Even-Year Pink Salmon Conservation Units and Status in Canada

This dataset defines Conservation Units (CUs) for even-year pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) on Canada's Pacific coast, based on a framework integrating ecotypology, life history, and genetics. It includes CU boundaries, associated counting sites linked to spawner escapement data, and status assessments categorized as Red, Amber, or Green. The CU boundaries were updated to a 1:20,000 scale in March 2023.

Use Cases

• Analyze the distribution of CU status zones (Red, Amber, Green) to identify regions with salmon populations at poor, marginal, or healthy levels.
• Map Conservation Unit boundaries against counting site locations to study spatial relationships between management units and spawner enumeration data.
• Assess the application of the joint adaptive zone ecotypology framework in defining CU boundaries for even-year pink salmon.
• Examine the integration of life history and genetic characteristics used to partition initial ecological units into final Conservation Units.

Strengths

• CU boundaries are defined at a detailed 1:20,000 scale from the BC Freshwater Atlas, updated in March 2023.
• CUs are described through the integrated application of three primary axes: ecotypology, life history, and genetics.
• Status assessments provide a standardized metric (Red, Amber, Green) for evaluating the biological condition of each Conservation Unit.

Limitations

• The dataset does not contain the raw spawner enumeration data; it references counting sites linked to a separate database (NuSEDS).
• Conservation Units are subject to review and may change without notice, potentially affecting longitudinal analysis.
• Specific quantitative metrics (e.g., population counts, genetic diversity indices) used for status determination are not included in the described dataset.

Provenance

Source

Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

Collection Method

CUs are defined using a framework from Holtby and Ciruna (2007) that aggregates data on ecotypology, life history, and genetics. Status is evaluated using metrics from Holt et al. (2009).

Freshness

The dataset was last updated on March 20, 2026, with CU boundaries updated in March 2023.

Geography

Canada's Pacific coast.