Development of alternatives for mitigating river herring bycatch at sea

River herring undertake extensive migrations during which they encounter numerous impacts in riverine, estuarine, and oceanic habitat. All of these impacts need to be monitored, managed, and ultimately mitigated in a comprehensive restoration strategy.  Declines in many river herring runs, despite restoration and management efforts in rivers, suggest that impacts during their ocean phase might be a factor. Bycatch in ocean fisheries is known to occur, but has received little attention to date. This research will evaluate management alternatives to mitigate river herring bycatch at sea under a range of plausible but unknown ecological and fishing fleet dynamics scenarios. Additionally, we will evaluate the impact of these management alternatives on fishing fleets and co-occurring pelagic species.  Using a management strategy evaluation framework, this research involves linking a spatial model of river herring distribution and abundance with a fleet behavior model, based upon existing fishery-dependent and fishery-independent data, to examine a variety of management strategies. Fishery managers in the Pacific Northwest have addressed salmon bycatch using fixed spatial closures, rolling hotspot closures, and bycatch quotas. We will examine these and other strategies to determine the approach that is most effective at reducing bycatch with the least impacts on the fleet.