British Columbia¿s Skeena River is one of the great salmon rivers of the North Pacific. The river and its fish have supported indigenous peoples for thousands of years. More recently, the Skeena has earned world renown for its recreational fishery and magnificent wilderness setting. Yet, over the last century, fish populations have declined from overfishing, habitat alteration and, to an unknown degree, climate change. Development of mining as well as oil and gas resources may also pose threats to fish populations.This book presents the first thorough review of the salmon stocks and freshwater species of the Skeena River. Initial chapters summarize the river¿s environment, fish, and fisheries. The book then examines the physical geography, development history, indigenous use, and major salmon stocks of each of the watershed¿s sub-basins. This volume makes available for the first time¿to researchers, field biologists, fishermen and natural history enthusiasts¿both the published, and largely unpublished, literature on this productive salmon ecosystem.

Estuaries are increasingly degraded globally but provide nursery services for juvenile fishes through predator protection and increased food availability. This thesis examined the abiotic and biotic factors that contributed to abundance patterns of juvenile salmon and forage fish species in the Skeena River estuary, BC. I first showed that spatial abundance patterns were heterogeneous for salmon and that the combination of variables that predicted abundance differed between species. Inclusion of these dynamic abiotic and biotic variables increased predictive power over solely using static habitat descriptors for juvenile salmon. Next, I examined the association between fish and prey abundance for two forage fish and juvenile salmon species. Overall, fish abundance was not related to prey abundance, except for herring which co-varied with a highly consumed prey species. Understanding the factors influencing estuarine habitat use by economically-important juvenile salmon and forage fish can help inform risk assessment and guide environmental planning.

"NRC Monograph Publishing Program"--P. [ii].

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