Homepage for DFO's State of the Salmon Program.
Wild Salmon Policy Status Assessment Approach
Wild Salmon Policy status assessments for Pacific salmon CUs follow a multi-criteria approach that was developed over 15 years of research, application, and refinement.
This approach was built on status assessment methods developed by the IUCN and COSEWIC (DFO 2005, Holt et al. 2009), and includes the use of standardized status metrics that were established globally through the IUCN (Mace et al. 2008, IUCN 2022) and have been adopted in Canada by COSEWIC (COSEWIC 2010). Standardized metrics enable the objective and transparent assessment of status, and the production of consistent status results.
The toolkit of WSP indicators, metrics, and benchmarks was developed by Holt (2009) and Holt et al. (2009). To conduct WSP status assessment, a structured process was developed to ensure status assessments were objective, consistent, and comparable across CUs and years. These are referred to as WSP integrated status assessments.
For each of the completed WSP integrated status assessment processes, specific metrics were selected from the toolkit depending on data availability, quantity, and quality of each CU. After metrics were calculated, the WSP integrated status assessment process is required to combine results across metrics, and additional information presented in standardized data summary packages, into a single status for each CU. A narrative is also produced for each CU to describe what metrics and supporting information drove these status determinations.
WSP integrated status assessments have been conducted for Fraser Sockeye (Grant et al. 2011, Grant & Pestal 2012, Grant et al. 2020), Interior Fraser Coho (DFO 2015), and Southern BC Chinook (DFO 2016).