Category: 2015

Fox Creek is a lake-headed tributary to Lake Laberge and the Yukon River, located approximately 50 km north of Whitehorse. It lies within the traditional territory of Ta’an Kwäch’än Council (TKC) and historically supported a Chinook salmon fishery; however, since the late 1950’s this stock has been extirpated. Habitat changes (forest fire/beavers and/or fishing (easy access) to Fox Creek may have played a role in decline of this stock. Ta’an Kwäch’än Council’s goal for the Fox Creek Salmon Chinook Salmon Restoration Program is to re-establish a self-sustaining population of Chinook with sufficient spawners to have a high probability of long-term persistence in the face of variability in survival due to natural changes in the environment. TKC aims to ensure that a viable natural stock is abundant enough to contribute to a sustainable harvest for current and future generations as part of their natural culture and heritage.
From 2007 to 2015 TKC assessed, developed and implemented Phase I of this program and Year 8 (2015) marked the end of that phase. The Phase I Chinook Salmon Stock Restoration Plan for Fox Creek (CRE-52N-07) suggested restoration of this extirpated stock be conducted over 2 Chinook salmon life cycles.
The latter part of Phase I saw the return of Chinook salmon to Fox Creek and the stock is showing signs of recovery. Phase II will use knowledge gained in Phase I to guide an implementation and monitoring approach to establish a viable, naturally self-sustaining Chinook salmon population that will contribute to a sustainable harvest for TKC citizens.

Our goal is the development and maintenance of community capacity in the Dawson City region to protect, maintain and restore salmon stocks and habitats. Each year, two local high school students who have not participated in the project in past years are hired as Student Stewards. They work under the field supervision of an experienced elder and the technical guidance of a retired DFO biologist, and are provided with a wide range of hands-on training through participation in a variety of salmon and salmon habitat management and research activities. Proposed activities include the monitoring of 0+ Chinook salmon growth and habitat utilisation, ground water fed rearing channel habitat monitoring, riparian restoration principles, and ground truthing of placer maps. Depending on environmental conditions, 0+ Chinook fry salvage and access restoration may take place, and we may partner with DFO as we have in the past to conduct genetic analysis on some 0+ Chinook. The context of any activities undertaken will be explained to the Student Stewards so that they are given an opportunity not only to understand what they are doing, but why they are doing it.
At the end of the funded field work component of the project, the Student Stewards will demonstrate their acquired skills and knowledge to children and community members in a Public Involvement Day. Opportunities will be sought to increase the exposure of the project through the local media and in presentations to the public.

Interest in salmon stock and habitat restoration within the Yukon Territory has increased amid significant declines in Canadian-origin Yukon River Chinook over the past 15 years. The Yukon River Panel has also made Stock Restoration a priority with an expanded focus between 2016 and 2019.

Yukon First Nations and Canadian stakeholders are both leaders and potential partners that could support efforts to actively engage in the restoration of Yukon River Chinook salmon stocks in Canada. However, it is recognized that in order to undertake effective and appropriate stock restoration initiatives, there must be community support and the willingness and ability for salmon stakeholders to understand and play a role in the implementation of the stock restoration initiative. It is also essential that any proposed restoration action must be based on a plan that encompasses sound biological, technical and local/traditional knowledge parameters. The Yukon River Chinook Salmon Stock Restoration Community Technical Team provides this higher-level, drainage wide direction while working towards the implementation of strategic and specific stock restoration initiatives throughout the Yukon River drainage.

The two overarching goals of this multi-year project are to (1) support the development of a stock restoration framework based on community values, which can be used to help develop, evaluate and prioritize Chinook stock restoration initiatives in the Canadian portion of the Yukon River and (2) provide technical support and capacity building at the First Nation and community level for the implementation of priority stock restoration activities.

The Porcupine River has its headwaters in the Yukon, and flows into Alaska before joining the Yukon River at Fort Yukon and hence to the Bering Sea. Chinook, chum and coho salmon return to the Porcupine River to spawn. These transboundary stocks are of importance to both Canada and the U.S.A., and so is the good management of these stocks. This project provides reliable and timely (in-season) information on both Chinook and chum salmon returning to the Porcupine River in Canada, and is the only reliable means of in-season assessment for both Chinook salmon and chum salmon available to US and Canadian fishery managers. Information on returns of these stocks as assessed in the lower Yukon River (i.e., passage of Chinook and chum salmon at Pilot Station in combination with genetic apportionment to the Porcupine River) is available, but is of low reliability and inappropriate for in-season management.

