Research:

Fisheries

Current research

• Market-Based Environmental Standards for Sustainable Fisheries
• Tools for Managing Mortality from Myxozoan Parasites in the Klamath River
• Improving Participation in Fisheries Management: Stock Assessment Training for Stakeholders
• Related research: Project CROOS

Market-Based Environmental Standards for Sustainable Fisheries (R/RCF-12)

Michael Harte
College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences
531 Weniger Hall
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331
Phone: 541-737-1339
Fax: 541-737-2064
E-mail: mharte@coas.oregonstate.edu

While federal and state agencies have embraced sustainable fisheries management, they struggle to develop management frameworks that can do the job. On dry land, resource managers often use a standards-based approach, relying on market instruments that encourage managers and others to achieve the standards. These instruments—cap and trading schemes, environmental credits, trading ratios, and so on—generally have not been used to manage the environmental effects of fishing. They are based on property rights. Fisheries, by contrast, are usually managed via command and control or weak forms of harvest privileges. Both the Pew Ocean Commission Report and the Bush administration’s Open Action Plan promote the use of market-based systems for fisheries management, arguing that such systems generate incentives that can help managers develop and implement standards that are both economically efficient and environmentally effective. This project will identify and analyze market-based standards for fisheries management; use focus groups and workshops to test the concepts with stakeholders; evaluate various alternatives for efficiency, fairness, and acceptability; and educate managers about the effectiveness of such tools.

Tools for Managing Mortality from Myxozoan Parasites in the Klamath River (R/RCF-19)

Jerri L. Bartholomew
Department of Microbiology
Oregon State University
524 Nash Hall
Corvallis, OR 97331
Phone: 541-737-1856
Fax: 541-737-0496
E-mail: bartholj@science.oregonstate.edu

The Klamath River and other enzootic Pacific Northwest river sytems are managed for hydropower, agriculture, and recreational use, with little understanding of how this management affects interactions between fish and pathogens. Bartholomew’s project builds upon previous Sea Grant-supported research to understand what conditions have allowed two myxozoan parasites—Ceratomyxa shasta and Parvicapsula minibicornis—to become key factors limiting salmon recovery in what was once the third-largest salmon fishery in the Pacific Northwest. The researchers are not only investigating the effects of these parasites on seawater salmon survival, but also hope to develop a method of rapidly determining how many of the organisms are in the water. Such a test could provide river managers with an early-detection tool to help them know when additional water allocation might most benefit endangered stocks and when hatchery releases might best be timed.

Improving Participation in Fisheries Management: Stock Assessment Training for Stakeholders (R/RCF-20)

Gil Sylvia
Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station
OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center
2030 SE Marine Science Drive
Newport, OR 97365
Phone: 541-867-0284
Fax: 541-867-0345
E-mail: gil.sylvia@oregonstate.edu

Stephen Theberge
Oregon Sea Grant Extension
OSU Extension Service, Clatsop County
2001 Marine Dr., Room 210
Astoria, OR 97103
Phone: 503-325-8573
Fax: 503-325-7910
E-mail: stephen.theberge@oregonstate.edu

Successful fisheries comanagement and self-governance require empowering fishers to take responsibility for management decisions and ensuring that stakeholders and managers share baseline competencies. One critical area is stock assessment, the scientific basis for setting future allowable catch. Stakeholders have few opportunities to be involved in stock assessment and to understand the whole science-based, decision-making process. Sylvia and Theberge intend to develop teaching cases and provide workshop training to help stakeholders understand stock assessment. In addition, they plan to come up with best-practices guidelines for developing and disseminating stock assessment training materials in the Pacific Northwest and other regions.

Related research projects

Project CROOS: Collaborative Research on Oregon Ocean Salmon

A major objective in salmon fishery management is ensuring access to healthy populations while also protecting weak stocks. Given limited understanding of the behavior and migration patterns of individual salmon stocks, it is difficult to manage stocks as distinct units. Ocean salmon managers are often compelled to institute large time/area closures to protect the weakest stocks.

To address the challenge of inadequate science supporting management of multi-stock ocean salmon fisheries, the Oregon Salmon Commission, together with scientists from Oregon State University and federal and state agencies co-located at the Hatfield Marine Science Center, formed the CROOS group (Collaborative Research on Oregon Ocean Salmon). CROOS proposed a comprehensive pilot project to test the potential of using genetic stock composition (GSI) and the GAPS database (Genetic Analysis of Pacific Salmonids) to identify in “real time” spatial and temporal characteristics of individual salmon stocks. The project was sponsored by OSU's Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station (COMES), with participants including Oregon Sea Grant, state and federal agencies and numerous commercial fishermen.

• Project CROOS final report (.pdf format)
• Web site

Former Sea Grant researchers: What they're doing now

• Gil Sylvia (fisheries economics, value-added products)
• Michael Banks (Copper rockfish genetics and distribution)
• Alan Shanks (Fish dispersal and range)

Next topic: Ecosystems and habitats