Terms are defined in the context of the FRAM model.

Abundance Forecast

Annually developed, stock-specific predictions of returning Chinook and Coho salmon.

Adipose Mark

A missing adipose fin on salmon as a result of clipping by a hatchery program. Commonly, a visual identifier of a hatchery fish that can be retained in a mark-selective fishery. The use of “marked” and “clipped” is used interchangeably within the document.

Adult Equivalent (AEQ)

The potential for a Chinook of a given age to contribute to the mature run (spawning escapement) in the absence of fishing. Because of natural mortality and unaccounted losses, not all unharvested fish contribute to spawning escapement.

Age

Age is calculated as catch year minus brood year. This information is usually derived from RMIS CWT recovery information. The calibration works with ages 2 to 5. Chinook older than 5 are assigned to age 5. Chinook younger than age 2 are excluded from the calibration.

Backwards FRAM (BkFRAM)

A utility within the FRAM model that calculates starting abundances when provided with estimates of catches and escapements.

Base Period

A range of years from which CWT data are used to estimate exploitation rates and other parameters through a process of cohort reconstruction. Resulting base period reference parameters are used to populate the FRAM model to predict annual stock/fishery specific impacts.

Base Period Exploitation Rate (BPER)

The total fishing mortality rate, calculated as the sum of all fishery-related mortalities divided by that sum plus escapement using data from base period years. These rates become the basis for estimating stock specific exploitation rates in annual FRAM runs when used in conjunction with annual forecasts of abundances and fishing effort.

Calibration

Process creating base period exploitation rates by first selecting CWT groups to represent FRAM stocks and then reconstructing the cohort. Once cohort sizes are established, stock/age/fishery/time step specific exploitation rates are computed.

Cape Falcon

Cape in Northern Oregon defining an important PFMC fishery management boundary (45°46’00”N).

Catch Record Cards (CRC)

Catch Record Cards are used to estimate the recreational catch of salmon, steelhead, sturgeon, halibut and Puget Sound Dungeness crab. The CRC system houses the recreational catch estimates.

Chinook/Coho Non-retention (CNR) Fisheries

Fisheries where salmon fishing is allowed, but the retention of Chinook or Coho salmon is prohibited. Impacts in non-retention fisheries are calculated as encounters times release mortality.

Coded-Wire Tag (CWT)

Coded micro-wire implanted in juvenile salmon prior to release. When recovered, the binary code on the tag identifies the tag group, and thus provides information such as location and timing of release, special hatchery treatments, etc.

Cohort Analysis

A sequential population analysis technique, also called Virtual Population Analysis, that is used during model calibration to reconstruct cohort size at age using life history parameters and exploitation of a population.

Coho Technical Committee (CoTC)

Technical committee formed by the Pacific Salmon Commission providing the panels with scientific data to make decisions affecting Southern Coho salmon.

Cohort Size

The total number of fish of a given age and stock.

Co-managers

Western Washington treaty Indian tribes and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officials jointly managing the salmon resource.

Chinook Technical Committee (CTC)

The Chinook Technical Committee (CTC) is a body of the Pacific Salmon Commission. It’s members are comprised of U.S. and Canadian members. The committee reports annually on catches, harvest rate indices, estimates of incidental mortality, and exploitation rates for all Chinook fisheries and stocks within the Pacific Salmon Treaty area.

Deterministic Model

A model predicting the outcome without estimates of variance.

Directed Fishery

A fishery which directly targets a species or subgroup, i.e., hatchery or natural, as opposed to an incidental fishery that impacts a species or sub-group as a by-product of having a different target (bycatch).

Discrete Model

A model dealing with objects that can assume only distinct, separated values.

Drop-off Mortality

Mortality of salmon that are lost from sport or troll hook-and-line type fishing gear before they are landed and die from their injuries prior to harvest or spawning. Also, the general term refers to both drop-off and drop-out mortality in this FRAM documentation.

Drop-out Mortality

Mortality of salmon that die in a fishing net prior to harvest or salmon that disentangle from a net while in the water and die from their injuries prior to harvest or spawning. Referred to in this FRAM documentation under the umbrella term of drop-off mortality.

Encounter

An incident where an individual salmon makes contact with fishing gear resulting either in retention or release.

