UC Santa Cruz

The time series of estimated fishery exploitation rates for endangered Sacramento River winter Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) is confined to a relatively recent period for which coded-wire tag data have been available. However, the nature of ocean salmon fisheries before this period was substantially different, and it is likely that recent exploitation rates do not represent the level of fishing mortality experienced by these Chinook salmon in earlier years. To infer historical exploitation rates, a model was developed to hindcast the impact rate for age-3 winter Chinook salmon (an approximation of the exploitation rate) by using 35 years of fishing effort estimates coupled with contemporary estimates of fishery encounter rates. The impact-rate hindcasts were highest during a period from the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s. Over time, the proportion of the impact rate attributed to commercial and recreational fisheries diverged from approximately equal shares early in the time series to an impact rate mostly composed of recreational fishery-induced mortality in more recent years. The inferred exploitation rates provide context for the fishing-induced mortality experienced by winter Chinook salmon both before and after the time of the initial inclusion of this species on the Endangered Species Act (ESA) list in 1989 and through a dynamic period for ocean salmon fisheries in California.