A sonar program has been operating just downstream of Old Crow to determine passage of chum and Chinook salmon since 2011 and 2014 respectively. This proposal combines both the Chinook and chum projects into one project for 2017 to achieve operational efficiencies and cost savings. Fisheries and Oceans Canada also operates a chum salmon enumeration project on the Fishing Branch River – a 14 day travel time upstream from Old Crow. This project provides reliable data as to whether the spawning escapement goal (as set by the Yukon River Panel) is achieved.

The Vuntut Gwitch’in Government (VGG) has been conducting sonar based stock assessment of Chinook salmon at the Old Crow Sonar site on the Porcupine River since 2014. For 2017, this will be combined with Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s chum assessment project to achieve operational efficiencies and cost savings. Fisheries and Oceans Canada also operates a chum salmon enumeration project on the Fishing Branch River – a 14 day travel time upstream from Old Crow. This project provides reliable data as to whether the spawning escapement goal (as set by the Yukon River Panel) is achieved.

The goal of this project is to apply radio tags to Porcupine River Chinook salmon at a tagging location near the Canada/U.S. border, and thereafter to track them to their final spawning destinations throughout the Canadian portion of the Porcupine River watershed. The monitoring of escapement of Canadian origin Chinook salmon into the upper Porcupine River watershed is of high priority to the community of Old Crow and the Vuntut Gwitch’in Government (VGG), as Chinook salmon provide the primary salmon food fishery for community members and a more thorough understanding of Porcupine River Chinook spawning locations is required for the future conservation of this run. The telemetry project is intended to provide information on the geographic distribution of Porcupine Chinook while the concurrent sonar program provides an in-season escapement for the run. Prior to the 2015 Chinook telemetry project, only a limited amount of information was available on Porcupine River Chinook spawning destinations. A small number of salmon outfitted with radio tags entered the Porcupine River during Yukon River drainage wide Chinook telemetry projects in 2003 (CRE-17N-03) and 2004 (CRE-17-04). Over these two years, a total of 26 tags were relocated in the Porcupine River watershed and Chinook spawning was documented in a small number of tributaries including the Miner, Whitestone, Fishing Branch and Crow rivers. During the 2015 telemetry program, a total of 50 Chinook were successfully tagged with esophageal implant tags at Caribou Bar Creek between Old Crow and the Alaska border, and in 2016 a total of 80 Chinook salmon were tagged in the Porcupine River (downstream of Old Crow). Each year provided further evidence of spawning in the previously undocumented Bell River watershed, and revealed new spawning areas including the Bluefish River and a number of tributaries of the Crow River including Black Fox, Thomas, Schaeffer and Potato/Surprise Creek.

A secondary goal of this project is to collect genetic samples from Chinook salmon during the tagging process and assign these to specific stocks (using radio tag relocations).  These samples can then be pooled with the existing samples collected during previous years to assist in determining if each of the watersheds represent a unique genetic stock of Chinook.

Chinook salmon in the Teslin River watershed have one of the longest salmon migrations in North America, with the headwaters of the Teslin River being nearly 3,000 km upstream from the Bering Sea. The Teslin River watershed is also a major spawning destination for Canadian-origin Chinook: The results from the Teslin River sonar (and in-season genetic analysis at Eagle) during 2014 and 2015 have indicated that approximately 25% of the passage of Canadian-origin Chinook is destined for the Teslin River watershed.
This project will build upon previous projects to reintroduce a spawning population of Chinook salmon to Deadman Creek, a tributary that flows into Teslin Lake approximately 30 km north of the community of Teslin using in-stream egg incubation (egg planting) methods. The 2016 work followed a project conducted by the Teslin Tlingit Council (TTC) during 2015 to identify potential Chinook stock and/or habitat restoration projects in the Teslin River watershed. The Deadman Creek framework is intended to be a working document which will be updated and revised as new monitoring (survival) data becomes available in future years.

