilled spearfishers. These findings suggest that under standardized tournament conditions, average fishers` skill present in a given tournament plays a stronger role in shaping catch inequality than the uptake of technological innovations. Thus, in spearfishing tournaments, regulating technology is unlikely to reduce inequality in catch outcomes.
The article examines the role of fisheries in ensuring the food security of the Russian Federation in modern geopolitical conditions. The analysis of the implementation of the provisions of the Food Security Doctrine 2010-2019 and 2020-2024 based on the indicators of production, export, import and consumption of fish products. It has been revealed that with a high level of self-sufficiency, a significant part of the caught aquatic biological resources is exported, which limits the availability of domestic fish products for the country’s population. It has been established that the current model of export-oriented development of the fishing industry does not fully contribute to achieving the goals of increasing domestic fish consumption. The necessity of improving the mechanisms of regulation of the domestic market, optimizing export policy and increasing the economic accessibility of fish products for the population is substantiated. The proposed directions for improving the food security system will contribute to an increase in fish consumption and strengthen the sustainable development of the Russian fisheries sector.
The article analyzes the possibilities of increasing the catch of algae unused by the fishery through the organization of large-scale alginate production enterprises. Data on properties and purpose of alginate for application in food industry, pharmacology and medicine are presented. Based on the analysis, it was concluded that it is necessary to create an industrial cluster in the regions of the Far Eastern and Northern fisheries basins.
