Oceans and Fisheries Seminars

Hinch completed his undergraduate and MSc degrees at the University of Western Ontario (London, Ontario; 1981-1987), a PhD at the University of Toronto (Toronto, Ontario; 1988-1991), and a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of British Columbia (UBC; 1992-1994). In 1994, he became an Assistant Professor at UBC where currently he is a Professor in Fisheries Conservation. He is an expert in the field of fish migrations, ecophysiology and behavioral ecology and is the Pacific leader of Canada’s Ocean Tracking Network. He pioneered the field of conservation physiology in salmon. His current work utilizes telemetry tracking and genomic transcriptome approaches to examine behaviour and mortality of smolts and adults during their coastal and riverine migrations, the effects of migration obstacles (dams, high temperatures, and fisheries gear encounters) on adult salmon, and the role that pathogens, disease and climate change has on migration issues. He works closely with fisheries managers so that research results can be readily applied. In collaboration with social scientists, he is investigating ways that science and knowledge can be more effectively mobilized by stakeholders and decision makers. He has authored ~ 260 peer-reviewed papers and has served on several federal investigations into declining salmon stocks. He was awarded the 2018 Mitacs Award for Exceptional Leadership, was one of eight Canadians elected into the inaugural group as a Fellow of the American Fisheries Society (AFS), has been awarded the AFS Award of Excellence in Fisheries Management, the AFS Award in Fisheries Education, and was just awarded the AFS’s highest honour, the 2019 Award of Excellence (for fisheries biology and aquatic sciences).

Humans ‘touch’ in excess of 90 MT of fish each year through fisheries harvest involving a variety of different gears. In many cases, fish are kept and either sold or kept for personal use. However, many fish either are released or escape from capture. Bycatch makes up 40% of global commercial fish harvest and these non-targeted fish are usually released, often injured or dead, or at least to an uncertain fate. Large segments of recreational harvest are also released because of conservation or regulatory reasons. What happens to fish that we ‘touch’ and let go alive. Unseen to most fishers are fish that encounter their gear but escape from being captured. What is their fate? Over the past decade, we have been exploring these issues in adult Pacific salmon from physiological, behavioural, survival and fitness perspectives, using an individual based approach involving telemetry tracking and field experiments, and high throughput genomics to understand underlying mechanisms. We have worked directly with different fisheries and different species, in both fresh and saltwater. In this presentation, I will overview some of our key findings that involve approaches for predicting fate of released salmon, ways to minimize mortality of released salmon, the unseen impacts of escaping gear, and the overarching influence of climate change.

Some relevant references:

• Cook, K.V., A.J. Reid, D.A. Patterson, K.A. Robinson, J.M. Chapman, S.G. Hinch, and S.J. Cooke. 2018. A synthesis to understand responses to capture stressors among fish discarded from commercial fisheries and options for mitigating their severity. Fish and Fisheries. DOI: 10.1111/faf.12322 pg 1–19.
• Cook, K.V., Lennox, R.J., Hinch, S.G., Cooke, S.J. 2015. Fish out of water: How much air is too much for released fish? Fisheries 40(9):452-461
• Raby, G.D., Donaldson, M.R., Hinch, S.G., Patterson, D.A., Lotto, A.G., Robichaud, D., English, K.K., Willmore, W.G., Farrell, A.P., Davis, M.W., Cooke, S.J. 2012. Validation of reflex indicators for measuring vitality and predicting the delayed mortality of wild coho salmon bycatch released from fishing gears. Journal of Applied Ecology 49: 90-98

Others found at: http://faculty.forestry.ubc.ca/hinch/DD_Publications.html