Warm oceans exacerbate Chinook salmon bycatch in the Pacific hake fishery driven by thermal and diel depth-use behaviours

Fisheries bycatch impacts marine species globally and understanding the underlying ecological and behavioural mechanisms could improve bycatch mitigation and forecasts in novel conditions. Oceans are rapidly warming causing shifts in marine species distributions with unknown, but likely, bycatch consequences. We examined whether thermal and diel depth-use behaviours influenced bycatch of a keystone species (Chinook salmon; Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, Salmonidae) in the largest fishery on the US West Coast (Pacific hake; Merluccius productus, Merlucciidae) with annual consequences in a warming ocean. We used Generalized Additive Models with 20 years of data including 54,509 hauls from the at-sea hake fishery spanning Oregon and Washington coasts including genetic information for five salmon populations. Our results demonstrate that Chinook salmon bycatch rates increased in warm ocean years explained by salmon depth-use behaviours. Chinook salmon typically occupy shallower water column depths compared to hake. However, salmon moved deeper when sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were warm and at night, which increased overlap with hake and exacerbated bycatch rates. We show that night fishing reductions (a voluntary bycatch mitigation strategy) are effective in reducing salmon bycatch in cool SSTs by limiting fishing effort when diel vertical movements bring salmon deeper but becomes less effective in warm SSTs as salmon seek deeper thermal refugia during the day. Thermal and diel behaviours were more pronounced in southern compared with northern salmon populations. We provide mechanistic support that climate change may intensify Chinook salmon bycatch in the hake fishery and demonstrate how an inferential approach can inform bycatch management in a changing world.

Automated summary

Fisheries bycatch has global impact on marine species. This study investigates the influence of thermal and diel depth-use behaviors on the bycatch of a keystone species (Chinook salmon) in the largest fishery on the US West Coast. The results show that warmer sea surface temperatures and night time behavior of Chinook salmon contribute to increased bycatch rates. Furthermore, the effectiveness of a voluntary bycatch mitigation strategy varies depending on the sea surface temperatures and diel behaviors of the salmon.