Atlantic Salmon recovery takes a regional approach

Parks Canada's report on conservation from 2018 to 2023

Report section

Adaptive management

Location

Cape Breton Highlands National Park, Fundy National Park, Gros Morne National Park, Kouchibouguac National Park and Terra Nova National Park in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador

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Parks Canada, First Nations, academia, industry, not for profit and local community partners are collaborating across the Atlantic region to protect and conserve Atlantic Salmon populations through the Atlantic Parks Salmon Recovery project.

The project’s regional approach is aligning Indigenous knowledge, restoration expertise, academic capacity, volunteer work, and partner networks to achieve a common goal of positively impacting salmon populations.

Project highlights

• Safeguarded Atlantic Salmon populations from further decline, extirpation, or becoming at-risk
• Rekindled spiritual and cultural connections to salmon
• Involved over 40 partners and collaborators

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Context

Wild salmon are an iconic Canadian species. Across the Atlantic region, Parks Canada has been dedicated to salmon recovery actions for decades. Atlantic Salmon began to decline across their range in the early 1990s due mostly to unknown changes in the marine environment. Areas like the Inner Bay of Fundy, saw populations plummet close to extinction. In other areas, populations continued to drop over the course of two decades bringing most populations to be listed as species at risk. This decline has affected the health of freshwater environments and the connection between communities and this iconic species.

Previous independent successes

Before 2019, Atlantic Salmon restoration actions happened separately at national parks across Atlantic Canada. These actions resulted in some positive localized results, like the establishment of wild juvenile populations, progress toward better functioning ecosystems, and increased natural adult returns in some rivers. However, to further advance the principal goal of recovering Atlantic Salmon populations, a shift was required towards a collective, collaborative approach.

The Atlantic Parks Salmon Recovery project: a regional approach

By taking a regional approach through the Atlantic Parks Salmon Recovery project, regional data and best practices, management decisions, and appropriately scaled recovery actions are improving the prospects for salmon populations across Atlantic Canada.

The Conservation Cycle is central to guiding this collaborative regional work and allowing for an evidence-based adaptive management approach that connects conservation actions through 5 steps.

Step 1: assess

The Atlantic Parks Salmon Recovery project assembled a new, collaborative network of the five Atlantic national parks with an aim to strengthen restoration outcomes and stewardship in Atlantic Salmon recovery. The network began by determining successful elements of individual recovery methods from the five parks. Through this process, decades of research and experience, Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledge, and resources and capacities from across the region were compiled to develop a common understanding of the conservation situation.

Step 2: plan

Based on the understanding of the regional conservation picture, the collaborators produced a best practices approach. Each park developed independent salmon restoration actions, complementary to the regional best practices and scaled to the status of each park’s salmon population.

Parks Canada partnered with University of New Brunswick to establish Parks Canada’s first-ever Research Chair. This position was awarded in 2019 to Dr. Kurt Samways from the University of New Brunswick to work on a five-year study that takes a regional approach to assessing ecological function before and after salmon recovery actions.

Step 3: implement

Parks Canada and partners implemented, and as of 2023, continue to take, restoration actions at a variety of salmon life stages to boost populations in spawning rivers across the region. Actions are matched to the salmon population status, threats, and conditions unique to each park. The impacts of each method are evaluated both regionally and locally.

In Kouchibouguac National Park, salmon eggs are reared in protective trays in optimal wild habitat where they then hatch. Fundy National Park is reintroducing salmon to native rivers as fry (salmon 0 to 3 months old). Both Cape Breton Highlands and Fundy national parks are collecting juvenile wild salmon that are then raised to maturity and re-released back to their native rivers as spawning adults. In Gros Morne and Terra Nova national parks, monitoring and community stewardship work continues to improve, and repair fractured cultural and ecological connections to the rivers and salmon.

Over 15 research projects were undertaken as part of the Atlantic Parks Salmon Recovery project.

Step 4: analyze and adapt

The body of research generated through the Atlantic Parks Salmon Recovery project has contributed to understanding the impacts of conservation actions across different salmon populations ranging in status from Endangered to healthy.

For example, in Gros Morne National Park, the initial conservation approach was to release adult salmon to help bolster populations. Over the course of the project, the stewardship approach was adapted to focus on community engagement to help manage the population. This shift in approach led to increased stewardship on the river and higher salmon numbers.

The community engagement approach was modeled after successful efforts in Terra Nova National Park, where Parks Canada, local residents, and federal agencies collaborated to reverse the decline of salmon stock in Northwest River, Newfoundland. They used a fish-counting fence, calculated safe harvest limits, and engaged the community for compliance and support, which renewed local pride and significantly increased salmon returns.

In Fundy National Park, adult salmon were released back into their home rivers in large numbers, all at once. Monitoring has indicated that releases of smaller numbers of salmon in lower sections of the river, throughout the season, mimics natural returns and allows for salmon to find their own spawning habitat. This analysis led to the adoption of this new and improved approach and could produce better spawning success and survival at sea.

The work has also identified the trajectory of populations and will help provide an estimate of the level of intervention required for each population in the future.

Step 5: share

The learnings and research from the Atlantic Parks Salmon Recovery project are actively shared between the five Atlantic national parks, with partners, and through the work of the Parks Canada Research Chair. As of 2023, this work is guiding Parks Canada's continued approach to salmon conservation and is creating a framework for other regional conservation projects in Canada and globally.

Internationally, this project has informed conservation projects in a global community of researchers, including private and government salmon research and recovery efforts in the USA, Scotland, England, and Iceland among others. Fundy National Park hosted the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO) in 2023, demonstrating best practices to NASCO delegates from around the world.

“Conservation success can’t be achieved independently. Decades of work, innovative partnerships and passionate people have allowed this success story to unfold in national parks across Atlantic Canada. Salmon are being restored in rivers where at some sites, they’ve been absent for over a decade. As these conservation communities come together, they're not just restoring salmon; they're restoring culture, stewardship, and conservation for a better future than present.”

—Corey Clarke, Project Manager and Resource Conservation Manager, Parks Canada

Video

Watch this Parks Insider video to learn more about the Atlantic Parks Salmon Recovery project.

Learn more

• Research Atlantic Salmon