A primary goal the Yukon River Canadian-origin Juvenile Chinook out-migrant assessment on the Big Salmon River is to understand the abundance of juvenile Chinook salmon that are produced in this system and link this back to the number of spawners that produced these juveniles. Low density and varying migration timings make assessment difficult; thus, in an effort to find a method that allows full estimation of the number and timings of juveniles, we will be using and assessing different capture methods–a rotary screw trap (RST), beach seining and minnow trapping.

Developing an understanding of the relationship between juvenile production and the spawning escapement that produces them gives us a better understanding of Chinook salmon production and its limits, and helps us plan for stock and habitat restoration activities. This project is closely tied to the Big Salmon River Sonar Project, and operates out of the same site. Use of sonar technology to monitor juvenile out-migration is also under consideration.

An understanding of the total harvest of both U.S. and Canadian-origin Yukon River Chinook salmon is necessary in order to address harvest sharing objectives outlined in the Pacific Salmon Treaty. Important subsistence fisheries occur in Alaska across six distinct fishery management districts on the Yukon River, and stock composition of the subsistence harvest varies among these districts because of differences in harvest timing, location, and gear used.

Complete information on these harvests is critical for creating Canadian-origin Chinook salmon brood year tables and run reconstructions, which form the basis of the spawner-recruit models used to estimate past and future run productivity and help establish escapement goals for Canadian-origin Chinook salmon. These data also help managers understand the effects of management actions and fishing gear on harvest composition. The objective of this proposal is to collect representative genetic stock identification information, coupled with age, sex, and length data, from the Chinook salmon subsistence harvest in Districts 1 through 5.

This project began in 2009 at the Tanana Chiefs Conference, and has been funded by the Yukon River Panel Restoration & Enhancement Fund since 2012. As in previous programs, sampling will be done by local community members under the supervision of biologists and in accordance with ADF&G sampling protocols. Participants will be paid for the samples they collect in order to encourage participation in the program. ADF&G will receive the raw data and estimate age, sex, length and stock composition of the subsistence Chinook salmon harvests from Districts 1-5. A brood table will be published annually for the Joint Technical Committee, and a separate report will be provided that documents the data collection, harvest composition, and comparisons to historical patterns.

The purpose of this 3-year project initiated by the Alaska Department of Fish & Game is to estimate the proportions of Canadian- and US-origin fall Chum Salmon caught in the Tanana subsistence fishery through the season. The community of Tanana harvests between 40% and 50% of the Yukon Area District 5 harvest (on average 20,000 fall Chum Salmon). Households in the Yukon Area District 5 harvest on average 60% of the fall Chum Salmon taken for subsistence in the Yukon River. The other large harvesters in District 5 include Fort Yukon and Eagle, both of which are located upstream of the Porcupine River and would consist of primarily Canadian-origin fish. In this study, genetic tissue samples will be collected and analyzed for stock composition in fish caught in the Yukon River near the community of Tanana on the right bank upstream to the Rampart Rapids area. Using genetic stock identification (GSI), sample sizes of 200 fish per stratum would be required to determine U.S. versus Canadian origin for each of 3 strata between August 15 and September 30. Knowing the stock composition of Canadian-origin fall Chum Salmon in this large and concentrated fishery in Tanana may provide more informed management decisions.

This program was formerly funded by the Yukon River Panel and managed by Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The project as proposed will now be lead by a local Whitehorse consultant. The consultant will serve as the Salmon Stewardship Coordinator, and the program will place Salmon Stewards in Yukon communities to assist teachers with the delivery of DFO’s Stream to Sea program to all interested Yukon Schools and learning centres. The Coordinator will work closely with the Salmon Stewards to provide support to teachers in Yukon River salmon education activities, including aquarium incubation set-up, operation and maintenance; salmon ecology and biology; and/or participate in egg takes that can be facilitated near community schools. These hands on activities with youth have been identified as key near term Stewardship priority, and over the duration of the project, the coordinators will be responsible for continuing to build capacity within the schools and seek support from key community members to allow for the continuation of the Stream to Sea program.