Encounter Rate Adjustment

A variable used to adjust the number of sublegal Chinook encountered in a fishery and time step.

Endangered Species Act (ESA)

Regulations used in the U.S. for the conservation of threatened and endangered plants and animals and the habitats in which they are found.

Escapement

The number of mature salmon that are not caught in fisheries or die as a result of fisheries or natural mortality and return to the spawning grounds or hatcheries. Marine escapement describes the number of mature fish not caught in marine fisheries.

Exploitation Rate (ER)

When used to refer to model output, represents the total fishing mortality rate, calculated as the sum of all fishery-related mortalities divided by that sum plus escapement. Exploitation rates are stock specific.

Extreme Terminal

Marine area directly adjacent to salmon native streams with a very high proportion of catch made up of the “local stock” due to river mouth proximity, i.e., Elliott Bay is the extreme terminal area for Green River Chinook and Coho.

Extreme Terminal Run Size (ETRS)

Run size including escapement, freshwater fishery mortalities, and fishery mortalities in those marine areas that are assumed to be 100% local stock due to river mouth proximity.

Fishery Regulation Assessment Model (FRAM)

The Fishery Regulation Assessment Model is a simulation model developed for fishery management and used to estimate the impacts of proposed Pacific Coast salmon fisheries on Chinook and Coho stocks of interest to fishery managers.

Fishery Scaler

A multiplier, typically based on expected fishery effort or catch relative to base period effort or catch, used to estimate fishery impacts by adjusting the base period exploitation rates.

Genetic Stock Identification (GSI)

Genetic stock identification (GSI) estimates stock proportions and individual assignments through comparison of genetic markers with reference populations.

Harvest Rate (HR)

Catch or total fishing mortality in a fishery expressed as a proportion of the total fish abundance available in a given fishing area. Harvest rates are area specific. The catch is the total catch of all stocks in an area. Harvest rates are most often used for terminal fisheries, where the rate represents the terminal catch divided by the terminal abundance.

Hatchery

A facility where salmon are artificially reared.

Immature

Salmon that are too young to spawn in a given time step.

Impute

The process of replacing missing data with substitute values.

Incidental Mortality

In the context of this document, synonymous with drop-off or drop-out mortality. Mortality of non-landed salmon as result of encountering fishing gear.

Instantaneous Equations

Equations predicting a continuous quantity at a particular moment.

January Age-3 Abundance (JA3)

Starting unit of age-3 abundance in the Coho FRAM. Abundance at the beginning of January prior to fishing and natural mortality in a calendar year.

Landed Catch

Catch that is retained.

Law of the Sea Convention

A United Nations convention producing a comprehensive regime of law and order in the world’s oceans and seas, establishing rules governing all uses of the oceans and their resources.

Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act

The Magnuson-Stevens Act is the primary law governing marine fisheries management in U.S. federal waters.

Mark Selective Fishing Bias

Exploitation rate bias caused when using linear equations with parameters derived from retention fisheries to estimate mortalities in fisheries where all or some of the fish encountered are released. When MSFs operate during a modeled time step, mortalities are underestimated because released fish may encounter the fishing gear more than once during the modeled time step.

Mark Rate

The mark rate of a fishery is computed as adipose marked landed catch or encounters divided by total landed catch or total encounters in the fishery.

Marked Recognition Error Rate

The probability that a marked fish will be inadvertently or knowingly released in a mark-selective fishery.

Marked

A Chinook or Coho that had its adipose fin removed; commonly a visual identifier of a hatchery fish that can be retained in a mark-selective fishery.

Mark-Selective Fishery (MSF)

A fishery in which only marked (adipose fin-clipped) fish above the regulatory size limit may be retained.

Maturation

Process of sexual development, signaling the return of a salmon to freshwater in order to spawn.

Mass Marking

Removal of the adipose fin as a visual indicator of a hatchery salmon. Virtually all coho and Chinook salmon produced in Washington hatcheries are “marked”.

Mixed Stock Model (MSM)

Main computer program used to build the current Coho base period. Model inputs included coded-wire tags and estimated catches and escapements of Coho coast-wide from catch years 1986-1992. Model output includes base period exploitation rates utilized in contemporary FRAM runs.

