Information on Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) from Salmon fishing area 16 (Gulf New Brunswick) of relevance to the development of a 2nd COSEWIC status report

Abstract

In support of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada’s (COSEWIC) reassessment of Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar), this document updates information and analyses for Atlantic Salmon in Salmon Fishing Area (SFA) 16 since the first review in 2010. The 39 Salmon rivers in SFA 16 are included among the rivers that COSEWIC first identified in the Gaspé-Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence Designatable Unit (DU). The largest runs of Atlantic Salmon in SFA 16 return to the Miramichi River where monitoring programs have been conducted annually since the 1950s to collect biological information on the stock and to estimate the size of the population. Several indices of abundance for adult Salmon in the Miramichi River were reviewed and all showed declines over the time series of information available including the last 16-year period which is the equivalent of three generation times for this population. While population estimation has not been attempted in other smaller rivers recently, annual monitoring programs in the Tabusintac, Kouchibouguac, Kouchibouguacis, and Richibucto rivers all indicate that runs of adult Salmon persist in those rivers. The number of adult Salmon returning to SFA 16 were estimated to have peaked at just under 130 thousand fish in 1986 and declined to less than 20 thousand Salmon in 2019, the lowest value of the time series. The rates of change in abundance for adult Salmon in SFA 16 have declined by 43% for the time series and by 68% in the last 16 years (2003-2019). Juvenile Salmon abundance determined from electrofishing surveys also showed declining trends over the last 16 years in the Miramichi River and other smaller rivers of southeastern New Brunswick. Adult and juvenile Salmon from SFA 16 continue to be widely dispersed in the freshwater and marine habitats during their different life cycle phases. Threats to Atlantic Salmon are generally poorly understood and many are likely working together to limit Salmon abundance in SFA 16.