In 2005, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) adopted Canada’s Policy for the
Conservation of Wild Salmon Policy (the WSP) (DFO 2005). Implementation of the WSP consists of six
strategies, the first of which requires the standardized monitoring of wild salmon status. Standardized
monitoring begins with the identification of species-specific Conservation Units or CUs. The CUs serve
two roles under the WSP. First, each CU is, in some sense, a significant element of biodiversity that the
WSP seeks to conserve and manage. Second, each CU is a unit for reporting on the success (or failure)
of actions taken under the WSP to conserve wild Pacific salmon. Subsequent steps in the Policy’s
implementation, including the characterizing of the biological, habitat and ecological status of each CU
are contingent on providing a consistent, objective, defensible and operational definition of the CU that is
both practicable and will insure that the important elements of salmon biodiversity can be conserved and
managed.
A method has been developed to identify the Conservation Units of the five species of Pacific
salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) that are present in Canada and under federal jurisdiction (Holtby and
Ciruna 2007) . This paper presents the results of applying the method to the salmon of British Columbia.
CUs for the Yukon River and Mackenzie River remain to be identified.
