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Emma Atkinson

@ematkinson.bsky.social

122 followers 152 following 27 posts

Puzzling over prawns, salmon, & other things. Puttering around by foot, bike, boat. I love public radio, envelope-width books, and a good tune. Based at the University of Victoria. lewisresearchlab.org/emma-atkinson/

Posts Replies Media

Emma Atkinson @ematkinson.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

The next wave of monitoring cuts crests. Brutal. How do you steward salmon without counting them? You don't. I am close to this issue & I know nuance abounds but I don't see how hundreds of millions of dollars towards restoration work can be effective without counting the fish we seek to support.

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Emma Atkinson @ematkinson.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

Long story short, it is worth counting salmon. It's a cornerstone to understanding & stewarding these fish we care so much about. It's also a nice way to spend time. Walking up a creek, counting fish, seeing them putter their way home. I hope there will be more of it in decades to come.

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Emma Atkinson @ematkinson.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

Point #2: Higher quality estimates from fewer salmon systems = a tradeoff. In some instances, monitoring has consolidated from many coarse abundance estimates to fewer precise counts from, for example, accoustic arrays on the mainstems of watersheds.

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Emma Atkinson @ematkinson.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

In a sentence: the decline in commercial salmon fisheries through the 1980s and 1990s was accompanied by the demise of counting salmon as they return to spawn in their natal rivers and lakes. Today, there are recorded counts for just 1/3 of historically tracked local populations.

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Emma Atkinson @ematkinson.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

The last 10 yrs were the worst decade on record for salmon spawner monitoring in Pacific Canada. Any scientist who works with local-scale salmon abundance data knows this. Many papers written about the 'ghost streams' no longer monitored by the streamwalkers of decades past. We wrote another.

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