Model-Stock Proportion (MSP)

Percentage of a fishery’s total catch that is accounted for by stocks modeled in FRAM.

Multiple Encounter

The event of encountering a fish more than one time while fishing due to previous release or drop-off.

Natural Mortality

All mortality not resulting directly or indirectly from fisheries, including death resulting from predation, illness, malnutrition, lethal environmental conditions, etc.

Natural

A fish that was either reared in nature (as opposed to a hatchery) or returned to a natural environment to spawn.

Non-landed/Non-retention Mortality

A category of fishery-related mortality where fish are not retained and die as a result of fishing-induced injury. Non-landed mortality includes hook-and-line drop-off, net gear drop-out, and release mortality.

North of Falcon (NOF)

Co-manager, annual, pre-season Puget Sound salmon fishery planning process; referencing the region north of Cape Falcon Oregon which marks the southern border of active management for Washington salmon stocks.

Ocean Age-3 Abundance (OA3)

Abundance of age-3 Coho after natural mortality has occurred, but prior to any fishing related mortality in a calendar year.

Out-of-Base (OOB)

A time period outside of the established referenced base period years used to estimate base period parameters. This is usually necessary for stocks with insufficient CWT recoveries during the base period.

Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC)

Governing body for approximately 119 species of salmon, groundfish, coastal pelagic species, and highly migratory species on the West Coast of the United States established by Congress in 1976.

Pacific Salmon Commission (PSC)

The body formed by the governments of Canada and the United States in 1985 to implement the Pacific Salmon Treaty.

Pacific Salmon Treaty (PST)

Treaty between the Governments of Canada and the United States of America concerning Pacific Salmon.

Parameter

A variable whose measure is indicative of a quantity or function that cannot itself be precisely determined by direct methods; for example, exploitation rates and fishery scalars are parameters used to predict catch.

Post-season

After a fishing season has concluded and salmon have finished spawning. Post-season estimates are usually observed, sampled, or reported values.

Pre-season

Before a fishing season has started. Pre-season estimates use a variety of forecasts, catch estimates and other parameters to predict expected mortalities and escapements.

Pre-terminal Fishery

In FRAM, a fishery that operates on mixed maturity fish and/or in geographic areas distant to a natal origin river/stream.

Production Expansion Factor (PEF)

Stock specific factor. The ratio of total stock escapement to the escapement of the CWTed population. This factor is needed to account for untagged portions of a stock aggregate.

Proportion Vulnerable (PV)

Portion of a stock that is of legal size in a fishery and can be retained per regulations.

Quota

A fishery catch expressed in numbers of fish.

Recreational Fisheries

Also called sport fishing, is fishing for pleasure, competition, or non-commercial consumption. It can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is professional fishing for profit. The most common form of recreational fishing is done with a rod, reel, line, hooks and any one of a wide range of baits.

Regional Mark Information System (RMIS)

Data system providing services to international, state, federal, and tribal organizations involved in marking anadromous salmonids throughout the Pacific region. These services include regional coordination of tagging and fin marking programs, maintenance of databases for Coded Wire Tag Releases, Recoveries, and Locations, as well as the dissemination of reports.

Release Mortality

Fish that are released back into the water due to size limit restrictions, mark status, or other reasons and die due to injury from gear or handling.

ReportDriver

Instructions to the FRAM program used to produce customizable output reports.

River Run Size

Abundance of a stock entering a river.

Seed Run

A model run containing values used to initialize a new model run, i.e., a previous year’s final run is often used to initialize the first model run of the next year.

Shaker Mortality

Chinook that are released from recreational and troll hook-and-line fisheries because they are below the regulatory size limit and die due to injuries from gear or handling.

Shaker

A small size Chinook below the size limit set by fishery regulations.

Single Pool Model

Model where all fisheries operate on the entire cohort simultaneously in each time step.

Size Limit

Length of salmon defining the minimum size for legal retention in a fishery.

Snake River Fall Chinook Index (SRFI)

A ratio that is calculated as the Snake River Fall Chinook ocean exploitation rate in the current model run divided by the exploitation rate during a reference period (1988-1993). The Snake River is in the interior Columbia River basin.

South of Falcon (SOF)

Referencing the region South of Cape Falcon, Oregon, which marks the southern border of active management for Washington State salmon stocks.

Starting Cohort

Abundance of salmon of the same stock and age prior to fishing and natural mortality.

Stock Fishery Rate Scaler (SHRF)

A scaler used to deviate from the reference base period for individual stocks in a fishery and time step. A stock fishery rate scaler is optional and can be tied to an individual annual fishery input or remain as a static input to adjust the reference base period exploitation rate for a stock-fishery-time step.

Stock Recruit Scaler

A scaler that relates the abundance of a stock and age to the abundance in the base period.

Stock

A group of fish of the same species. There is no distinct single definition for stocks in FRAM. Stocks are functional units that originate in the same geographic region and are sufficiently similar to receive identical base period parameters (if of the same age). Some salmon are grouped into a stock if they belong to the same ESA population. Other stock definitions are limited by the availability of coded-wire tag recoveries, etc.

Sublegal

A Chinook salmon that cannot be retained because it is smaller than the minimum size limit per fishery regulation.

TAAETRSList

A table containing terminal area abundance (TAA) and extreme terminal run size (ETRS) definitions specifying the Coho stocks and fisheries included in the terminal abundance used in FRAM-TAMM iterations.

Tag Code

A numeric or binary code on the coded micro-wire implanted in juvenile salmon prior to release. The code on the tag identifies the tag group and provides information such as location and timing of release, special hatchery treatments, etc.

Tagged

A salmon containing a coded-wire-tag.

TAMM Iterations

Repetitive mathematical process used to find solutions for circular processes. Iterations terminate when TAMM and FRAM catches converge; also referred to as FRAM-TAMM iterations.

Terminal Area Management Module (TAMM)

A Microsoft Excel file external to but integrated with FRAM software that is used to: (1) provide input for FRAM simulations regarding terminal area fisheries or stock-specific impacts; (2) process and summarize FRAM outputs of mortalities and abundances.

Terminal Fishery

Definition 1 (TAMM context): A fishery that is reported from TAMM to FRAM. FRAM computes stock-specific impacts for these fisheries during an iterative process. TAMM fisheries occur in marine terminal areas. For a list of TAMM fisheries see Appendix 3 for Coho and Appendix 4 for Chinook.

Definition 2 (Mature fishery context): In FRAM, a fishery that operates only on the mature cohort.

Terminal Run Size

This run size definition includes escapement, freshwater fishery mortalities, and fishery mortalities in terminal fisheries.

Terminal Type

In FRAM, calculations are classified as pre-terminal (terminal type = 0) or terminal (terminal type = 1) depending on the fishery and time step. A “terminal” fishery usually occurs in a fishery defined and flagged as terminal during time step 3 (July-September). Terminal catch is subtracted from the abundance after maturation and not AEQed, whereas a preterminal fishery occurs prior to maturation and mortalities are AEQed.

Time Step

A continuous time period in the FRAM model operating on the same abundance and using identical stock/fishery/age-specific parameters. Time steps in the model vary in length and by species.

Treaty Fisheries

Fisheries conducted by members of the twenty-four Belloni and Boldt Case Area Tribes.

Treaty Tribes

Tribes belonging to the twenty-four Belloni and Boldt Case Area Indian Tribes with fishing rights in Washington State.

Troll Fishery

A commercial fishing method where one or more fishing lines, baited with lures or bait fish, are drawn through the water.

U.S. National Bureau of Standards

Institute promoting U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology.

Unmarked Retention Error Rate

The probability that an unmarked fish will be retained in a mark-selective fishery (e.g., the fisher fails to identify the mark (clipped adipose fin) or the fisher fails to comply with a release requirement).

Unmarked

A salmon that has an intact adipose fin. In the context of mark-selective fisheries, an unmarked salmon with an intact adipose fin that has to be released.

Untagged

A salmon that does not contain a coded-wire-tag.

Validation Runs

FRAM model runs using post-season estimates of abundances, landed and non-landed mortalities, and other updated parameters to estimate realized exploitation rates.

Variance

Measure of dispersion, describing the size of the distribution of values expected for a particular variable.

Von Bertalanffy Growth Function

Type of growth curve for a time series. It is a special case of the generalized logistic function. The growth curve is used to model mean length at age. The function is commonly applied in ecology to model fish growth.