Indigenous sex-selective salmon harvesting demonstrates pre-contact marine resource management in Burrard Inlet, British Columbia, Canada.

ABSTRACT: To gain insight into pre-contact Coast Salish fishing practices, we used new palaeogenetic analytical techniques to assign sex identifications to salmonid bones from four archaeological sites in Burrard Inlet (Tsleil-Waut), British Columbia, Canada, dating between about 2300-1000 BP (ca. 400 BCE-CE 1200). Our results indicate that male chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) were preferentially targeted at two of the four sampled archaeological sites. Because a single male salmon can mate with several females, selectively harvesting male salmon can increase a fishery's maximum sustainable harvest. We suggest such selective harvesting of visually distinctive male spawning chum salmon was a common practice, most effectively undertaken at wooden weirs spanning small salmon rivers and streams. We argu

SUBMITTER: Morin J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8581006 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature